| Sui | |
|---|---|
| Suī | |
| Native to | China,Vietnam |
| Region | Guizhou (93%),Guangxi,Yunnan |
| Ethnicity | Sui |
Native speakers | 300,000 (2023)[1] |
| Latin script,[2]Sui script,Chinese characters | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | swi |
| Glottolog | suii1243 |
| Linguasphere | 47-ABB-b |
| 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. | |
TheSui language (simplified Chinese:水语;traditional Chinese:水語;pinyin:Shuǐyǔ) is aKam–Sui language spoken by theSui people ofGuizhou province inChina. According toEthnologue, it was spoken by around 300,000 people in 2007. Sui is also unique for its rich inventory of consonants, with the Sandong (三洞) dialect having as many as 70 consonants.[citation needed] The language also has its own script, known as "Shuishu" (水書) in Chinese, which is used for ritual purposes.
Some regionally atypical features of the Sui language include voiceless nasals (hm, hn),palatalstops,postvelar stops,prenasalized stops (mb, nd), and pre-glottalized stops and nasals (i.e.ʔb,ʔm).
The Sui language is divided into three dialects with minor differences (Wei & Edmondson 2008).[3]
InGuangxi, Sui is spoken by about 10,000 people inRongshui County and 1,900 inNandan County (e.g., in Longmazhuang 龙马庄 of Liuzhai Township 六寨镇, with the autonympu44sui33).[4]
However,Castro (2011) proposes that the Sandong dialect is divided further into two more subdialects, Central (spoken inSandu County) and Southern (spoken inLibo County). Southern Sui speakers are also culturally distinguished by their celebration of theMaox festival instead of theDwac festival, which is celebrated by all other Sui groups. Below are some villages representative of Central and Southern Sui. Castro & Pan (2014) add two more dialects to the Sandong cluster, namely Eastern and Western.
Castro & Pan (2014) consider Sandong to consist of four subdialects, namely Eastern, Western, Central, and Southern, giving the following datapoints.
Using computational phylogenetics, Castro & Pan (2014) classify the Sui dialects as follows. Pandong was the first branch to split off from Proto-Sui, followed by Yang'an and then Sandong. Within Sandong, the Southern dialect is the most divergent.
Sui is also spoken in Hồng Quang Village,Chiêm Hoá District,Tuyên Quang Province (62 km northwest of Chiêm Hóa township).[5] In Vietnam, the Sui people (Vietnamese:Thủy) are officially classified with thePà Thẻn people. The Sui numbered only 55 people as of the 1982 Vietnamese census, and numbered about 100 people as of 2001. SincePa-Hng (Pà Thẻn) andTày are also spoken in Hồng Quang Village, many Sui are also fluent in those two languages.
The elderly Sui people of Hồng Quang claim that 8 Sui families had migrated to Vietnam from China 100 to 200 years ago, 2 of which have now already assimilated into other ethnic groups. Edmondson & Gregerson (2001) have found that the Sui dialect of Hồng Quang is most similar to the Sandong 三洞 dialect of Sui as spoken in Shǔilóng 水龙,Sandu Shui Autonomous County,Guizhou.
Sui has seven vowels,/ieəaaːou/.Diphthongs are/ai̯aːi̯oi̯ui̯au̯aːu̯eu̯iu̯/. There are six or seven tones, reduced to two inchecked syllables. The tones of the Sandu Sui Autonomous County,Guizhou, listed by conventionaltone numbers, are provided below, with numericalChao tone equivalents also given in between slashes.
| # | Sandu Sui county | |
|---|---|---|
| description | IPA | |
| 1 | low rising | ˩˧ /13/ |
| 2 | low falling | ˧˩ /31/ |
| 3 | mid | ˧ /33/ |
| 4 | high falling | ˥˧ /53/ |
| 5 | high rising | ˧˥ /35/ |
| 6 | 6a: high (6b: mid rising) | 6a: ˥ /55/ (6b: ˨˦ /24/) |
| 7 | checked high (checked high rising) | ˥C /55C/ (long: ˧˥C /35C/) |
| 8 | checked falling | ˦˨C /42C/ |
The alternate checked tone 7 is found on the long vowel/aːC/. Tone 8 is somewhat variable on a long vowel, appearing in different locations either higher or lower than the short allophone, but always falling, as in tones 2 and 4.
In some villages, tone 6 is two phonemes,/˨˦/ in native words and/˥/ in Chinese loanwords. In the village of Ngam, Libo county, tone 1 is low[˩], the others as above.
| Labial | Alveolar | (Alveolo)- Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | labialized | |||||||
| Nasals | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ɲ̟̊ | ŋ̊ | ŋ̊ʷ | ||
| voiced | m | n | ɲ̟ | ŋ | ŋʷ | |||
| glottalized | ˀm | ˀn | ˀɲ̟ | ˀŋ | ||||
| Plosives | tenuis | p | t | t̠ʲ | k | kʷ | q | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t̠ʲʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | qʰ | ||
| prenasalizedvoiced | ᵐb | ⁿd | (ɡ) | (gʷ) | (ɢ) | |||
| preglottalized voiced | ˀb | ˀd | (ˀɡ) | |||||
| Affricates | tenuis | ts | ||||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | |||||||
| Fricatives | voiceless | f ~ɸ | s | ɕ | x | h | ||
| voiced | z | (ʑ) | ||||||
| Approximants | voiced | ʋ ~w | l | j | ɣ | ʁ | ||
| glottalized | ˀj | ˀɣ | ˀw | |||||
Consonants in parentheses were reported by the 1956 dialectology studyShuiyu diaocha baogao, but not in Li Fang Kuei's 1942 research inLibo County. (Labio-velars were not listed separately, so it's not clear if they also existed.)
/x/ only occurs phonemically in the Southern Sui dialects./w/ is classed as a labial because it can be followed by a glide/j/./j/ can also be pronounced as a voiced fricative[ʑ]. Theprenasalized stops have very short nasalization. The voiceless nasals are actually voiced at the end, as most voiceless nasals are around the world. The preglottalized stops are truly preglottalized, notejective orcreaky voiced. The gammas have been described as fricatives, but here have been placed in the approximant row because of the preglottalized phone and the frequent ambiguity between dorsal fricatives and approximants.
In several locations in the Sandu Sui Autonomous County, the preglottalized consonants and the voicelesssonorants do not exist, having merged with the other consonants.
Syllable structure isCjVCT, where /j/ may follow one of the labial orcoronal consonants, other than/m̥ʔm/ (and/ʔw/) and the affricates. (/tsj,tsʰj,tsw,tsʰw/ occur in recent Chinese loans.) All syllables start with a consonant, unless initial[ʔ] is analyzed as phonetic detail of an initial vowel. The final C is one of/ptkmnŋ/. Final plosives are both unphonated (have glottal closure) and are unreleased; the coronal is apical alveolar:[ʔ͡p̚,ʔ͡t̚,ʔ͡k̚]. They reduce the tonic possibilities to two, "tones" 7 or 8.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | aaː |
TheSui script (Sui:le1 sui3,[6]Simplified Chinese: 水书,Traditional Chinese: 水書,Pinyin:Shuǐshū) is alogographic writing system with somepictographic characters that can be used to write the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix).[7] However, traditionally only shamans were familiar with the writing system, and it is not utilized for everyday use by ordinary Sui people. This system is used forgeomancy and divination purposes. There are at least 500 different Sui characters, known asle1 sui3 in the Sui language (Wei 2003:xxix). According to tradition, these characters were created byljok8 to2 qong5 (Chinese Lù Duógōng 陸鐸公). Some of these characters are pictorial representations, such as of a bird or a fish, and a few are schematic representations of a characteristic quality, such a snail represented by a drawing of an inward curving spiral. Many of these characters appear to be borrowings fromChinese characters and are written backwards, apparently for increased supernatural power.
Today, the Sui people use written Chinese for their daily activities.
The Sui Latin alphabet was developed in 1956-1957, but was not implemented. In 1986, a new version of the Sui Latin alphabet was developed inSandu Shui Autonomous County. Several books were published in it. It is also taught as an optional subject in schools.[8]
Letters (withIPA pronunciation):
Tones are marked with the following letters:
