| She | |
|---|---|
| Ho Le | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Zengcheng,Boluo County,Huidong County andHaifeng County inGuangdong |
| Ethnicity | 710,000She (2000 census)[1] |
Native speakers | (910 cited 1999)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | shx |
| Glottolog | shee1238 |
| ELP | She |
 She is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
TheShe language (Mandarin: 畲語,Shēyǔ), autonymHo Le[5] orHo Ne,/hɔ22ne53/ orHo Nte, is a critically endangeredHmong–Mien language spoken by theShe people.[6] Most of the over 709,000 She people today speakShe Chinese (possibly a variety ofHakka Chinese). Those who speak Sheyu—approximately 1,200 individuals inGuangdong Province—call themselvesHo Ne, "mountain people" (活聶;huóniè).
Speakers refer to themselves asHo Le (lit. 'mountain people'), as She is the Chinese exonym. Only the Huidong dialect hasHo Ne, while the Boluo, Haifeng, and Zengcheng dialects all useHo Le as their autonym.[5]
There are two main dialects of She, both of which are highly endangered.[7] They are spoken in two small pockets to the west and east ofHuizhou City, Guangdong.
She has been difficult to classify due to the heavy influence of Chinese on the language. Matisoff (2001), for example, left it unclassified within theHmongic languages, and some have considered that much to be doubtful, leaving it unclassified within (and potentially a third branch of) the Hmong–Mien languages. She has monosyllabic roots, but has mainly compound words.[7] However, due to the similar components of She, Mao & Li (2002) and Ratliff (2010) consider She to be most closely related toJiongnai.[9][10]
The She language is not to be confused withShe Chinese (Chinese:畲话, meaning 'She dialect' or 'She speech'), a sister branch toHakka Chinese spoken by the She people ofFujian andZhejiang provinces. She language and She Chinese speakers have separate histories and identities, although both are officially classified by the Chinese government asShe people. TheDongjia ofMajiang County,Guizhou are also officially classified asShe people, but speak aWestern Hmongic language closely related to Chong'anjiang Miao (重安江苗语).
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | pal. | plain | pal. | lab. | plain | pal. | ||
| Nasal | voiced | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | ŋ | ŋʲ | |||
| voiceless | ŋ̊ | |||||||||
| Plosive | unaspirated | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | k | kʲ | kʷ | (ʔ) | |
| aspirated | pʰ | pʰʲ | tʰ | tʰʲ | kʰ | kʰʲ | kʰʷ | |||
| Affricate | unaspirated | ts | tsʲ | |||||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tsʰʲ | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sʲ | h | hʲ | ||||
| voiced | v | z | zʲ | |||||||
Glottal stop is not distinct fromzero (a vowel-initial syllable).
There are consonant mutation effects. For instance,pǐ + kiáu becomespi̋’iáu, andkóu + tȁi becomeskóulȁi.
The vowels of She are/ieaɔɤu/. It has the finals/jwnŋtk/, with/tk/ only in Hakka loans, though/ɤ/ is never followed by a final, and the only stops which follow the front vowels are/nt/.
She has six tones, reduced to two (high and low) inchecked syllables (Hakka loans only). There is quite a lot of dialectical variability; two of the reported inventories (not necessarily in corresponding order) are:
[˥˦˧˨˨˩˧˥]: that is, /5 4 3 2 1 35/, or (on/a/),/a̋áāàȁǎ/
[˥˧˦˨˧˨˧˩˧˥]: that is, /53 42 3 2 31 35/
As a language in southern China, She has various loanwords from Old Chinese.[citation needed]
