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Jino language

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Jino
Jinuo, Buyuan Jino, Youle Jino, 基諾語補遠方言 [1]
Jinuo
Pronunciation[tɕy˦no˦] or [ki˦ɲo˦][2]
RegionSipsongpanna, Dai autonomous prefecture of southern Yunnan (People's Republic of China)
EthnicityJino
Native speakers
21,000 (2007)[3]
Dialects
  • Youle Jino
  • Buyuan Jino
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
jiu – Youle Jinuo
jiy – Buyuan Jinuo
Glottologyoul1235

The Jino language (Jinuo 基諾語;[4] autonyms: tɕy˦no˦, ki˦ɲo˦) constitutes a pair of Loloish language varieties spoken by the Jino people of Yunnan, China.

Varieties

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In total, there are about 28,320 Jinuo people living in China.[5] A total of 70–80% of Jinuo people can speak either of the Jino varieties fluently.[6] The Jino language constitutes the two subdialects of Youle Jino and Buyuan Jinuo,[7] and they are not mutually intelligible.

Buyuan Jino is spoken by 21,000 people;[8] most of the speakers are monolingual, which means they only speak Buyuan Jino.[4] There is no official written form. Most Jino people also speak one of the Tai languages or Chinese. The ISO 639-3 code for the Jino varieties are "jiu" for Youle Jino and "jiy" for Buyuan Jino.[8] The Glottocodes for the Jino varieties are "youl1235" for Youle Jino[9] and "buyu1238" for Buyuan Jino.[10]

Classification

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The exact classification of Jino within the Loloish branch of Sino-Tibetan language family remains uncertain. Jino is classified as a Southern Loloish (Hanoish) language by Ziwo Lama (2012),[2] but as a Central Loloish language by Bradley (2007).[11] Jino is also classified as a Southern Loloish language in Satterthwaite-Phillips' (2011) computational phylogenetic analysis of the Lolo-Burmese languages.[12]

History

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The use of Jino is rapidly declining: in the 1980s, 70–80% of the Jino people used Jino; in 2000, less than 50% of the population could speak Jino.[13]

The Jino people were recognized by the state council on 6 June 1979 as the last recognized minority nationality in China.[13]

Historically, the Jino people were organized as a matriarchal culture, and “Jino” means “descending from the uncle,” and it refers to the importance of mother’s brother in matriarchal societies.[14]

From a language aspect, Jino is similar to other languages under the branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, because the Jino people moved from the northwest of Yunnan province to the territories they are at now, but the timing and routes of this migration remain uncertain.[1]

Geographic distribution

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Jino is spoken in Jinuo Township (Jinuo Mountain), located in Jinghong City of the Sipsongpanna Dai autonomous prefecture of Yunnan province, China.[13]

Tonemes

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The Youle Jino language features five tonemes: /55/, /44/, /33/, /31/, and /35/, with /35/ primarily appearing in loanwords. The tonal system of Jino, as spoken in Baka village, aligns closely with the previously reconstructed *Proto-Lolo tones. Specifically, the *Proto-Lolo H and L tones correspond to Baka’s T1 and T4, respectively, while *Proto-Lolo tone 2 and tone 3 align with Baka’s T2 and T3. Notably, *Proto-Lolo tone 1 has evolved in Baka into a unique tone with variable pitch values, resulting in a distinctive iambic pattern.[15]


There are five tonemes in Buyuan Jino. Gai believes that the function of tonemes are distinguishing lexical meanings and grammatical meanings.[16]

  1. /˥/ (high level tone, 55): it tends to phonetically shorten vowels
  2. /˦/ (mid level tone, 44): lower than 55, though still high
  3. /˧˩/ (low falling tone, 31)
  4. /˧˥/ (rising tone, 35)
  5. /˥˧/ (high falling tone, 53)

/˥˧/ (53) tone is considered difficult to distinguish when listening to a native speaker.[7]

Writing system

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Jino does not have an official writing system, but it developed several systems of signs to cover communication in different situations.[1] The Jino used engraved wooden or bamboo boards to record debts between villages.

Notes

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  1. ^ a b c Arcones, Pedro Ceinos (2013). China's Last But One Matriarchy: The Jino of Yunnan. Kunming: Papers of the White Dragon.
  2. ^ a b Lama (2012)
  3. ^ Youle Jinuo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Buyuan Jinuo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  4. ^ a b "Buyuan Jinuo". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2017-03-08.
  5. ^ "People Group Profiles". Asia Harvest. Retrieved 2017-05-01.
  6. ^ Moseley, Christopher (2012). "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger". UNESCO.
  7. ^ a b Hayashi, Norihiko (2013). "A Sketch of Buyuan Jino Tones and Their Development". Annals of Foreign Studies. 83: 19–34.
  8. ^ a b "Jinuo, Buyuan". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  9. ^ "Jino". Glottolog. Retrieved 2017-03-09.
  10. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Jino". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  11. ^ Bradley, David (2007). "East and Southeast Asia". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.). Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 349–424.
  12. ^ Satterthwaite-Phillips, Damian (2011). Phylogenetic Inference of the Tibeto-Burman Languages or on the Usefulness of Lexicostatistics (and "Megalo"-Comparison) for the Subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman (Ph.D. thesis). Stanford University.
  13. ^ a b c Yuming, Li; Wei, Li (2013). The Language Situation in China. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-1-61451-253-0.
  14. ^ Minahan, James B. (2014). Ethnic Groups of North, East, and Central Asia: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-61069-018-8.
  15. ^ Zhou, Xiaoyu (2024-10-08). "Acoustic experimental study on the tone sandhi of the Jino language". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 47 (2): 254. doi:10.1075/ltba.00021.zho.
  16. ^ Gai, Xingzhi 盖兴之 (1986). Jīnuòyǔ jiǎnzhì 基诺语简志 [A Brief Description of the Jinuo Language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.

References

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  • Lama, Ziwo Qiu-Fuyuan (2012). Subgrouping of Nisoic (Yi) Languages: A Study From the Perspectives of Shared Innovation and Phylogenetic Estimation (Ph.D. thesis). University of Texas at Arlington. hdl:10106/11161.
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