She language


The She language, autonym Ho Le or Ho Ne, or Ho Nte, is a critically endangered Hmong–Mien language spoken by the She people. Most of the over 709,000 She people today speak She Chinese. Those who speak Sheyu—approximately 1,200 individuals in Guangdong Province—call themselves Ho Ne, "mountain people".

Names

Speakers refer to themselves as Ho Le, as She is the Chinese exonym. Only the Huidong dialect has Ho Ne, while the Boluo, Haifeng, and Zengcheng dialects all use Ho Le as their autonym.

Dialects

There are two main dialects of She, both of which are highly endangered. They are spoken in two small pockets to the west and east of Huizhou City, Guangdong.
She has been difficult to classify due to the heavy influence of Chinese on the language. Matisoff, for example, left it unclassified within the Hmongic languages, and some have considered that much to be doubtful, leaving it unclassified within the Hmong–Mien languages. She has monosyllabic roots, but has mainly compound words. However, due to the similar components of She, Mao & Li and Ratliff consider She to be most closely related to Jiongnai.
The She language is not to be confused with She Chinese, a sister branch to Hakka Chinese spoken by the She people of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. She language and She Chinese speakers have separate histories and identities, although both are officially classified by the Chinese government as She people. The Dongjia of Majiang County, Guizhou are also officially classified as She people, but speak a Western Hmongic language closely related to Chong'anjiang Miao.

Phonology

Consonants

Glottal stop is not distinct from zero.
There are consonant mutation effects. For instance, pǐ + kiáu becomes pi̋’iáu, and kóu + tȁi becomes kóulȁi.

Vowels

The vowels of She are. It has the finals, with only in Hakka loans, though is never followed by a final, and the only stops which follow the front vowels are.

Tones

She has six tones, reduced to two in checked syllables. There is quite a lot of dialectical variability; two of the reported inventories are:

Vocabulary

Old Chinese loanwords

As a language in southern China, She has various loanwords from Old Chinese.
  • 走 to run
  • 行 to walk; in Standard Mandarin, it means "do"
  • 烏 black
  • 赤 red
  • 寮 house; in Standard Mandarin, it means "hut"
  • 禾 rice ; in Standard Mandarin, it means "millet"
  • 鑊 wok
  • 奉 to give; in Standard Mandarin, it means "give with respect"
  • 其 he/she/it
  • 着 to wear
  • 睇 to look; in Standard Mandarin, it means "look askance"
  • 戮 to kill
  • 齧 to bite
  • 使 to use