Bugan language

Bugan, Bogan, Pakan, or Bugeng (布甘语, 布干语, or 布赓语) is an Austroasiatic language.^[1] The existence of the Bugan language was not known by the rest of world until recently. There are about 3000 speakers, mostly in some villages in southern Guangnan (广南) and northern Xichou (西畴), Yunnan Province, China. Bugan is an analytic language, and word order and auxiliary words have important functions in the grammar.^[2]

Distribution

Li Jinfang (1996)

According to Li Jinfang (1996), the Bugan-speaking population is distributed in seven villages across southern Guangnan (广南) and northern Xichou (西畴), Yunnan Province, China. As the language is highly uniform, it is not divided into any dialects.

• Laowalong 老挖龙 (Bugan-only population); Bugan language: pə55 luŋ13
• Xinwalong 新挖龙 (Bugan-only population); Bugan language: pə55 tsuŋ13
• Jiuping 九平 (Bugan and Han Chinese population); Bugan language: pə55 tsiaŋ31
• Shibeipo 石北坡 (Bugan-only population); Bugan language: pə55 ɕe13
• Xinzhai 新寨 (Bugan and Han Chinese population); Bugan language: li̠31 laŋ13
• Malong 马龙 (Bugan-only population); Bugan language: pə55 ɣu31
• Nala 那拉 (Bugan and Han Chinese population)

Li Yunbing (2005)

According to a more recent survey by Li Yunbing (2005), the Bugan people, comprising a total of 500+ households and 2,700+ individuals, live in the following locations.

• Laowalong 老挖龙, Nasa Township 那洒镇;^[3] Bugan language: pə31 loŋ55
• Xinwalong 新挖龙;^[4] Bugan language: pə31 tɕoŋ55
• Xiaoping 小坪寨; Bugan language: pə31 tɕaŋ55
• Nala 那腊;^[5] Bugan language: pə31 pʰja44
• Jiuping 九坪, Zhuanjiao Township 篆角乡 (Chongtian Township 冲天乡);^[6] Bugan language: pə31 tɕa̠ŋ31
• Shibeipo 石碑坡;^[7] Bugan language: pə55 ɕe24
• Manlong 曼龙;^[8] Bugan language: pu31ɣu31

Li Yunbing also uses the term Bùgēng (布赓) in place of Bùgān (布甘).

People

The Bugan people's autonym is pə55 ka̠n33, while the surrounding Han Chinese call them Huazu (Chinese: 花族; literally "flower people") or Hualo (Chinese: 花倮) due to their colorful clothing.^[9] Other autonyms are pu55 qe̠ŋ44 (in Manlong, Xichou County) and pə55 qe̠ŋ44 (in Nala and Xinwalong in Guangnan County). They are an unrecognized ethnic minority, and are currently classified as Yi. The Bugan are endogamous, and thus do not usually marry people from other ethnic groups^[10]

The Bugan people also hold their own New Year's Day celebration in April of the Chinese lunar calendar, which is separate from that of the Han Chinese New Year.

Common Bugan surnames include Li 李, Wang 王, Guo 郭, Luo 罗, Yan 严, Lu 卢, Pu 普, and Yi.

Phonology

Bugan is a tonal SVO language. Unlike the Bolyu language, Bugan distinguishes between tense and lax voice qualities. In current linguistic publications on Bugan, tense voice is indicated by underlining vowels. Bugan has a total of 49 onsets (including various consonant clusters) and 67 possible rimes.^[11]

There is a small difference in the phonemic inventory between two Bugan dialects, Nala Bugan and Manlong Bugan.

Nala Bugan

The Nala Bugan dialect is spoken in the Nala village (那腊), Nala town, Guangnan County, Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan. The Bugan of this village call themselves pə⁵⁵qe̠ŋ⁴⁴ and their village pə³¹pʰja⁴⁴.

Data of the Nala dialect was collected by Li Jinfang (2006). A brief grammatical sketch of Nala Bugan was provided by Li & Luo (2015).

Consonants

• Sound in asterisk (*): /v/ is only heard in Nala Bugan.^[11]
• Prenasal consonant cluster sounds include /ᵐt͡s/, /ᵐt͡sʰ/, /pt͡s/, /pt͡sʰ/, /ᵐd͡z/, /ᵐv/, /ᵐd/, /ᵑg/, /ᵑq/, /ⁿd/, and /ⁿd͡z/.
• Sounds /t͡s, t͡sʰ/ are heard as alveolo-palatal [t͡ɕ, t͡ɕʰ] when preceding /i/.^[13]
• In tone /31/, /ᵐt͡s, ᵐt͡sʰ, ᵐd͡z/ may be pronounced as [pt͡s], [pt͡sʰ], [pd͡z]. Eg. /mtsʰɑ³¹/ ~ [ptsʰɑ³¹] "to rub with the hands, make a cord."^[13]
• Cluster /ŋg/ sometimes may be realized as plain velar nasal. Eg. /ŋga³¹/ ~ [ŋa³¹] "yellow."^[13]

Vowels

There is a distinction between tense-throat vowels and lax-throat (plain) vowels.^[13]

In the same syllable, tense and lax vowels do not co-occur. The restriction seems to be phonemic, because tense vowels are described as having a lower and more retracted tongue position than their lax counterparts. Eg. ta³¹ "near" is realized as a central-open [a], while tense /a̠/ in ta̠³¹ "to bet" is closer to [ɑ].^[14]

In syllables with a rising tone, tense vowels are accompanied by a noticeably constricted or tight laryngeal setting, making the tense quality acoustically salient. In syllables with the falling tone (31), however, the laryngeal tension weakens, so the contrast relies more heavily on vowel quality itself. There are six contrastive tones in Nala Bugan. The neutral tone only occurs in some prefixes.^[14]

Manlong Bugan

Manlong Bugan is spoken by the Bugan tribe of the Manlong (曼龙) village, Jijie Township, Xichou County, Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan. It is mutually intelligible with Nala Bugan. Bugans refer to this village by their native toponym pu³¹ɣu³¹ and call themselves pu⁵⁵qe̠ŋ⁴⁴. Neighboring communities of the Manlong Bugans often call them the Flowery Luo (花倮) people, due to their colorful ethnic clothing. A grammatical description of Manlong Bugan has been documented in detail by Li Yunbing (2005).^[15]

Consonants

Manlong Bugan possesses a richer inventory of complex cluster onsets compared to Nala Bugan. It features a series of glided clusters, a series of prenasalized clusters, and three other labial clusters /pt͡s/, /pt͡sʰ/, /bd/.

Vowels

Like Nala Bugan, lax and tense vowel contrast is found in Manlong Bugan. Each monophthong also has a nasalized counterpart.^[16]

Manlong Bugan reportedly has four contour tones: /55/, /44/, /24/, and /31/.^[17]

Morphosyntax

Nominal morphology

Proforms

In possessive constructions, tone contour in pronouns is raised to /55/ to express possessive relation with the syntactically NP head. Eg. pa²⁴ ʔɔ⁵⁵ (father 1SG.POSS) "my father".^[18]

Interrogatives

Bugan appears to build interrogatives analytically by attaching the element -pau³⁵ to nominal or pronominal bases. For example, mɯ⁵⁵ pau³⁵ means "who?" but can also function as an infinitive pronoun "anyone". This also holds true with mə dze⁵⁵ "what, whatever".^[19]

Classifiers

There are two types of classifiers in Bugan.^[20]

Numerals

Bugan has a typical Austroasiatic decimal counting system with head-first combining forms for higher numerals. For examples, nineteen in Bugan is mã³¹ ɕi³³ (10 + 9), forty is pau³³ mã³¹ (4 x 10), 200 is bi³¹ ʑu³¹ (2 x 100), and 10,010 is mə⁵⁵ vã¹³ lɛ³³ ma³¹ or 1 x 10,000 + 10.^[21] Comparison of some cardinal numerals of Bugan, Mang (Mangic), and Gorum (South Munda):

Copulas

Nala Bugan has two copulas: generic ni³³/ȵu³³ and negative mə⁵⁵sa̱ŋ⁵⁵. ȵu³³, presumably derived from the same root which means "do", is not frequently used as copula.^[23]

The preverbal negative mə⁵⁵ appears to be deeply connected with a wide array of Munda and Austroasiatic preverbal negatives otherwise, such as the conservative South Munda Juang finite negative ma-, Gtaʔ ma=, Kharia um, Gorum ambu.^[24]

Bugan (Li & Luo (2015:1044))

Kharia (Peterson (2011), Kerkeʈʈā, (1990:11))

Hill Gtaʔ (Anderson (2020), field notes)

Notes

1. ^ Gordon, Raymond G. Jr. (ed.) (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th ed. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
2. ^ "[Buganyu]" (in Chinese). Zhōngguó mínzú yǔyán yánjiū wǎng. Archived from the original on 2012-03-22.
3. ^ "Guǎngnán Xiàn Nàsǎ Zhèn Lóngwāngdòng Cūnwěihuì Lǎowālóng Zìráncūn" [Laowalong Natural Village, Longwangdong Village Committee, Nasa Town, Guangnan County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2018-08-15. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
4. ^ "Guǎngnán Xiàn Nàsǎ Zhèn Lóngwāngdòng Cūnwěihuì Xīnwālóng Zìráncūn" [Xinwalong Natural Village, Longwangdong Village Committee, Nasa Town, Guangnan County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2018-08-15. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
5. ^ "Guǎngnán Xiàn Nàsǎ Zhèn Lóngwāngdòng Cūnwěihuì Nàlà Zìráncūn" [Nala Natural Village, Longwangdong Village Committee, Nasa Town, Guangnan County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
6. ^ "Guǎngnán Xiàn Zhuànjiǎo Xiāng Dàpíng Cūnmín Wěiyuánhuì Jiǔpíng Zìráncūn" [Jiuping Natural Village, Daping Village Committee, Zhuanjiao Township, Guangnan County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
7. ^ "Guǎngnán Xiàn Zhuànjiǎo Xiāng Dàpíng Cūnmín Wěiyuánhuì Shíbēipō Zìráncūn" [Shibeipo Natural Village, Daping Village Committee, Zhuanjiao Township, Guangnan County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
8. ^ "Xīchóu Xiàn Jījiē Xiāng Hǎizi Cūnwěihuì Mànlóng Zìráncūn" [Manlong Natural Village, Haizi Village Committee, Jijie Township, Xichou County] (in Chinese). ynszxc.gov.cn. Archived from the original on 2015-04-19. Retrieved 2012-09-23.
9. ^ (Li 1996)
10. ^ (Li 2006)
11. ^ (Li 2005)
12. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1035.
13. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1036.
14. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1037.
15. ^ Hsiu 2016, p. 11.
16. ^ Hsiu 2016, p. 12.
17. ^ Hsiu 2016, p. 13.
18. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1050.
19. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1051.
20. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1053.
21. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1052.
22. ^ Sidwell 2021, p. 540.
23. ^ Li & Luo 2015, p. 1044.
24. ^ Anderson 2020, pp. 176–177.

References

• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2020). "Proto-Munda Prosody, Morphotactics and Morphosyntax in South Asian and Austroasiatic Contexts". Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective. Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul; Alves, Mark (eds.). Brill. pp. 157–197. doi:10.1163/9789004425606_008
• Hsiu, Andrew (2016). "A Preliminary Reconstruction of Proto-Pakanic" (Final term paper for a Payap University graduate course). doi:10.5281/zenodo.1127812. – via Zenodo.
• Li, Jinfang (1996). "Bugan – A New Mon–Khmer Language of Yunnan Province, China". Mon-Khmer Studies. 26: 135–160.
• Li, Jinfang 李锦芳 (2006). Xīnán dìqū bīnwēi yǔyán diàochá yánjiū [Studies on Endangered Languages in the Southwest China] (in Chinese). Beijing shi: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe.
• Li, Yunbing 李云兵 (2005). Bùgēngyǔ yánjiū [A Study of Bugeng [Bugan]] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
• Li, Jinfang & Luo, Yongxian (2015). Bugan. In Paul Sidwell and Mathias Jenny (eds.), The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages: Leiden: Brill. pp. 1033–1064.
• Sidwell, Paul (2021). "Northern Austroasiatic languages of MSEA". The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. De Gruyter. pp. 499–546. doi:10.1515/9783110558142-023