User:Slu4/LanguageSelection

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Language 1: Dungan

Introduction

Dungan is primarily an isolating/analytic language, similar to other Sinitic varieties like Mandarin Chinese. The language relies heavily on word order and particles rather than inflectional morphology to express grammatical relationships. However, Dungan shows some agglutinative tendencies particularly in its borrowings from Russian, which can take productive morphological affixes.

Language family:
Sino-Tibetan

└ Sinitic
└ Chinese
└ Mandarin
└ Central Plains Mandarin
└ Dungan

Basic Information

  • Speakers: 145,000 (2009-2021) [1]
  • Location: Chu Valley (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan), Altai Krai, Saratov Oblast (Rovensky District) (Russia), Fergana Valley (Uzbekistan)
  • Other languages: Speakers are typically bilingual in Russian and/or local Turkic languages (Kyrgyz, Kazakh). Younger generations increasingly speak Russian as a dominant language.
  • Status: Classified as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO. While the Dungan maintained high language retention rates (95%) during the Soviet period, post-Soviet language shift toward Russian has accelerated. The language is used in schools in some Dungan villages, and there is a weekly Dungan-language newspaper
  • Orthography: Dungan is unique among Sinitic languages in being written with the Cyrillic alphabet (since 1952). Previously written in Arabic script (Xiao'erjing) until banned in 1925 [2], then briefly in Latin script (Yañalif) from 1928-1952. Currenly, Dungan is re-included into the Chinese writing system with varies publication in academia and daily basis written in Simplified Chinese. Dungan has three tones, but they are generally not marked in everyday writing but sometimes appear in dictionaries.
  • ISO 639-3: dng

Text Resources

Texts in daily life written in Cyrillic Dungan are hard to find due to its position seems to be largely replaced by Chinese.

Language 2: Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec

Introduction

Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec is primarily an isolating language with minimal inflectional morphology, typical of Zapotecan languages. TdVZ's verbs has aspect and mood marker through prefixes and clitics. Nouns barely have morphology; plurality and possession are indicated through separated elements. TdVZ also exhibits some productive derivational processes including causative prefixation and a derivational prefix /ʂ-/ for inherently possessed nouns. Like other Zapotec varieties, the language is tonal, with pitch distinctions that can change word meaning.

Language family:
Oto-Manguean

└ Zapotecan
└ Zapotec
└ Central Zapotec
└ Valley Zapotec
└ Western Tlacolula Valley Zapotec
└ Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec

Basic Information

  • Speakers: Zapotec languages as a whole has considerable amount of speakers. However, TdVZ is severely endangered. Exact speaker numbers are difficult to determine. [3]
  • Location: Teotitlán del Valle, Tlacolula District, Oaxaca, Mexico. The town is located in the Tlacolula Valley, approximately 31 km east of Oaxaca City in the foothills of the Sierra Juárez mountains. The community is known internationally for its wool weavings and rugs.
  • Other languages: Nearly all speakers are bilingual in Spanish. Most speakers today are elderly, with younger generations increasingly Spanish-dominant.
  • Status: Endangered. Recent revitalization efforts have been undertaken, however, including the development of teaching materials and the Zapotec Talking Dictionary project. The community has attempted to include Zapotec in preschool education, though teaching strategies have had limited effectiveness.[4]
  • Orthography: Uses Latin alphabet with some variation between orthographic systems. Core consonants include: p, t, c/qu, b, d, f, g/gu, j, ts, z, r, rr, y. Vowels include: a, e, i, o, u, ë. Tone is generally not marked in practical orthographies. Tones features laryngeal modifications on vowels (checked and laryngealized vowels). Very few speakers are literate in the language.
  • ISO 639-3: zab

Text Resources

Language 3: Situ Rgyalrong

Introduction

Situ Rgyalrong is a polysynthetic language with complex morphology representing one of the most morphologically intricate language families in East Asia. The language shows both agglutinative (transparent) and fusional (cumulative) morphological characteristics. Verbs in Situ can form complete sentences through a single polysynthetic word. The language has SOV basic word order and is tonal (unlike Japhug Rgyalrong, which is toneless). [5]

Language family:
Sino-Tibetan

└ Tibeto-Burman (Burmo-Qiangic)
└ Qiangic
└ Rgyalrongic
└ Rgyalrong
└ Situ

Basic Information

  • Speakers: Estimates vary significantly depending on sources and dialect classification:
    • Gates (2012): 35,000-40,000 speakers across 57 villages
    • Other estimates: Over 100,000 speakers (the most widely spoken Rgyalrong variety)
    • Total for all Rgyalrong varieties combined: approximately 85,000-125,000 speakers
  • Location: Northwestern Sichuan Province, China, primarily in:
    • Southern half of Ma'erkang (Barkam, 'Bar-kams) County (53 villages), including Zhuokeji, Ma'erkang, and Songgang (rDzong-'gag) Townships
    • Jinchuan (Chu-chen) County (4 villages), Jimu (Kye-mo) Township
    • Northwestern Li County
    • Southernmost Hongyuan County (recent migrants)
  • Other languages: Speakers are multilingual, typically speaking Southwestern Mandarin Chinese and often local varieties of Khams or Amdo Tibetan. Younger generations are increasingly Mandarin-dominant. The autonym for the language is pronounced [kəru] in Situ.
  • Status: Endangered. All Rgyalrong varieties face significant language shift pressure from Mandarin Chinese due to national education policies emphasizing Chinese-medium instruction and socioeconomic integration. The language was historically spoken by descendants of Tibetan warriors who settled in border regions. Rgyalrong speakers were previously classified as an independent ethnicity but were merged into the Tibetan ethnicity by the Chinese government in 1954. Some documentation and revitalization efforts have begun, though they remain limited.
  • Orthography: No standardized orthography exists. Various writing systems have been used:
    • Traditional Tibetan script (among some speakers and in historical documents)
    • Chinese characters (occasionally, particularly in official contexts)
    • IPA-based transcription systems in linguistic research
  • ISO 639-3: jya

Text Resources

The language is moderately well-documented in academic publications, particularly through the extensive work of Chinese and international linguists over the past several decades. Since rGyalrong has so many variations, some of the recources would not be completely useful. Nevertheless, the resources for even a single dialect of Situ recorded in one single location would already be abundant for basic computational linguistics research.

References

  1. ↑ Dungan at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
  2. ↑ Dietrich, Ayşe. "Soviet and Post-soviet Language Policies in The Central Asian Republics and The Status of Russian". Ayk.gov.tr. S2CID 173988643.
  3. ↑ Uchihara, Hiroto, and Ambrocio Gutiérrez. 2020. "Open and Closed Mid-Front Vowels in Teotitlán Del Valle Zapotec". Phonological Data and Analysis 2 (7):1–22.
  4. ↑ Velasco Zarate, Karla & Reyes Garcia, Cayetano. (2015). Revitalizing the original language in Teotitlán del Valle. ICERI2015 Proceedings.
  5. ↑ Gates, Jesse P. 2012. "Situ in Situ: Towards a Dialectology of Jiarong (rGyalrong)." PhD dissertation, Trinity Western University.
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