User:Xyuan2/Language selection

I want to work with Frankie Li. His wiki page: wikis.swarthmore.edu/ling073/User:sli5/Language_selection

Here are the three languages I'm interested to work on

Zazaki

Morphological Typology

Zazaki is a synthetic, fusional language, which uses single morphemes to pack multiple grammatical meanings. For example, a single verb ending can indicate person, number, and tense at the same time. Zazaki has adopted some agglutinative behaviors due to long-term contact with Turkish, especially in how it chains certain suffixes for case or derivation. Zazaki's inflectional strategies include suffixation, prefixation, and stem mutation. Suffixation is their dominant strategy for making plurality, case, and verbal agreement. Prefixation is used specifically in the verbal system for negation (e.g. ne-) and moods (e.g. the subjunctive b(i)-). Stem mutation is sometimes used for Zazaki's "Oblique" case and gender system.

Basic information & Demographics

Approximately 1.5-3 million speakers, Zazaki is mainly spoken in Eastern Anatolia (Turkey), specifically in provinces like Tunceli and Diyarbakir. There's a significant diaspora in Germany. Most speakers are bilingual in Turkish and often Kurmanji Kurdish (due to cultural and geographical proximity). Zazaki is rated as "Vulnerable" by UNESCO. While it's stable in some rural areas, urban migration and the dominance of Turkish in schools mean many younger Zazas are shifting to Turkish. Zazaki is primarily written in the Latin script, and there's no single "official" standard, meaning authors often write in their local dialect. However, a group of writers (the Vate group) has been working to create a normative orthography.

ISO Code: zza

Availability of Text

Finding Zazaki text is quite feasible. For example, websites like Zazaki.de and the journals published by the Vate group provide modern prose and poetry.

Wa

Morphological Typology

Wa is primarily an isolating language, meaning it expresses most grammatical relationships through word order and independent particles rather than by changing the form of the word itself, similar to Chinese. It has no inflectional morphology for case, gender, or person.

• Compounding: While isolating, Wa makes heavy use of compounding to create new nouns and verbs.
• Prefixation & Infixation: Historically, Wa used prefixes and infixes for derivation (changing a word's class, e.g., turning a verb into a noun). While many of these are no longer "productive" (meaning you can’t easily make new ones), they remain frozen in the existing vocabulary.
• Lack of Tone: While many neighboring languages are tonal, "Standard" Wa is generally considered a non-tonal, register-tone language. It uses a distinction between "clear" and "breathy" voice vowels to distinguish meanings.

Basic information & Demographics

Approximately 1.2-1.5 million speakers, Wa is primarily spoken in the Wa State, an autonomous region in eastern Myanmar/Burma) and across the border in the Yunnan Province of China. Most speakers are multilingual, typically knowing Mandarin Chinese or Burmese. The language is considered "Vigorous" to "Educational". In the Wa State of Myanmar, it's used in administration and primary education. In China, however, the influence of Mandarin is much stronger. Wa uses Latin Script, which was developed by Christian missionaries and later refined into the "Standard Wa" orthography.

ISO Code: wbm

Availability of Text

Finding Wa text is relatively easy. There are online resources like the Wa Wikipedia and various Christian missionary sites host audio and written scripts. The Wa Bible is a major source of standardized text.

Cham

Morphological Typology

Cham is primarily isolating, though it retains some synthetic features from its Austronesian roots.

• Prefixation & Infixation: While largely isolating today, CHam still uses some affixes for derivation (e.g. prefix pa- creates causative verbs).
• Compounding: This is the primary method for creating new concepts, such as stringing simple roots together to form complex ideas.
• Register and Tone: Western Cham (Cambodia) remains non-total but uses phonation types, while Eastern Cham (Vietnam) has developed into a fully tonal language.
• Inflection: There is no inflectional morphology for case, gender, or number.

Basic information & Demographics

Approximately 200,000-250,000 speakers, the population is split into two main groups, Eastern Cham (Vietnam) and Western Cham (Cambodia/Thailand). Almost all speakers are bilingual in either Vietnamese or Khmer. Cham is rated as "Vulnerable" to "Vigorous". Cham uses Cham Script (Akhar Thrah), which is an ancient Indic-derived script used primarily by Eastern Cham. It also has some Arabic Script and Latin Script.

ISO codes: cja (Western Cham), cjm (Eastern Cham)

Availability of Text

Finding Cham is highly likely but distinguishing between the two dialects is necessary. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is available in Cham, and there are many academic resources available such as A Grammar of Eastern Cham by Phu Van Han.