Jino language

Jino Language (Jinuo; also known as Buyuan, Jinuo, Buyuan Jinuo 基諾語補遠方言.)[4] autonyms: tɕy˦no˦, ki˦ɲo˦) Jino language is a pair of Loloish languages spoken by the Jino people of Yunnan, China.

Jino
Jinuo, Buyuan Jino, Youle Jino, 基諾語補遠方言 [1]
Jinuo
Pronunciation[tɕy˦no˦] or [ki˦ɲo˦][2]
RegionSipsongpanna, Dai autonomous prefecture of southern Yunnan (People's Republic of China)
EthnicityJino
Native speakers
21,000 (2007)[3]
Dialects
  • Youle Jino
  • Buyuan Jino
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
jiu – Youle Jinuo
jiy – Buyuan Jinuo
Glottologyoul1235
ELP

Varieties

In total, there are about 28,320 Jinuo people living in China.[5] 70–80% of Jinuo people can speak Jino fluently.[6] The Jino languages has two subdialects of Youle Jino and Buyuan Jinuo,[7] and they are not mutually intelligible.

Buyuan Jinuo is spoken by 21,000 people[8] Most of the speakers are monolingual, which means they only speak Jino language.[4] There is no official written form. Most Jino also speak one of the Tai languages or Chinese. The ISO 639-3 code for the Jino language is "jiu" for Youle Jino, or "jiy" for Buyuan Jino.[8] The Glottocode for Jino language is "youl1235" for Youle Jino,[9] or "buyu1238" for Buyuan Jino.[10]

Classification

The exact classification of Jino within the Loloish branch of Sino-Tibetan language family remains uncertain. Jino is classified as a Southern Loloish (Hanoish) language by Ziwo Lama (2012),[2] but as a Central Loloish language by Bradley (2007).[11] Jino is also classified as a Southern Loloish language in Satterthwaite-Phillips' (2011) computational phylogenetic analysis of the Lolo-Burmese languages.[12]

History

The language usage is rapidly eliminating, in the 1980s there was 70–80% of Jinuo people used Jino language. In 2000, There was less than 50% of the population can speak Jino language.[13]

Jino was recognized by the state council on 6 June 1979 as the last recognized minority nationality in China.[13]

Historically, Jino people was organized as a matriarchal culture, and “Jino” means “descending from the uncle,” and it refers to the importance of mother’s brother in matriarchal societies.[14]

From language aspect, Jino language is similar to other languages under the branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, because Jino people moved from the northwest of Yunnan province to the territories they are at now, but the timing and routes of this migration remain uncertain,[1]

Geographic distribution

Jinuo Township (Jinuo Mountain), located in Jinghong City of the Sipsongpanna Dai autonomous prefecture of Yunnan province, China.[13]

Tonemes

There are five tonemes in Buyuan Jino language. Gai believes that the function of tonemes are distinguishing lexical meanings and grammatical meanings.[15]

  1. /˥/ (high level tone, 55): it tends to phonetically shorten vowels
  2. /˦/ (mid level tone, 44): lower than 55, though still high
  3. /˧˩/ (low falling tone, 31)
  4. /˧˥/ (rising tone, 35)
  5. /˥˧/ (high falling tone, 53)

/˥˧/ (53) tone is considered difficult to distinguish when listening to a native speaker.[7]

Writing system

Since there is no official written form for Jino, therefore, Jino does not have a writing system, but it developed several systems of signs to cover communication in different situations.[1] They used engraved wooden or bamboo boards to record debts between villages.

Notes
  1. Arcones, Pedro Ceinos (2013). China's Last But One Matriarchy: The Jino of Yunnan. Kunming: Papers of the White Dragon.
  2. Lama (2012)
  3. Youle Jinuo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Buyuan Jinuo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  4. "Buyuan Jinuo". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  5. "People Group Profiles". Asia Harvest. Retrieved 2017-05-01.
  6. Moseley, Christopher (2012). "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger". UNESCO.
  7. Hayashi, Norihiko (2013). "A Sketch of Buyuan Jino Tones and Their Development". Annals of Foreign Studies. 83: 19–34.
  8. "Jinuo, Buyuan". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  9. "Jino". Glottolog. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  10. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Jino". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  11. Bradley, David (2007). "East and Southeast Asia". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.). Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 349–424.
  12. Satterthwaite-Phillips, Damian (2011). Phylogenetic Inference of the Tibeto-Burman Languages or on the Usefulness of Lexicostatistics (and "Megalo"-Comparison) for the Subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman (Ph.D. thesis). Stanford University.
  13. Yuming, Li; Wei, Li (2013). The Language Situation in China. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-1-61451-253-0.
  14. Minahan, James B. (2014). Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-018-8.
  15. Gai, Xingzhi 盖兴之 (1986). Jīnuò yǔ jiǎn zhì 基诺语简志 [A Brief Description of the Jinuo Language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.

References
  • Lama, Ziwo Qiu-Fuyuan (2012). Subgrouping of Nisoic (Yi) Languages: A Study From the Perspectives of Shared Innovation and Phylogenetic Estimation (Ph.D. thesis). University of Texas at Arlington. hdl:10106/11161.
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