Dulong (simplified Chinese:独龙语;traditional Chinese:獨龍語;pinyin:Dúlóng) orDrung,Derung,Rawang, orTrung, is aSino-Tibetan language in China. Dulong is closely related to theRawang language ofMyanmar (Burma).^[2] Although almost all ethnicDerung people speak the language to some degree, most aremultilingual, also speakingBurmese,Lisu, andMandarin Chinese^[1] except for a few very elderly people.^[3]

Dulong is also called: Taron, Kiu, Qui, Kiutze, Qiuzi, Kiupa, Kiao, Metu, Melam, Tamalu, Tukiumu, Qiu, Nung, Nu-tzŭ.^[4]

Dulong belongs to theNungish language family of theCentral Tibeto-Burman branch of theTibeto-Burman branch of theSino-Tibetan language family.^[1] The other two languages in the same family areAnong andRawang.

Dulong/Rawang is a Tibeto-Burman language cluster spoken on both sides of the China/Myanmar border just south and east ofTibet. WithinMyanmar, the people who speak the Dulong language (possibly up to 100,000 people) live in northernKachin State, particularly along the Mae Hka ('Nmai Hka) and Mali Hka (Mali Hka) River valleys. In the past, they had been called 'Hkanung' or 'Nung', and have often been considered to be a subgroup of the Kachin (Jinghpaw). Around 1950, speakers of this language in Myanmar began a movement to use the name /rəwɑŋ/ (spelled 'Rvwang' in theRawang orthographies) to represent all of its speakers. The speakers in China, though, continue to use the name 'Dulong'.^[5]

There are 14,000 (2,000 census) people speaking in two dialects: 8,500 inNu River dialect, and 5,500 in Dulong River dialect. The locations of Dulong areYunnan province (Gongshan Dulong-Nu autonomous county),Xizang Autonomous Region (Chayu (Zayü) county,Chawalong Town), and Bingzhongluo.^[1] In the past, the Dulong River was known as the Kiu (Qiu) river, and the Dulong people were known as the Kiu (Qiu), Kiutze (Qiuzi), Kiupa, or Kiao.^[2]

Dulong has two dialects: Dulong River (Central Dulongjiang, Derung River, Northern Dulongjiang, Southern Dulongjiang), andNu River (Nujiang Dulong). Dialects reportedly inherently intelligible (Thurgood and LaPolla 2003). Other possible dialect names are Melam, Metu, Tamalu, and Tukiumu.^[1]

Dulong has twenty-fourinitial consonants at six points of articulation, plus theconsonant clusters/pr,br,mr,kr,xr,ɡr,pl,bl,ml,kl,ɡl/ in initial position; only the consonants/p,t,ʔ,k,n,m,ŋ,r,l/ occur in final position.^[2]

Dulong has seven vowels,/i,ε,ə,ɑ,ɔ,ɯ,u/, and threediphthongs,/əi,ɑi,ɯi/, which only appear in open syllables. Vowel length is also evenly distributed.^[2][6]

Dulong has 3tones: high level, high falling, and low falling. In the Dulong language, tone has the role of differentiating the meaning of a few words, with about 8% words (out of about 4000) completely relying on tones to distinguish them.^[7]

A Derung alphabet based on theLatin script was developed in 1983, but it is not widely used and is not officially recognized.^[8]

 Initials:

• B b (/b/)
• P p (/p/)
• M m (/m/)
• F f (/f/)
• W w (/w/)
• D d (/d/)
• T t (/t/)
• N n (/n/)
• L l (/l/)
• G g (/g/)
• K k (/k/)
• Ng ng (/ŋ/)
• H h (/x/)
• J j (/ʥ/)
• Ch ch (/ʨ/)
• Ny ny (/ɲ/)
• Sh sh (/ɕ/)
• Y y (/j/)
• Z z (/ʣ/)
• C c (/ʦ/)
• S s (/s/)
• R r (/ɹ/)
• Q q (/ʔ/)
• By by (/bj/)
• Py py (/pj/)
• My my (/mj/)
• Gy gy (/gj/)
• Ky ky (/kj/)
• Hy hy (/xj/)
• Bl bl (/bl/)
• Pl pl (/pl/)
• Ml ml (/ml/)
• Gl gl (/gl/)
• Kl kl (/kl/)
• Br br (/bɹ/)
• Pr pr (/pr/)
• Mr mr (/mɹ/)
• Gr gr (/gɹ/)
• Kr kr (/kɹ/)
• Hr hr (/xɹ/)

 Finals:

• I i (/i/)
• E e (/e/)
• A a (/ɑ/)
• V v (/ʌ/)
• O o (/ɔ/)
• U u (/u/)
• Eu eu (/ɯ/)
• Ei ei (/ei/)
• Ai ai (/ɑi/)
• Oi oi (/ɔi/)
• Ui ui (/ui/)
• Ua ua (/uɑ/)
• Ue ue (/ue/)
• Eui eui (/ɯi/)
• Uai uai (/uɑi/)

 /ʌ/ is written a at the beginning of word. Tones are unmarked. The letterX is not used, and theC is only used in the digraphCh.

 The letterV is used as a vowel, not as a consonant.

Words can be formed byprefixation,suffixation, orcompounding. Word classes include nouns, defined by the ability to appear with a numeral classifier; verbs, defined by the ability to appear with negation and the person and tense marking; postpositions, which are enclitic to NPs, numerals, and classifiers. Adjectives are a subset ofstative verbs for which reduplication means intensification or adverbialization rather than the perfective aspect (reduplication with nouns has a distributive meaning, ‘every’). Adjectives can be used aspredicates or can appear nominalized in a copula clause.^[2]

The grammar of the language is documented extensively by Perlin (2019).^[9]

Derung verbs inflectfusionally for person and number andagglutinatively otherwise. Verbal conjugation uses a mix of affixes, adirect-inverse person-marking hierarchy,apophony, and tone changes.^[9]

Intransitive verbs are conjugated to agree with the subject in person and number.

The first-person plural form is formed via vowel ablaut, primarily characterized by the lengthening of the root vowel. If the root vowel is the schwa/ə/, the schwa is replaced with/ɑː/. If the root ends in/ɑ,u,ɯ/, these vowels are further converted into long diphthongs/ɑːi,uːi,ɯːi/.

Transitive verbs in Derung may exhibit agreement with both theiragent and theirpatient, and conjugate for three grammatical persons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and three grammatical numbers (singular, dual, and plural). However, the appearance of agreement is also governed by pragmatic factors.

The prefix/nə³¹/ (which Perlin calls a "marked scenario prefix") appears if one of the two following conditions is satisfied:

• The prefix always appears when a second-person agent is involved, regardless of hierarchy.
• The prefix also appears according todirect–inverse hierarchy of grammatical persons, in which/nə³¹/ serves as an inverse marker. First-person agents prevent the prefix from appearing (even with a second-person patient), and third-person agents, lying at the bottom of the hierarchy, take the prefix if the patient is not also in the third person.

On top of the "marked scenario prefix", Derung transitive conjugation shows extensive stem allomorphy. The principal stems can be listed as follows:

• The dual stem of the verb (D)
  • This stem is generally identical to the unmarkedcitation form of the verb, although Perlin is not consistent with which tone the dual stem assumes compared to the citation form (he for instance records/wɑ/ "to do" with a high-falling tone in the unmarked form but with a high level tone in the dual; but on the other hand/lɑ/ "to seek" has high falling tone in both the dual and unmarked forms).
  • Mainly appears when an argument to the verb is in thedual number.
• The 1st-person singular stem (1S)
  • Generally appears when a first-person singular argument is present.
  • Formed similarly to the first-person singular form of intransitive verbs. The first-person singular stem must always have high level tone, regardless of the tone of the dual stem. Vowel-final verbs additionally suffix-ŋ.
• The 1st-person plural stem (1P)
  • Characterized by ablaut of the verb root, in which the root vowel is replaced by a long vowel.
  • Used to form 1st-person plural (agent and patient) and 3rd-person patient conjugations.
  • Originally a merger of two separate stems ending in*-i (for the first-person plural) and*-u (for third-person patients). The vowel length in this stem originally came fromcompensatory lengthening as suffixed*-i and*-u were lost.
• The 2nd-person plural stem (2P)
  • Used primarily when there is a second-person plural argument.
  • On vowel-final verbs, this is formed by suffixing-n to the dual stem. If the dual stem already ends in a nasal, no suffix is appended. If the dual stem ends in a stop consonant, the stop is replaced by a nasal followed by aglottal stop.

The general conjugation of a transitive Derung verb is as follows:

Derung verbs are negated by prefixingmə³¹ (which also surfaces as an allomorphmɑ³¹). The negative prefix also contracts with the copulaɛ⁵³ to formmɛ⁵⁵, and also withəl⁵³ "to have" to formmɑl⁵³.

Derung has an elaborate set of markers that normally follow a verb that marktense–aspect–mood distinctions, as well asevidentiality andmirativity.

Derung has two separate markers that Perlin assigns "mirative" meaning, namely/ɹɑ³¹/ to mark directly witnessed events and/mɯ³¹/ to mark events that arededuced to have happened.

/tɕi³¹/ marks something that is customary or common knowledge, while/wɑ³¹/ marks something that the speaker heard from someone else.

Derung shares 74%lexical similarity with the Matwang dialect ofRawang, and 73% to 76% withAnong.^[1]

• Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspelmath, Martin. 2017.Glottolog 3.0. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
• Numeral Systems of the World's LanguagesArchived 2021-03-12 at theWayback Machine.
• Drung at The Endangered Language Project.
• [1] Dulong language documentation in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive
• Documentation and description of Dulong (Trung) in ELAR

• Nungish languages
• Languages of Yunnan

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
• CS1: unfit URL
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages with Drung IPA
• Language articles with old speaker data
• Articles containing simplified Chinese-language text
• Articles containing traditional Chinese-language text
• Pages with plain IPA
• Webarchive template wayback links