Origins of Jino Fricatives

Abstract

This paper investigates the origin of fricatives in two dialects of Jino, namely Youle Jino ( YJ ) and Buyuan Jino ( BJ ), which are spoken in Sipsongpanna (Xishuangbanna), Yunnan Province, China, and are genetically affiliated with the Lolo-Burmese branch of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic family.Synchronically, YJ has 10 fricatives, /f, v, s, z, ʃ, r, c, j, x, ɣ/, while BJ has only 4, /f, s, ɕ, x/. This paper also deals with /w/ and /j/ in BJ , although they may be considered to be semivowels from a synchronic point of view. In cognate words, YJ fricatives are mostly retained from Proto-Jino ( PJ ), whereas BJ merges them into fewer phonemes under certain conditions. Moreover, it should be noted that /f, ɕ, x/ in some BJ words derive from PJ /*l/.In the Sipsongpanna area, Tai Lue [Tai-Kadai] and the Yunnan dialect of Chinese [Sinitic, Sino-Tibetan] have been dominant languages, from which both YJ and BJ inherited several fricatives. Most fricatives in loanwords are the same as those in the donor languages, except in the case of ɕ - and ʂ -, which had merged into a single phoneme within the phonology of the local Chinese dialects before language contact with Youle Jino. (This article is in English.)提要基諾語是在中國雲南省西雙版納傣族自治州景洪市居住的基諾族的語言，屬於漢藏語系藏緬語族彝緬語群。基諾語有兩大方言，即悠樂話與補遠話。本文分析了基諾語悠樂話和補遠話的擦音的來源，得出了以下結論：一、由共時層面來說，悠樂話有十個擦音，即/f, v, s, z, ʃ, r, c, j, x, ɣ/，而補遠話只有四個擦音，即/f, s, ɕ, x/。本文同時還討論了補遠話/w, j/與悠樂話擦音的對應關係，儘管它們或可當作半元音。二、悠樂話保留著原始基諾語的擦音體系，而補遠話的擦音已在一定條件下合併了。並且，補遠話/f, ɕ, x/中的一部分實際上源自原始基諾語的/*l/。三、西雙版納地區有很多語言，其中傣仂語(侗傣語族)與漢語景洪方言是主要語言。基諾語悠樂話與補遠話從中吸收了很多帶擦音的外來詞。這些外來擦音大部份與傣仂語或漢語方言的擦音相同，但是 ɕ -與 ʂ -卻是合併為一個擦音後才進入基諾語悠樂話與補遠話的。