Jizhao language


Jizhao is an unclassified Kra-Dai language spoken in Jizhao Village, Tanba Town, Wuchuan, Guangdong. It may be most closely related to Be. In Wuchuan, Jizhao is locally referred to as Haihua, which is the term used elsewhere in Leizhou, Xuwen, and Maoming to refer to the local Southern Min dialect of Leizhou.

Demographics

Jizhao is an endangered language that only has speakers above the age of 60. Within Jizhao Administrative Village, it is spoken in the hamlets of Jizhao, Meilou, and Hong villages. Jizhao speakers are officially classified as ethnic Han by the Chinese government.
As of 2017, there are fewer than 100 speakers of Jizhao, most of whom are above the age of 70.

Classification

Shao & Meng observe some similarities with the Be language of northern Hainan, but provisionally consider Jizhao to be unclassified within the Kam-Tai branch. Jizhao has many loanwords from Yue Chinese and Minnan Chinese.
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.
In a 100-item Swadesh list, Shao found lexical matches between Jizhao and the following languages.
  • Ong Be: 56 words
  • Zhuang: 6 words
  • Yue Chinese: 7 words
  • Min Chinese: 1 word
  • No parallels: 30 words

    Phonology

Jizhao has 6 tones.
  1. 21
  2. 31
  3. 32
  4. 33
  5. 55
  6. 45
Jizhao, like Hlai, also has the implosive consonants /ɓ/ and /ɗ/.