Native to China Native speakers 30,000 (2005) | Ethnicity 107,000 (2000) ISO 639-3 mmd | |
Region Huanjiang County, Hechi, northern Guangxi Language family Tai–Kadai
Kam–Sui
Maonan | ||
The Maonan language is a Kam–Sui language spoken mainly in Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Hechi, northern Guangxi by the Maonan people.
Contents
Demographics
Approximately half of all Maonan people are capable of speaking Maonan. In addition to this, many Maonan also speak Chinese or a Zhuang language. About 1/3 of all people who self-identify as Maonan are concentrated in the southern Guizhou province. They speak a mutually unintelligible dialect commonly called Yanghuang, which is more common known as the Then language in Western literature. The Maonan do not have a writing system.
Other than Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County in Guangxi, Maonan is also spoken in the following locations.
Phonology
Maonan is a tonal language with 8 tones (Lu 2008:90–91), featuring an SVO clause construction (Lu 2008:169). For example, man (he/she) shoot (drink) ka:u (wine) "He/She drinks wine", man (he/she) ba:i (go) hə (market) "He/She goes to the market", etc.
Syntax
Maonan displays a head-first modification structure, i.e. the modifier occurring after the modifier (Lu 2008:170). For example, ka:u (wine) hulia:ng (broomcorn) "broomcorn wine", mu (pig) la:u (big) "big pig", nok (bird) vin (fly) "flying bird", among others. Occasionally, a head-final modification structure is also possible with the involvement of a possessive particle (P.P.) di, e.g. ya:n (house/family) nda:u (we/our) di (P.P.) bo (buffalo) "Our family's buffalo" (cf. the more common bo ya:n nda:u) (ibid. pp173–174).