Jiamao language

Jiamao (Chinese: 加茂; pinyin: Jiāmào; also 台 Tái or 塞 Sāi) is a divergent Kra-Dai language or possible language isolate^[2] spoken in southern Hainan, China.^[3] Jiamao speakers' autonym is tʰai¹.^[4][5]

Jiamao
Sai 塞
Tai 台
Native to	China
Region	Hainan
Native speakers	(50,000 cited 1987)[1]
Language family	Kra-Dai or language isolate Hlai–Jiamao? Jiamao
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jio
Glottolog	jiam1236

Classification

Jiamao is often classified one of the Hlai languages, which constitute a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family, but Norquest (2007, 2015) and others note that Jiamao has a non-Hlai substratum.

Graham Thurgood (1992) suggested that Jiamao might have an Austroasiatic substratum. Norquest (2007) identified various lexical items in Jiamao that do not reconstruct to Proto-Hlai and later firmly established it as a non-Hlai language.^[6] Hsiu (2018) notes that Jiamao also contains various words borrowed from an unknown, currently extinct Tibeto-Burman branch.^[7]

Demographics

In the 1980s, Jiamao was spoken by 50,000 people in central and south-central Hainan, mostly in Jiamao Township (加茂镇) in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County. It shares less than half of its lexicon with the Hlai languages.^[8]

In Lingshui Li Autonomous County, Jiamao is spoken in Benhao (本号), Nanping (南平), Wenluo (文罗), Zuguan (祖关), Longguang (隆广), and Tianzi (田仔).^[9] In Lingshui County, Jiamao is known as Tái (台), and is also known as Sāi (塞) or Jiāwǒ (加我).^{[citation needed]}

There are four Jiamao dialects,^[10] namely Jiamao (加茂), Liugong (六弓), Tianzi (田仔), and Qunying (群英).

Jiamao is spoken in the following villages and townships of southern Hainan.^{[citation needed]}

• Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County (保亭黎族苗族自治县)
  • Jiamao Township (加茂乡)
  • Liugong Township (六弓乡)
  • Shiling Town (什玲镇, in Jie 介村 and Shisheng 什胜村 villages)
• Lingshui Li Autonomous County (陵水黎族自治县)
  • Longguang Town (隆广镇)
  • Benhao Town (本号镇)
• Sanya (三亚市)
  • Haitangwan Town (海棠湾镇, northeastern part: in Longtoucai 龙头菜村, Xiepei 协配村, and Maohou 毛喉村 villages)

The Liaoergong (廖二弓) dialect is documented in Huang (2011).^[11]

Phonology

Tones

Jiamao has 8 distinct tone categories (Norquest 2015:311):

Tone category	High register tone	Low register tone
A (open)	/55/ (tone 1)	/11/ (tone 4)
X (glottalized)	/51/ (tone 5)	/31/ (tone 2)
DL (long closed)	/53/ (tone 9)	/31/ (tone 8)
DS (short closed)	/55/ (tone 7)	/22/ (tone 10)

Like Proto-Be,^[12] Jiamao does not distinguish between tone categories B and C, but rather only has an X category.

As noted by Thurgood (1992) and Norquest (2015), these do not correspond to Hlai tones, but rather initials in Proto-Hlai. High register tones are derived from unvoiced initials, and low register tones from voiced initials.

See also

• Jiamao vocabulary lists (Wiktionary)