Derung language
Dulong or Drung, Derung, Rawang, or Trung, is a Sino-Tibetan language in China. Dulong is closely related to the Rawang language of Myanmar. Although almost all ethnic Derung people speak the language to some degree, most are multilingual, also speaking Burmese, Lisu, and Mandarin Chinese except for a few very elderly people.
Dulong is also called: Taron, Kiu, Qui, Kiutze, Qiuzi, Kiupa, Kiao, Metu, Melam, Tamalu, Tukiumu, Qiu, Nung, Nu-tzŭ.
Classification
Dulong belongs to the Nungish language family of the Central Tibeto-Burman branch of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The other two languages in the same family are Anong and Rawang.History
Dulong/Rawang is a Tibeto-Burman language cluster spoken on both sides of the China/Myanmar border just south and east of Tibet. Within Myanmar, the people who speak the Dulong language live in northern Kachin State, particularly along the Mae Hka and Mali Hka River valleys. In the past, they had been called 'Hkanung' or 'Nung', and have often been considered to be a subgroup of the Kachin. Around 1950, speakers of this language in Myanmar began a movement to use the name /rəwɑŋ/ to represent all of its speakers. The speakers in China, though, continue to use the name 'Dulong'.Geographic distribution
There are 14,000 people speaking in two dialects: 8,500 in Nu River dialect, and 5,500 in Dulong River dialect. The locations of Dulong are Yunnan province, Xizang Autonomous Region, and Bingzhongluo. In the past, the Dulong River was known as the Kiu river, and the Dulong people were known as the Kiu, Kiutze, Kiupa, or Kiao.Dialects
Dulong has two dialects: Dulong River, and Nu River. Dialects reportedly inherently intelligible. Other possible dialect names are Melam, Metu, Tamalu, and Tukiumu.Phonology
Consonants
Dulong has twenty-four initial consonants at six points of articulation, plus the consonant clusters in initial position; only the consonants occur in final position.Vowels
Dulong has seven vowels,, and three diphthongs,, which only appear in open syllables. Vowel length is also evenly distributed.Tones
Dulong has 3 tones: high level, high falling, and low falling. In the Dulong language, tone has the role of differentiating the meaning of a few words, with about 8% words completely relying on tones to distinguish them.Writing system
A Derung alphabet based on the Latin script was developed in 1983, but it is not widely used and is not officially recognized.Initials:
- B b
- P p
- M m
- F f
- W w
- D d
- T t
- N n
- L l
- G g
- K k
- Ng ng
- H h
- J j
- Ch ch
- Ny ny
- Sh sh
- Y y
- Z z
- C c
- S s
- R r
- Q q
- By by
- Py py
- My my
- Gy gy
- Ky ky
- Hy hy
- Bl bl
- Pl pl
- Ml ml
- Gl gl
- Kl kl
- Br br
- Pr pr
- Mr mr
- Gr gr
- Kr kr
- Hr hr
- I i
- E e
- A a
- V v
- O o
- U u
- Eu eu
- Ei ei
- Ai ai
- Oi oi
- Ui ui
- Ua ua
- Ue ue
- Eui eui
- Uai uai
The letter V is used as a vowel, not as a consonant.
Grammar
Words can be formed by prefixation, suffixation, or compounding. Word classes include nouns, defined by the ability to appear with a numeral classifier; verbs, defined by the ability to appear with negation and the person and tense marking; postpositions, which are enclitic to NPs, numerals, and classifiers. Adjectives are a subset of stative verbs for which reduplication means intensification or adverbialization rather than the perfective aspect. Adjectives can be used as predicates or can appear nominalized in a copula clause.The grammar of the language is documented extensively by Perlin.
Verb conjugation
Derung verbs inflect fusionally for person and number and agglutinatively otherwise. Verbal conjugation uses a mix of affixes, a direct-inverse person-marking hierarchy, apophony, and tone changes.Intransitive verbs
Intransitive verbs are conjugated to agree with the subject in person and number.The first-person plural form is formed via vowel ablaut, primarily characterized by the lengthening of the root vowel. If the root vowel is the schwa, the schwa is replaced with. If the root ends in, these vowels are further converted into long diphthongs.
Transitive verbs
Transitive verbs in Derung may exhibit agreement with both their agent and their patient, and conjugate for three grammatical persons and three grammatical numbers. However, the appearance of agreement is also governed by pragmatic factors.The prefix appears if one of the two following conditions is satisfied:
- The prefix always appears when a second-person agent is involved, regardless of hierarchy.
- The prefix also appears according to direct–inverse hierarchy of grammatical persons, in which serves as an inverse marker. First-person agents prevent the prefix from appearing, and third-person agents, lying at the bottom of the hierarchy, take the prefix if the patient is not also in the third person.
- The dual stem of the verb
- * This stem is generally identical to the unmarked citation form of the verb, although Perlin is not consistent with which tone the dual stem assumes compared to the citation form.
- * Mainly appears when an argument to the verb is in the dual number.
- The 1st-person singular stem
- * Generally appears when a first-person singular argument is present.
- * Formed similarly to the first-person singular form of intransitive verbs. The first-person singular stem must always have high level tone, regardless of the tone of the dual stem. Vowel-final verbs additionally suffix.
- The 1st-person plural stem
- * Characterized by ablaut of the verb root, in which the root vowel is replaced by a long vowel.
- * Used to form 1st-person plural and 3rd-person patient conjugations.
- * Originally a merger of two separate stems ending in *-i and *-u. The vowel length in this stem originally came from compensatory lengthening as suffixed *-i and *-u were lost.
- The 2nd-person plural stem
- * Used primarily when there is a second-person plural argument.
- * On vowel-final verbs, this is formed by suffixing -n to the dual stem. If the dual stem already ends in a nasal, no suffix is appended. If the dual stem ends in a stop consonant, the stop is replaced by a nasal followed by a glottal stop.
Negation
Derung verbs are negated by prefixing . The negative prefix also contracts with the copula to form, and also with "to have" to form.Tense, aspect, mood and evidentiality markers
Derung has an elaborate set of markers that normally follow a verb that mark tense–aspect–mood distinctions, as well as evidentiality and mirativity.Mirativity and evidentiality
Derung has two separate markers that Perlin assigns "mirative" meaning, namely to mark directly witnessed events and to mark events that are deduced to have happened.marks something that is customary or common knowledge, while marks something that the speaker heard from someone else.