Sui language
| Sui | |
|---|---|
| Suī | |
| Native to | China, Vietnam |
| Region | Guizhou (93%), Guangxi, Yunnan |
|
Native speakers
|
300,000 (2007) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | suii1243 |
The Sui language (simplified Chinese: 水语; traditional Chinese: 水語; pinyin: shuǐ yǔ) is a Tai–Kadai language spoken by the Sui people of Guizhou province in China. According to Ethnologue, it was spoken by around 200,000 people in 1999. Sui is also unique for its rich inventory of consonants, with the Sandong (三洞) dialect having as many as 70 consonants. The language also has its own script, known as "Shuishu" (水書) in Chinese, and is used for ritual purposes.
Some regionally atypical features of the Sui language include voiceless nasals (hm, hn), palatal stops, postvelar stops, prenasalized stops (mb, nd), and pre-glottalized stops and nasals (i.e. ʔb, ʔm).
The Sui language is divided into three dialects with minor differences (Wei & Edmondson 2008).
In Guangxi, Sui is spoken by about 7,000 people in Hechi and 1,900 in Nandan County (e.g., in Longmazhuang 龙马庄 of Liuzhai Township 六寨镇, with the autonym pu˦ sui˧).
However, Castro (2011) proposes that the Sandong dialect is divided further into two more subdialects, Central (spoken in Sandu County) and Southern (spoken in Libo County). Southern Sui speakers are also culturally distinguished by their celebration of the Maox festival instead of the Dwac festival, which is celebrated by all other Sui groups. Below are some villages representative of Central and Southern Sui. Castro & Pan (2014) add two more dialects to the Sandong cluster, namely Eastern and Western.
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