| Tsat | |
|---|---|
| Hainan Cham | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Hainan |
| Ethnicity | Utsul |
Native speakers | 4,500 (2007)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | huq |
| Glottolog | tsat1238 |
| ELP | Tsat |
Tsat, also known asUtsat,Utset,Hainan Cham, orHuihui (simplified Chinese:回辉语;traditional Chinese:回輝語;pinyin:Huíhuīyǔ), is anAustronesian language spoken by 4,500Utsul people in the Huihui and Huixin villages near the city ofSanya inHainan,China.
Hainan Cham offers an extreme example of change throughlanguage contact. Its phonology, word structure, and grammar have all been extensively influenced by neighbouringHlai andSinitic languages, making it a member of theMainland Southeast Asian linguistic area in contrast to other Austronesian languages.
Tsat is a member of theMalayo-Polynesian group within the Austronesian language family, and is one of theChamic languages originating on the coast of present-dayVietnam. It is thus closely related toAcehnese,Cham andJarai.
The origins of the Utsul are obscure. Though they are undoubtedly Cham, and therefore primarily descended from immigrants from theChampa states of modern-day southern Vietnam, it is unclear when they arrived in Hainan and to what extent otherHui Muslim groups contributed to their ethnogenesis. Thurgood, Thurgood, and Li (2014) record several traditional accounts, which mentionTang-dynastyXinjiang,SongGuangdong, and post-Vijaya Champa as distinct legendary origins of the Utsul people.[2] These accounts - all of which are considered to have some basis in historical fact - reveal a strong emphasis on Muslim religious identity rather than ethnolinguistic heritage, compounded by the conflation of Muslims in the region as "Hui" regardless of language. A migration from Champa after 968 AD (the fall ofIndrapura) appear to be the most significant contributor to the modern Utsul identity, although another migration in the fifteenth century is also recorded in Chinese texts.
Thurgood, Thurgood, and Li's grammar distinguishes between an older form of the language, "Colloquial Cham", and a more recent "Mandarinised" version. Their source for the former is Li and Thompson's 1981 research among speakers since deceased; it is doubtful whether the less Mandarinised variety is still spoken in Sanya.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ||||
| Affricate | ts | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h | |||
| voiced | v | z | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | aaː |
Though descended fromOld Cham, which - like mostAustronesian languages in Asia - is characterized by absence of phonemictone and overwhelmingly disyllabic roots, intensive contact withHlai andSinitic languages has influenced Hainan Cham to become a primarily monosyllabic, heavily tonal language.
Most lexical items in Hainan Cham are monosyllabic, but native vocabulary can often be traced to disyllabic roots in Proto-Chamic. There are three processes by which an earlier (Austronesian or Chamic) disyllable has become a monosyllable in Hainan Cham:
| Process | Non-HC Austronesian | HC | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loss of medial /-h-/ | tahun (Malay) | thun³³ | year |
| Diphthongisation of /-r-, -l-/ | *bulan (Proto-Chamic) | pʰian²¹ | moon |
| Initial syllable deletion | *basah (Proto-Chamic) | sa⁵⁵ | damp |
Hainan Cham tones correspond to variousProto-Chamic sounds.[4]
| Tone value (Hainan Cham) | Type of tone (Hainan Cham) | Proto-Chamic final sound |
|---|---|---|
| 55 | High | *-h, *-s;PAN *-q |
| 42 | Falling | *-p, *-t, *-k, *-c, *-ʔ Voiceless final: voiced stop / affricate (pre-)initial[a] *-ay, *-an[b] |
| 24 | Rising | *-p, *-t, *-k, *-c, *-ʔ Voiceless final: default |
| 11 | Low | Vowels and nasals, *-a:s Voiced final: voiced stop / affricate (pre-)initial[a] |
| 33 | Mid | Vowels and nasals, *a:s Voiced final: default |
Like other languages of the Mainland Southeast Asian area, Tsat grammar isanalytic, making use of word order,adpositions, and phonologically independentmodifiers instead of bound affixes. In several aspects, Tsat grammar mirrorsMandarin structures exactly; however, these features are not always loaned in full but rathercalqued from native Austronesian roots.
Most simple nouns are monosyllabic:pʰe²¹ "sheep",piaʔ²⁴ "silver". Noun-noun or classifier-noun compounding is very common. In contrast to Sinitic languages, native noun-noun compounds in Tsat are of the order (modified [modifier]), e.g.siawʔ²⁴ka:n³³ "fin" ("wing" + "fish"); this is also the case in other Cham languages. Only a few recent loans from Mandarin are of the order ([modifier] modified), e.g.sa:n²¹ŋa:t²⁴ "birthday" ("birth" + "day").