Jinghpaw is written using a modifiedLatin alphabet; aBurmese alphabet is used by some speakers, but it has largely been phased out. Jinghpaw syllable finals can consist of vowels, nasals, or oral stops.
There are at least 16 Jingpoish (Kachinic) varieties (Kurabe 2014:59). The demographic and location information listed below is drawn from Kurabe (2014). Standard Jingpo and Nkhum are the best described varieties, whereas the Jingpoish varieties of India have been recently documented by Stephen Morey. Jingpoish varieties in northernKachin State remain little described.
TheEthnologue listsDuleng (Dalaung, Dulong[5]),Dzili (Jili),Hkaku (Hka-Hku), andKauri (Gauri, Guari, Hkauri). According to the Ethnologue, Dzili might be a separate language, whereas Hkaku and Kauri are only slightly different.
Other underdescribed Jingpoish varieties includeMungji andZawbung.[6]Shanke is a recently described language closely related to Jingpo, although its speakers identify themselves as Naga.[7]
Standard Jinghpaw is the standard variety of Jinghpaw as used among theKachin people in Myanmar, as well as by non-Kachin ethnic minorities inKachin State. Most speakers live inKachin State, though some live inShan State andSagaing Division. It is spoken primarily inMyitkyina,Bhamo, andKutkai. Younger generations tend to pronounce/ts/ and/dz/ as[s] and[z], contrasting them with/s/ ([sʰ]). Standard Jinghpaw as spoken inShan State often hasʔə- added to monosyllabic words, and also places the interrogative particleʔi before verbs.
Nkhum /Enkun 恩昆 (n̩˧˩kʰum˧ka˧˩) is spoken inLianghe,Ruili,Longchuan, andLuxi counties of Yunnan, China.[8] It is the most widely spoken Jingpo dialect in China. The Nkhum dialect displays tense-lax register contrast, whereas Shadan does not. Although the Shadan dialect frequently has -ŋ, Nkhum often does not. TheTongbiguan 铜壁关 variety of Nkhum is used as the Jingpo standard variety in China. Small pockets of speakers are also found inGengma County.[9]
Shadan /Shidan 石丹 (ʃă˩tan˧˩ka˧˩;ʃă˩tam˧˩ka˧˩[10]) is spoken in Yunnan, China.[8] It is spoken in the townships of Kachang 卡昌 and Taiping 太平 (in Getong 格同 of Mengzhi 蒙支, Zhengtonghong 正通硔,[11] and Longpen 龙盆[12]), located inYingjiang County 盈江县.
Gauri /Khauri (kau˧ʒi˧˩ka˧˩[10]) is spoken in the Gauri Hills, located to the east ofBhamo. Villages include Prang Hkudung, Man Dau, Hkarawm Kawng, Manda, Ka Daw, Lamai Bang, Bum Wa, Ma Htang, Jahkai, and Loi Ming. In China, Gauri is spoken by about 300 people in Hedao 贺岛 and Hongka 硔卡 villages of Longchuan County, and in Kachang 卡场镇 of Yingjiang County.
Mengzhi 蒙支 (muŋ˧˩tʃi˧˩ka˧˩) is spoken by about 200 people in the two villages of Getong 格同 and Zhengtongyou 正通猶 in Mengzhi 蒙支,Yingjiang County 盈江县.[10]
Thingnai is spoken nearMohnyin, southern Kachin State.
Small pockets of Jingpo speakers are also scattered acrossGengma County 耿马县, including the following villages (Dai Qingxia 2010).[9] Dai (2010) also includes 1,000-word vocabulary lists of the Yingjiang 盈江, Xinzhai 新寨, and Caoba 草坝 dialects.
Jingpo Xinzhai 景颇新寨, Mangkang Village 芒抗村, Hepai Township 贺派乡[13]
Nalong 那拢组, Nongba Village 弄巴村, Gengma Town 耿马镇[14]
Hewen 贺稳组, Jingxin Village 景信村, Mengding Town 孟定镇[15]
Hebianzhai 河边寨, Qiushan Village 邱山村, Mengding Town 孟定镇[16]
Caobazhai 草坝寨, Mang'ai Village 芒艾村, Mengding Town 孟定镇[17]
Dingga: a recently discovered Jingpo variety spoken nearPutao, Kachin State, in the villages of Ding Ga, Ding Ga Gabrim, Tsa Gung Ga, Layang Ga, Dai Mare, and Mărawt Ga. These villages are all located between the Shang Hka and Da Hka rivers in northern Kachin State. There are between 2,000 and 3,000 speakers.
Duleng (tu˧˩leŋ˧) is spoken nearPutao, inMachanbaw, and in the Nam Tisang valley of Kachin State. The only published description is that of Yue (2006).[18]
Numphuk is spoken by about 2,000 speakers in 20 villages, including Ingthong, Ketetong, Inthem, Kumsai, Bisa, Wagun 1, Wagun 2, Wagun 3, Wakhet Na, Kherem Bisa, Guju, and Giding. These villages are situated along the Burhi Dihing river in Assam, which is called the Numhpuk Hka river in Numphuk.
Tieng is spoken in India.
Turung is spoken by about 1,200 speakers mainly in theTitabor area (in the 3 villages of Pathargaon (Na Kthong), Tipomia, and Pahukatia) and the Dhonsiri river valley (in the villages of Balipathar, Rengmai, and Basapathar). There are manyTai loanwords in Turung. Some Turung speakers also self-identify as ethnicTai.
Kurabe (2014) classifies seven Jingpoish dialects as follows.
Proto-Jingpo
Southern
Gauri (Khauri)
Standard Jingpo,Nkhum (Enkun)
Northern
Northwestern
Numphuk
Turung
Northeastern
Duleng
Dingga
The Southern branch is characterized the loss of Proto-Jingpo final stop *-k in some lexical items. The Northern branch is characterized by the following mergers of Proto-Jingpo phonemes (Kurabe 2014:60).
*ts- and *c-
*dz- and *j-
*ʔy- and *∅- (before front vowels)
merger of Proto-Jingpo plain and preglottalized sonorants
Jingpo has verbal morphology that marks the subject and the direct object. Here is one example (the tonemes are not marked). The verb is 'to be' (rai).
Jingpo has four tones in open syllables, and two tones in closed syllables (high and low).[19] Tones are not usually marked in writing, although they can be transcribed using diacritics as follows:[19]
The Jingpo lexicon contains a large number of words of bothTibeto-Burman and non-Tibeto-Burman stock, includingBurmese andShan.[20] Burmese loan words reflect two stratas, an older stratum reflecting the phonology of conservative written Burmese, and a newer stratum reflecting words drawn from modern Burmese phonology.[20] The older strata consist of vocabulary borrowed from Burmese via Shan, which also exhibits the pre-modern phonology of Burmese vocabulary.[20] Jingpo has also borrowed a large number of lexical items from Shan, with which it has been in close ethnolinguistic contact for several centuries.[21] Jingpo, as the lingua franca in the northern highlands of Myanmar, has in turn been the source language of vocabulary into other regional languages likeRawang andZaiwa.[20]
The Jingpo writing system is aLatin-based alphabet consisting of 23 letters, and very little use of diacritical marks, originally created byAmerican Baptistmissionaries in the late 19th century.Ola Hanson, one of the people who created the alphabet, arrived in Myanmar in 1890, learnt the language and wrote the first Kachin–English dictionary.
^"Myanmar".Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2016. Archived fromthe original on 2016-10-10.
^Not to be confused with "Dulong", the Mandarin transcription ofDerung people. the Chinese transcription of Duleng is "杜连" Dulian
^Kurabe, Keita."Kurabe Keita".Researchmap. Archived fromthe original on 2015-09-25.Field research on the Mungji and Zawbung dialects of Jingpho in Burma
^Shintani, Tadahiko (2015).The Shanke Language. Linguistic Survey of Tay Cultural Area (LSTCA), No. 104. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA).
^abLiu, Lu 刘璐 (1984).Jǐngpǒzú yǔyán jiǎnzhì景颇族语言简志 [A Brief Description of the Jingpo Language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe. pp. 121–122.
^abDai, Qingxia 戴庆厦 (2010).Gěngmǎ xiàn jǐngpǒzú yǔyán shǐyòng xiànzhuàng jíqí yǎnbiàn耿马县景颇族语言使用现状及其演变 [The Status Quo and Evolution of Language Use of the Jingpo Nationality in Gengma] (in Chinese). Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan.ISBN978-7-100-07152-9.
^Kurabe, Keita (2017). "A Classified Lexicon of Shan Loanwords in Jinghpaw".Asian and African Languages and Linguistics.2017 (11):129–166.hdl:10108/89212.
Kurabe, Keita. 2017. Kachin culture and history told in Jinghpaw. Collection KK2 at catalog.paradisec.org.au [Open Access].https://dx.doi.org/10.26278/5fa1707c5e77c
