| Bonan | |
|---|---|
| མ་ནི་སྐད་ཅི,Ma ni skad ci[1] | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Gansu,Qinghai |
Native speakers | (6,000 cited 1999)[2] |
| Tibetan script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | peh |
| Glottolog | bona1250 |
 Bonan is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
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TheBonan language (pronounced[p⁼aoˈnaŋ],Baonang; Chinese:保安语,Bǎo'ānyǔ; Amdo Tibetan:Dorké), also known by its endonymManikacha (Tibetan:མ་ནི་སྐད་ཅི; Wylie:Ma ni skad ci),[4] is theMongolic language of theBonan people ofChina. As of 1985, it was spoken by about 8,000 people, including about 75% of the total Bonan ethnic population and many ethnicMonguor, inGansu andQinghai Provinces. There are several dialects, which are influenced to varying degrees – but always heavily – byChinese andTibetan, whilebilingualism inWutun is less common. The most commonly studied is the Tongren dialect. Bonan is not typically written by speakers,[5] though there is a folk practice of writing Bonan with theTibetan syllabary followingAmdo pronunciation.[6]
Bonan phonology has been heavily influenced by Tibetan.Consonants possess avoicing contrast. Initial consonant clusters of mostly falling sonority are present in native words, as are heavy diphthongs, though the content of both is heavily restricted. The possible word-initial consonant clusters in Bonan are[mp,nt,nt͡ɕ,ntʂ,ŋk,tʰχ,χt͡ɕ,rt͡ɕ,lt͡ɕ,ft,fk,ʂp,ʂk].
Ñantoq Baoan has six vowels, with long counterparts for all except /ə/.[7][8]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ə | ɤ ɤː |
| Open | a aː |
Bonan, like otherMongolic languages, is agglutinative.
There are fivecase markings for Bonan nouns:Nominative, Accusative-Genitive, Dative-Locative, Ablative-Comparative, andInstrumentative.
Verbalmorphology is quite complex.Evidentiality is marked in the indicative mood as "definite" or "indefinite" with a specific suffix or with an auxiliary verb. The present definite is used to mark naturally occurring phenomena, while the present indefinite indicates the habits of animals. The indefinite may also mark volition. The future, continuous, and perfective suffixes also possess markers for evidentiality that are often used to mark negation.
Bonan has a primarySOV (subject–object–verb), but topicalization of an object is common. It is known for its peculiar double marking of thecopula. A Mongolic copula, of which there are several with different meanings, comes sentence-finally, following Bonan SOV word order, while a copula[ʂɪ] from Chinese/ʂɨ̂/ "to be" appears between the copula's subject and complement, as in Chinese SVO word order. This Chinese copula is optional and is used to emphasize the subject. The definite, but not indefinite, copula can also act as a participle following some finite verbs. For example:
ənə
this
ʂɪ
kuŋʂə-nə
commune-GEN
t͡ɕʰitʂə
car
ənə ʂɪ kuŋʂə-nə t͡ɕʰitʂə o
this COP commune-GEN car IND.COP
"This is the commune's car." (Buhe & Liu 1985: 65)
Uniquely among Mongolic languages, adjectives follow the noun they modify. This is due to Tibetan influence.
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