Be languages


Be, also known as Ong Be, Bê, or Vo Limgao, is a pair of languages spoken by 600,000 people, 100,000 of them monolingual, on the north-central coast of Hainan Island, including the suburbs of the provincial capital Haikou. The speakers are counted as part of the Han Chinese nationality in census. According to Ethnologue, it is taught in primary schools.

Names

Be speakers refer to themselves as ', with ' being the prefix for persons and ' meaning 'village'. Liang notes that it is similar to the autonym ', by which Gelong 仡隆 speakers refer to themselves.

Classification

The Be languages are a pair of Kra–Dai languages, but its precise relationship to other branches within the Kra-Dai family has yet not been conclusively determined. Hansell considers Be to be a sister of the Tai branch based on shared vocabulary, and proposes a Be–Tai grouping.
Based on toponymic evidence from place names with the prefix dya-, Jinfang Li considers Be to have originated from the Leizhou peninsula of Guangdong province. Liang considers Be to have migrated to Hainan from the Leizhou Peninsula of Guangdong about 2,500 years ago during the Warring States Period, but not over 3,000 years ago. Liang & Zhang also believe that Be had migrated from the Leizhou Peninsula to northern Hainan about 2,500 years ago during the Warring States period.
Weera Ostapirat, analyzing data from Zhang, notes that Be and Jizhao share many lexical similarities and sound correspondences, and that Jizhao may be a remnant Be-related language in China.

Dialects

Be consists of the Lincheng and Qiongshan dialects. Liang documents the following varieties of Be.
Be of Chengmai is intermediate between the Lincheng and Qiongshan dialects, and has features of both.
Chen contains extensive comparative lexical data for the Be dialects of Changliu, Yongxing, Longtang, Qiaotou, Huangtong, and Xinying. The Qiaotou, Huangtong, and Xinying dialects are unintelligible with the Changliu, Yongxing, Longtang, and Shishan dialects. Chen also reconstructs Proto-Ong-Be on the basis of this comparative lexical data.

Classification

Chen classifies the Ong-Be dialects into two groups, which are mutually unintelligible with each other.
  • Ong-Be
  • *Western Ong-Be
  • **Qiaotou 桥头
  • **Huangtong 皇桐
  • **Maniao 马尿
  • **Lincheng 凌城
  • **Jialai 加來
  • **Meiliang 美良
  • **Xinying 新盈
  • *Eastern Ong-Be
  • **Longtang 龙塘
  • **Longqiao 龙橋
  • **Longquan 龙泉
  • **Yongxing 永兴
  • **Shishan 石山
  • **Changliu 长流
  • **Laocheng 老城
Schmitz suggests three dialects:
  • Ong-Be
  • *Lingao County Lingao
  • **Bohou 博厚
  • ** Jialai 加来
  • ** Lincheng 临城
  • *Chengmai County Lingao
  • *Haikou City Lingao

    Phonology

Consonants

Initials

  • is mainly heard in finals, rarely in initials.
  • can also be heard as in free variation.
  • can be heard as in the dialect of Xindengyi.

    Finals

Vowels

  • Vowels in word-initial position are phonetically heard beginning with a glottal.
  • An open-mid vowel occurs in the Chengmai and Qiongshan dialects.
  • A near-open central vowel sound also occurs in the Qiongshan dialect.

    Tones

Be is a tonal language. It has 5 tones:
  • Rising
  • High
  • Mid
  • Low
  • Mid checked
The Bolian dialect has also a high checked tone.

Works cited

  • Schmitz, Timo. 2024. Family Tree: Tai-Kadai Languages.