Be language

Be
Lingao
Native to People's Republic of China
Region Hainan
Native speakers
 600,000 (2000)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 onb
Glottolog ling1262[3]

Be (native pronunciation: [ʔɑŋ˧ɓe˧]), also known as Ong Be, Bê, or Vo Limgao (Chinese: 臨高; pinyin: Lín'gāo), is a language spoken by 600,000 people, 100,000 of them monolingual, on the north-central coast of Hainan Island, including the suburbs of the provincial capital Haikou. According to Ethnologue, it is taught in primary schools.

Names

Be speakers refer to themselves as ʔaŋ˧vo˧, with ʔaŋ˧ being the prefix for persons and vo˧ meaning 'village' (Liang 1997:1). Liang (1997) notes that it is similar to the autonym ŋaːu˩fɔːn˩ (from ŋaːu˩ 'person' and fɔːn˩ 'village'), by which Gelong 仡隆 (Cun language) speakers refer to themselves.

Classification

Be is a Kra–Dai language, but its precise relationship to other branches within the Kra-Dai family has yet not been conclusively determined. Hansell (1988)[2] considers Be to be a sister of the Tai branch based on shared vocabulary, and proposes a Be–Tai grouping.

Based on toponymic evidence from place names with the prefix dya- (调 diao), Jinfang Li considers Be to have originated from the Leizhou peninsula of Guangdong province.[4]

Weera Ostapirat (1998),[5] analyzing data from Zhang (1992)[6], notes that Be and Jizhao share many lexical similarities and sound correspondences, and that Jizhao may be a remnant Be-related language on the Chinese mainland.

Dialects

Be consists of the Lincheng 临城 (Western) and Qiongshan 琼山 (Eastern) dialects (Liang 1997). Liang (1997:32) documents the following varieties of Be.

Be of Chengmai is intermediate between the Lincheng and Qiongshan dialects, and has features of both (Liang 1997).

History

Liang (1997:16) considers Be to have migrated to Hainan from the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong about 2,500 years ago during the Warring States Period, but not over 3,000 years ago. Liang & Zhang (1996:21-25)[7] also believe that Be had migrated from the Leizhou Peninsula to northern Hainan about 2,500 years ago during the Warring States period.

Notes

  1. ↑ Be at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. 1 2 Hansell, Mark. 1988. The Relation of Be to Tai: Evidence from Tones and Initials. In Comparative Kadai: Linguistic studies beyond Tai. Edited by Jerold A. Edmondson and David B. Solnit. Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics No. 86: 239-288.
  3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Lingao". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. ↑ 李锦芳教授：“濒危语言吉兆话研究”
  5. ↑ Ostapirat, W. (1998). A Mainland Bê Language? / 大陆的Bê语言？. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 26(2), 338-344
  6. ↑ Zhang Zhenxing [张振兴]. 1992. "Guangdongsheng Wuchuan fangyan jilve" [广东省吴川方言记略]. In Fangyan [方言] 1992(3).
  7. ↑ Liang Min 梁敏 & Zhang Junru 张均如. 1996. Dongtai yuzu gailun 侗台语族概论 / An introduction to the Kam–Tai languages. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academy Press 中国社会科学出版社. ISBN 9787500416814
  • Liang Min [梁敏]. 1997. A study of Lingao [临高语研究]. Shanghai: Shanghai Far Eastern Publishing House [上海远东出版].
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