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Map of Waxiang Chinese
Waxiang (simplified Chinese: 瓦乡话; traditional Chinese: 瓦鄉話; pinyin: wǎxiānghuà) is a divergent variety of Chinese, spoken by the Waxiang people, an unrecognized ethnic minority group in the northwestern part of Hunan province, China. Waxiang is a distinct language, very different from its surrounding Southwestern Mandarin, Xiang and Qo Xiong languages.
Contents
Waxiang may share some lexical innovations with Bai, suggesting a possible Macro-Bai substratum. It has also been suggested that perhaps Waxiang is a mixed language of Xiang and Miao.
Distribution
Waxianghua is found in Luxi, Guzhang and Yongshun counties in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Zhangjiajie prefecture-level city (in Dayong 大庸), and Chenxi, Xupu and Yuanling counties in Huaihua prefecture-level city. Neighboring languages include Southwestern Mandarin, Xiang Chinese, Tujia, Qo Xiong, and Hm Nai.
The word Wa 瓦 is only a phonetic transcription.
Wu & Shen (2010) report Waxianghua to be spoken in the following villages.
Liubaohua 六保话, a dialect closely related to Waxianghua, is spoken in several villages in southeastern Guazhang County (including in Shaojitian Village 筲箕田村, Shanzao Township 山枣乡) and parts of Luxi County. Liubaohua is spoken in the following locations (Zou 2013).
Conservative features
Waxiang preserves a number of features of Old Chinese not found in most modern varieties of Chinese, such as the initial *l- (which became a voiced dental stop in Middle Chinese):
Waxiang also has some cases of /z/ for Old Chinese *r- (which became l- in Middle Chinese):
Like Proto-Min, it has affricate initials in a number of words where Middle Chinese has sy-: