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| E | |
|---|---|
| Ei, Wuse | |
| Kjang E | |
| Pronunciation | [ɛ˥],[kiaŋ˥ɛ˥] |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Guangxi |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2016)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | eee |
| Glottolog | eeee1240 |
.svg) Guangxi, of which E is spoken in a small area | |
E (E pronunciation:[ɛ˥]), also known asEi,Wuse, orWusehua, (simplified Chinese:五色话;traditional Chinese:五色話;pinyin:Wǔsèhuà;lit. 'colored language') is aTai–Chinesemixed language spoken primarily inRongshui Miao Autonomous County,Guangxi, China. It contains features of both Tai and Chinese varieties, generally adopting Chinese vocabulary into Tai grammar. E is atonal language—distinguishing between seventones—and contains a few rare phonemes:voicelessversions of the more commonnasal consonants andalveolar lateral approximant.
The E language's unusual name, which is also anautonym, derives from the pinyin transliteration of the rareMandarin syllable诶;誒;ê̄ (E pronunciation:[ɛ˥]), which conventionally denotes an expression of affirmation (and is distinguished fromē in pinyin by the use of acircumflex).[2][3] The language's speakers also refer to their language asKjang E[kiaŋ˥ɛ˥].[2]Wusehua is a derogatory name for E.[4]
In 1992, E was spoken by about 30,000 people,[5][2] but by 2008 this number had dwindled to 9,000.[6] Gao (2016) reported that there were 5,000 speakers of E.[1] Most E speakers are classified asZhuang by the Chinese government. E speakers live inRongshui Miao Autonomous County and border areas ofLuocheng Mulao Autonomous County inGuangxi. In Rongshui County, the three main villages inhabited by E speakers are Xiatan 下覃村, Simo 四莫村, and Xinglong 兴隆村 in Yongle Township 永乐乡.[1] E speakers' most commonly spoken other languages are the Liujia dialect (六甲话) ofYue Chinese and the Guiliu variant ofSouthwesternMandarin.[1]
E's consonant and vowel inventories are mostly similar to those of its parent languages. However, it contains a few unusual consonants: thevoiceless nasal consonants[n̥],[ŋ̥],[m̥], and thevoiceless alveolar lateral approximant[l̥]. All arevoiceless versions of consonants that, in most languages, are alwaysvoiced. E allowssyllabic consonants anddiphthongs.[6]
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | plain | labialized | |||||
| Nasal | voiced | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ŋ̥ | |||||
| Plosive | unaspirated | p | t | t͡s | k | kʷ | ||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t͡sʰ | kʰ | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | ɕ | h | ||||
| Approximant | voiced | l | j | w | ||||
| voiceless | l̥ | |||||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | y | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o | |
| Open | ɛ | a | ||
Like many Mainland Southeast Asian languages, including Tai and thevarieties of Chinese, E istonal.[7] The language is described as having seven tones, with the seventh varyingallophonically with thelength of the vowel it is attached to. With numbers ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest tone and 5 the highest, the contours of the various tones in E are as follows.[6]
| Number | Contour | Tone letter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 42 | ˦˨ | |
| 2. | 231 | ˨˧˩ | |
| 3. | 44 | ˦ | |
| 4. | 35 | ˧˥ | |
| 5. | 24 | ˨˦ | |
| 6. | 55 | ˥ | |
| 7. | short | 24 | ˨˦ |
| long | 22 | ˨ | |
E is usually classified as amixed language deriving ultimately from theTai-Kadai andSino-Tibetan families, which both inhabit southernChina andSoutheast Asia.[4] Some non-Chinese scholars, however, consider it a Tai-Kadai language withChinese influence.[8] Whatever its classification, the grammar resembles that of theTai branch of Tai-Kadai. E's grammatical features appear to be a mix ofNorthern Zhuang,Mulam, andKam.[1][7] TheCaolan language of Vietnam also displays many similarities with E.[7]
The vocabulary, however, is mostly Chinese, based on Guiliu and the Tuguai variant ofPinghua.[1][7] Out of the 2,000 most commonly used E words, only about 200 are of Tai-Kadai origin.[9] E also inherits elements of these Chinese dialects'phonology and compound word formation.[1] Emorphology is primarilyanalytic, with concepts such asnegation expressed with auxiliary words (pat6,m2) and no pronominalagreement.[6]
In its pronouns, E distinguishes forperson between first, second, and third; innumber between singular and plural; and, in the case of the first-person plural,between inclusive and exclusivewe. E does not, however, make distinctions forgrammatical gender.[6]
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