Documentation of Two Gelao Varieties: Zou Lei and A Hou, South West China
| Language | Zou Lei, A Hou |
| Depositor | Jinfang Li |
| Affiliation | Central University of Nationalities |
| Location | China |
| Collection ID | 0324 |
| Grant ID | MDP0131 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/0e059cd5-9d21-4a76-b582-ed38e44a5592 |
Summary of the collection
The project documents Zou Lei and A Hou, two varieties of Gelao, a member of the Tai-Kadai family in South West China. One of the most endangered languages in China, Gelao is now used by only 15-20 elderly people in Zhenning and Dafang counties of Guizhou Province. The project devotes special attention to documenting the cultural and ethnographical aspects of the languages in question. A grammar, a lexicon, and annotated texts for each of the languages can be found in the collection, as well as several audio-visual recordings documenting the two varieties.
Group represented
About 2000 years ago, in southwest China, there existed a powerful kingdom called Ye Lang, from which the well-known Chinese idiom “Ye Lang Zida” is derived. This idiom says that the king of the kingdom believed his own country to be larger than the Han Chinese empire at that time. The Ye Lang kingdom declined in the course of historical development. The modern Gelao people in Guizhou Province are thought to be the descendants of the Ye Lang Kingdom.
The Gelao are found mainly in Guizhou Province in southwest China and adjacent provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan, with some spill-overs in North Vietnam who migrated from Guizhou in the last several hundred years. According to the 2000 government census, Gelao has a population of over 500,000 in China. Several hundred speakers are reported in Vietnam. However, the vast majority have now shifted to southwestern Mandarin. As a result, only five to six thousand Gelao still speak their native language.
Language information
Gelao is a member of the Tai-Kadai family. It forms a subgroup with Mulao, the Yiren, Lachi, Buyang, Nung Van/En, Pubiao (Qabiao/Laqua), and Laha. These languages are distributed in China and Vietnam, with only a small number of speakers. Of these, the Mulao and Yiren were lost in the last 20 years. Gelao is tonal and monosyllabic. It has preserved many old features of the Tai-Kadai group.
Dialect variations are a feature of Gelao. Dialect differences between Zou Lei and A Hou are substantial. They share only about 55% basic vocabulary items from Swadesh’s list. The internal differences are so great that speakers from different varieties are mutually unintelligible.
Zou Lei and A Hou are spoken in areas where a host of ethnic groups co-inhabit. Chinese has the largest number of speakers in these areas, in contrast with Gelao. The local lingua franca is Southwestern Mandarin, which is the official language and the language of classroom instruction. Zou Lei and A Hou communities are bilingual in Gelao and Mandarin. Over the last several decades, many Gelao speakers abandoned their native language and shifted to Mandarin. Language maintenance is a major problem. Currently, people under 30 years of age have completely abandoned their native language. Those between 40 to 50 can speak a little Gelao. Only elderly people over 60 are still able to speak their native language fluently. Zou Lei and A Hou each have between 15 to 20 native speakers who still use their mother tongue in daily conversation and rituals among group members.
The Gelao language is now considered to be one of the most endangered languages in China. The two varieties spoken in Zhenning and Dafang counties in Guizhou, Zou Lei and A Hou, are seriously endangered.
Collection contents
The collection contains around 17 hours of audio and video recordings, documenting the cultural and ethnographical aspects of Zou Lei and A Hou. It includes dictionaries for both varieties and a grammar of Zou Lei.
Collection history
The researchers involved in this project conducted a preliminary survey of these varieties in 2000 and 2003, funded by China Ethic Affairs Commission and China Social Science Research Foundation. A digital audio recording of over 1500 words and several texts was made with over 8 hours of video recording, along with a brief phonological and grammatical description (Li and Xu 2004: 70-81).
References
Li, Jinfang and Xu Xiaoli, 2004, A Brief Introduction to Zou Lei (Bigong) Gelao, Minzu Yuwen. Vol.147, pp. 70-81.
Acknowledgement and citation
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Li, Jinfang. 2015. Documentation of Two Gelao Varieties: Zou Lei and A Hou, South West China. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000D-82C6-3. Accessed on [insert date here].
