Tujia language
| Tujia | |
|---|---|
| Native to | northwestern Hunan province, China |
| Ethnicity | 8.0 million Tujia (2000 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
70,000 (2005) |
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: tjs – Southern tji – Northern |
| Glottolog | tuji1244 |
The Tujia language (Northern Tujia: Bifzivsar, IPA: /pi˧˥ ʦi˥ sa˨˩/; Southern Tujia: Mongrzzirhof, IPA: /mõ˨˩ ʣi˨˩ ho˧˥/; Chinese: 土家语, pinyin: Tǔjiāyǔ) is a language spoken natively by the Tujia people in south-central China. It is unclassified within the Sino-Tibetan language family, due to pervasive influence from neighboring languages. There are two dialects, Northern and Southern. Both dialects are tonal languages with the tone contours of ˥ ˥˧ ˧˥ ˨˩. The northern dialect has 21 initials, whereas the southern dialect has 26 (with 5 additional aspirated initials). As for the finals, the northern dialect has 25 and the southern 30, 12 of which are used exclusively in loanwords from Chinese. Its verbs make a distinction of active and passive voices. Its pronouns distinguish the singular and plural numbers along with the basic and possessive cases. As of 2005, the number of speakers was estimated at roughly 70,000 for the northern dialect (of which merely ca. 100 are monolingual), and 1,500 for the southern dialect, out of an ethnic population of 8 million.
Tujia autonyms include pi˧˥ tsi˥ kʰa˨˩ [毕孜卡] (pi˨˩ tsi˨˩ kʰa˨˩ in Ye 1995) and mi˧˥ tɕi˥ kʰa˧/˥ (Dai 2005). The Tujia people call their language "pi˧˥ tsi˥ sa˨˩" (Ye 1995).
"Tujia" (土家) literally means 'native people', which is the appellation that the Han Chinese had given to them due to their aboriginal status in the Hunan-Hubei-Chongqing area. The Tujia, on the other hand, call the Han Chinese "Kejia" (客家), a designation also given to the Hakka people, which means 'guest people', since the Han Chinese had arrived later than the Tujia (Dai 2005).
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