Jiamao language
Jiamao is a divergent Kra-Dai language or possible language isolate spoken in southern Hainan, China. Jiamao speakers' autonym is 1.
Classification
Jiamao is often classified one of the Hlai languages, which constitute a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family, but Norquest and others note that Jiamao has a non-Hlai substratum.Graham Thurgood suggested that Jiamao might have an Austroasiatic substratum. Norquest identified various lexical items in Jiamao that do not reconstruct to Proto-Hlai and later firmly established it as a non-Hlai language. Hsiu notes that Jiamao also contains various words borrowed from an unknown, currently extinct Tibeto-Burman branch.
Demographics
In the 1980s, Jiamao was spoken by 50,000 people in central and south-central Hainan, mostly in Jiamao Township in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County. It shares less than half of its lexicon with the Hlai languages.In Lingshui Li Autonomous County, Jiamao is spoken in Benhao, Nanping, Wenluo, Zuguan, Longguang, and Tianzi. In Lingshui County, Jiamao is known as Tái, and is also known as Sāi or Jiāwǒ.
There are four Jiamao dialects, namely Jiamao, Liugong, Tianzi, and Qunying.
Jiamao is spoken in the following villages and townships of southern Hainan.
- Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County
- *Jiamao Township
- *Liugong Township
- *Shiling Town
- Lingshui Li Autonomous County
- *Longguang Town
- *Benhao Town
- Sanya
- *Haitangwan Town
Phonology
Tones
Jiamao has 8 distinct tone categories :| Tone category | High register tone | Low register tone |
| A | /55/ | /11/ |
| X | /51/ | /31/ |
| DL | /53/ | /31/ |
| DS | /55/ | /22/ |
Like Proto-Be, Jiamao does not distinguish between tone categories B and C, but rather only has an X category.
As noted by Thurgood and Norquest, these do not correspond to Hlai tones, but rather initials in Proto-Hlai. High register tones are derived from unvoiced initials, and low register tones from voiced initials.