Shixing, also renderedShuhi, is aQiangic language ofSichuan, China. Two-thirds of its speakers are monolingual.
Shixing is also known by its Tibetan nameXumi (旭米Xùmǐ); it is spoken by about 1800 people living by the Shuiluo River 水洛 in Shuiluo Township 水洛乡,Mili Tibetan Autonomous County.[2]
Xumi features a very unusual phonemic contrast between voiceless/ʎ̥/ and voiced/ʎ/ alveolo-palatal lateral approximants and voiceless and voiced glottal fricatives.[4][5]
The close and close-mid series are the same in both varieties:/i,ʉ,u,e,o/. The difference lies in the open-mid and open series; in Upper Xumi, these are/ɛ,ɐ,ɔ,a/, whereas in Lower Xumi, they are/ɛ,ɐ,ɑ/.[8][9]
At least in Lower Xumi/ʉ/, is phonetically close-mid[ɵ].[10]
/ɐ/ is closer in Upper Xumi[ɜ]; in addition, the open central vowel/a/ is phonetically near-open[ɐ]. For this reason, they may be transcribed with ⟨ɜ⟩ and ⟨ɐ⟩, respectively.[11]
The Lower Xumi/o/ and/ɑ/ generally correspond to Upper Xumi/u/ and/ɔ/, respectively./ɑ/ is near-open near-back[ɑ̽] and thus similar to the Upper Xumi/a/, but more back.[10][11]
Upper Xumi has the following nasal vowels:/ĩ,ũ,ɛ̃,ɔ̃,ɐ̃/, as well as the marginal/ɘ̃/, which occurs only in the word[LPmɘ̃da][clarification needed] 'on the roof / upstairs'.[8]
Lower Xumi has the following nasal vowels:/ĩ,õ,ɛ̃,ɐ̃,ɑ̃/, as well as the marginal/ə̃/, which occurs only in the word[LPmə̃dɐᴿʁo][clarification needed] 'on the roof / upstairs'.[9]/ẽ,õ,ɐ̃,ɑ̃/ generally correspond to Upper Xumi/ĩ,ũ,ɛ̃,ɔ̃/, respectively.[11]
Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya (2013), "Xumi, Part 1: Lower Xumi, the Variety of the Lower and Middle Reaches of the Shuiluo River",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,43 (3):363–379,doi:10.1017/S0025100313000157
Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya; Kocjančič Antolík, Tanja (2013), "Xumi, Part 2: Upper Xumi, the Variety of the Upper Reaches of the Shuiluo River",Journal of the International Phonetic Association,43 (3):381–396,doi:10.1017/S0025100313000169
Sun Hongkai [孙宏开]. 2014.A study of Shixing [Shixingyu yanjiu 史兴语研究]. Beijing: Minzu University Press.
