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The Languages of China S. ROBERT RAMSEY The Languages of China PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright© '1987 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be {o.und on the last printed page of this book ISBN 0-691-06694-9 ISBN 0-691-01468-X (pbk.) Second printing, with revisions, and first Princet~~ Paperback printing, 1989 Publication of this book has been aided by grants from the Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Fund of P~i~l:eton University Press and the University of Maryland This book has been composed in Linotron Sabon Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii List of Tables Vlll Preface ix Transcriptions and Symbols xu PART 1: THE CHINESE LANGUAGE 1 A Language for All of China 3 2 China, North and South 19 3 The Spread of Northern Influence 27 4 The Standard (Pronunciation) 41 5 The Standard (Grammar) 49 Chinese and the Myth of the Primitive Language 49 Words 57 Sentences 65 6 Today's Dialects 87 North 87 South 88 7 History 116 Old Chinese 134 From Middle Chinese to Peking Mandarin 139 8 Chinese Writing Today 143 PART II: THE MINORITY LANGUAGES OF CHINA 9 The Chinese and Their Neighbors 157 The Classification of the Minorities 162 Linguistic Areas in China 169 10 The Minorities of North China 173 Turkic 179 Mongolian 194 Tungus 212 11 The Minorities of South China 230 Tai 232 Tibeto-Burman 248 Miao-Yao 278 Mon-Khmer 286 Unclassified or Isolated Languages 287 vi CONTENTS Appendix A: Chinese Sounds and the Pinyin Romanization System 293 Appendix B: A Comparative Table of the Pinyin and Wade-Giles Romanizations 297 Notes 301 Bibliographic Abbreviations 313 General Bibliography 315 Bibliography for China's Other Languages 325 Index 333 GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, E. N. and Marja L. Anderson. 1977. "~oden:t Chjna: South." In Chang 1977, pp. 317-82. Anttila, Raimo. 1972. An introduction to historical and comparatjve linguistics. New York: Macmillan. • - Arisaka Hideyo. 1957. Kokugo on'in-shi no ken,kyii [Studies on Japanese histor­ ical phonology]. Tokyo: Sanseido. Austerlitz, Robert,. 1974. "The frustrations of linguistic typology: Limitations or stimulants?" Acta Universitatis Carolinae [Prague]: 101-106. ---. 1976. "Bilingualism: The context beyond linguistics." General Linguis­ tics'16.2-3: 68-71. ---. 1982. "Three thoughts on Dr. Kreindler's thoughts." The International Jourizal of the Sociology of Language 33: 53-56. Ballard, William L. 1969. "Phonological history of Wu." Ph.D. diss., \)niversity of California, Berkeley. ' ---. 1981. "The linguistic history of South China: Miao-Yao and Southern dialects." Typescript. 'Barnes, Dayle. 1982. "Nationalism and the Mandarin movement: The first half- century." In Cooper 1982, pp. 260-90. Beijing Language Institute. 1971. Ele"'Jentary'Chitiese. P}!king: Shangwu Press. ---. 1980. Elementary Chinese readers. Peking: Foreign l:anguage Press. Bielenstein, Hans. 1947. "The census of'China during the period 2-742 A.D." BMFEA 19:125-63. ---. 1959. "The Chinese colonizatio'n ot Fukien until the end ofT'ang." Stu­ dia Serica Bernhard Karlgren Dedicata, ed. Seren Egerod, 'pp. 98-122. Copenhagen: E. Munksgaard. Bloom, Alfred. 1981. The linguistic shaping of thought: A study in the impact of language on thinking in China and the West: Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. • ' Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Lan!J!Iage. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Bodman, Nicholas Cleaveland. l967. "Historical linguistics." In Sebeok 1967, pp. 3-58. Bolinger, Dwight. 1975. Aspects of language. 2d ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. .. Boltz, William' G. 1967_:1968. "Canton: The Seville of Chi~a." Romance Philol­ ogy 21: 171-74. Boyle, Elizabeth. 1970. Cantonese Basic Course. Washington, D.C.: FSI. Cao Bohan. 1949. "Tile .Chinese language movement since the May Fourth period." In Seybolt and Chiang 1979, pp. 26-41. Catford, J. C 1977. Fundamental problems in phonetics. Blopmington: Indiana University Press. · Chang\ K. C., ed. 1977. Food in chinese culture. New Haven: Yale .University Press. 316 GENE.RAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Chao, Yuen Ren. 1928. Xiandai W:u-yu (,i~ yanjiu [Studies. on the modem Wu dialects]. Peking: Qinghua xuexiao yanjiuyuan. · ---. 19]4. "The non-un!queness of. phonemic sqluti_9ns of phonetic systems." BIHP 4.4: 363-97. Reprinted in Readings in linguistics, ed. Martin Joos, pp. 38-54. Washington, D.C.: ACLS. ---. 1941. "Pistinctiohs within Ancient Chinese," Iff4S 5: 223-27. ---. 1947. 'Cantonese primer, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ---. 1948a. Mandarin primer, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni~ersity Press --"-. 1948li. Hubei /angyan diaocha baogao [Report on a survey of the dialects of Hubei]. Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshu-guan. ---. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press. · ---. 1970. Language and symbolic systems. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi­ ty Press. ---. 1976a. Aspects of Chinese sociolinguistics. Stanford: Stanford Universi­ ty Press. ---. 1976b. "Contrasting aspects of the Wu dialects." In Chao 1976a, pp. ~4-47. ' ---. 1976c. "What is correct Chinese.?" In Chao 1976a, pp. 72-83. ---. 1976d. "Some contrastive aspects of the Chinese National Language Movement." In Chao 1976a, pp. 97-105. ---. 1976e. "Notes on Chinese grammar and logic." In Chao 1976a, pp. 237-49': Ch'en Chih-mat 1966. Chinese ,calligrap'hers and their art. Melbourne: Mel­ bourne Univer~ity Press. Chen, S. H. 1973. "Lang~age and literature under Communism." in Wu 1973, pp. 705-35. Cheng, Chjn-chuan. 1973. A synchronic phonology .of Mandarin. :rhe Hague: ' Mouton. Chiang Yee. 1973. Chinese calligraphy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univrrsity Press. Cohe~,'Myron L. 1968. "The Hakka or 'Guest People': Dialect as a sociocultural variable in southeaster~ China." Ethnohistory 15: 237-92. Cooper, Rqber,t L., ed. 1982. Language spread: Studies in diffusion and social change. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cressey, George B. 1955. Land of the 500 million. New York: McGraw-Hill. peBary, Wm. Theoqore, Wing-Tsit Chan and Chester Tan. 1960. So~rces of Chinese tradition II. New York: Columbia University Press., DeFrancis, John. 1950. Nationalism and language reform·in Cqina. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ---. 1967. "Language l}nd script reform." In Sebeok 1~6,7, pp. 130-50. ---. 1976. Beginning Chinese. 2d. rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, --. 1984. The Chinese l{:lnguage: Fact and fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Dobson, W.A.C.H. 1959. Late Archaic Chinese: A grammatical study. Toronto: Univet;sity of Toronto Press. , ---. 1962. Early Archaic Chinese: A descriptive grammar. Toronto: Univer- GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 sity of Toronto Press. --. 19,64. Late Han Chinese: A study·of the Archaic. Han shift. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Dong Tqnghe. 1,95.4. Zhongguo yuyin-shi [The history ~f Chinese phonology]. Taipei: China Cultural Publication Foundation. --. 1974. Hanyu yinyun-xue [The study of Chinese phonology]. Taipei: Yingyu Publishing Company. Downer, G. B. 1959. "Derivation by tone-change ip Classi<;al Chinese." BSOAS 22:258-90. Dreyer, June Teufel. 1976. China's forty millions. Cambridge, Mass.: l;:larvard University Press. Egerod, Sererl. 1967. "Dialectology." in Sebeok 1967,-pp. 91-129. --. 1979. Obituary fo~Bernhard Karlgren. In Annual Newsletter o(the Scan­ dinavian Institute of Asian Studies 13: 1-24'. Elman, Benjamin A. 1983. Review of Bloom 1981. ]AS 42.3 (May): 611-14. Emeneau, Murray B. 1980. Language and linguistic area, Stanford: Stanford Uni­ 'versity Press Fang Shiduo.1965. Wushi-nian lai Zhongguo guoyu'yundong-sbi [The histqry of China's National Language Movement over the past fifty, years]. Taipei: Guoyu Ribao-she. Feifel, Eugen. 1967. Geschichte der chinesischen Literatur. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung. Fenn, Henry C. and M. Gardner Tewksbury. 1967. ,Speak Mandatin. New Haven:, Yale University Press. Forrest, R.A.D._1948. The Chinese language. London: Faber and Faber. Fowler, H. W. 1965. A dictionary of modern English usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fromkin; Victoria, ed. 1978. Tone: A linguistic survey. New Y.ork: Academic Press. Gao Min~kai..ind Liu Zhengtan. 1958. Xiandf:i Hanyu wailai-ci yanjiu [A study of foreign words in modern Chinese]. Peking: Wenzi Gaige Chuban-she. Gibson, Eleanor J. and Harry Levin. 1975. The psychology of reading. Cam­ bridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Hansen, Chad. 1983. Language and logic in ancient China. Ann Arbor: Univer­ sity of Michigan Press. Hartman, Lawton M. 1944. "The segmental phonemes of the Peiping dialect." Language,20: 28-42. Hartwell, Robert M. 1982.. "Demographic, political, and social transformations of China, 750-1550." H]AS 42.2: 365-442. Hashimoto, Mantaro J. 1973. The Hakka dialect: .A linguistic study of its pho­ nology, syntax, and lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ---. 1976. "The agrarian and pastoral diffusion of languages." In Genetic relationship, diffusion and typological similarities of.East & Southeast Asian languages. Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. ---. 1978a. Gengo ruikei chiri-ron [Linguistic cypogeography]. Tokyo: Kobun-do. -----.-. 1978b. Phonology
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