Caijia language

EN Texto en inglés Aún no hay artículo en tu idioma: extracto en inglés.

Caijia (Chinese: 蔡家话) is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in an area centred on Bijie, in the west of the Chinese province of Guizhou. It was first documented by Chinese researchers in the 1980s. It has been described by different authors as a relative of Bai or an early split from Old Chinese. The autonym is men³¹ni³³. According to Lu (2022), Caijia speakers in Xingfa 兴发乡, Hezhang County refer to their language as meŋ²¹ni³³ŋoŋ³³. Similarities among Old Chinese, Waxiang, Caijia, and Bai have been pointed out by Wu & Shen (2010) and others. Zhengzhang Shangfang (2010) argued that Bai and Caijia formed a Macro-Bai subgroup of Sino-Tibetan. Caijia also appears to be related to the extinct Longjia and Luren languages, but they are too poorly documented for definitive classification. In contrast, Sagart (2011) groups Caijia with Waxiang, a divergent Chinese variety spoken in northwestern Hunan, as the earliest group to split off from Old Chinese. Sagart (2011) lists the following features of Old Chinese retained by both Caijia and Waxiang: Sagart identifies two words as shared innovations: Bijie (1983) reports the Caijia people are found in the seven counties of Bijie prefecture – Qixingguan, Dafang, Qianxi, Zhijin, Nayong, Weining, and Hezhang – comprising a total of over 3,100 households and over 18,000 individuals.