Talk:Zhuang languages

Question
The article says that was the name of two Tai languages, one in China and one in Vietnam. I've never heard of a language called Zhuang being spoken in Vietnam. The Tày and Nùng of Vietnam live just across the border and I've read that Nùng is similar to Zhuang (but many Tai languages are similar); there is a minority called B&#7889; Y - they are Bouyei who came from China, some of them in Vietnam (in Lào Cai) even don't speak Bouyei but Chinese.

The terms used - Northern Zhuang and Southern Zhuang - seem rather confusing to me. Does "Northern Zhuang" include Bouyei? And what is actually "Southern Zhuang"? Babelfisch, June 14th, 2004


 * I think that person wrote it from Ethnologue.com, which has that division of N & S and spoke Zhuang spoken in China & Vietnam. The person probably meant "one language spoken in two countries" not "2 languages". --Menchi 10:24, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I know nothing (almost nothing) about proper Wiki markup, so I'm going to have to rely on someone else to update the main entry, if you feel my information justifies it. I am a linguist who has worked on a Zhuang language for a number of years.  Yes, the name "Zhuang" is not used in Vietnam, nor was it used in Yunnan or many "Zhuang" areas of Guangxi until the 1950s.  It is the autonym for some "Zhuang" speakers, but now actually designates the official nationality in PRC to which many Northern and Central Taic language speakers belong.  Northern and Central Taic speakers in Viethan are classified int he VN nationalities of Tày, Nùng, Giay and San Chay.  Families and dialects straddle the border so a PRC "Zhuang" person may have a VN "Nùng" cousin.  Regarding "Northern Zhuang" and "Southern Zhuang" these are translations of the primary division used by Chinese linguists within the "Zhuang language" (or group of languages): Zhuang yu, beibu fangyan (Zhuang, Northern dialect/language) and Zhuang yu, nanbu fangyan (Zhuang, Southern dialect/language).  "Northern Zhuang" basically includes the northern Taic languages whose speakers are classified as Zhuang but not Bouyei, "Southern Zhuang" includes the central Taic languages whose speakers are classified as Zhuang but not the central Taic speakers classified within the Dai nationality.

--User: Lug Dih'ndin, 18 May 2011, 18 May 2011 —Preceding undated comment added 06:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC).

Cuengh
So this is supposedly the same language as (Cuengh), of lang-code za:, at least according to the redir there and the main page of za.wikiquote.org ... this should be addressed in the article. +sj +

Yeah, it is. - Mustafaa 21:21, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, the listing of [za] as an ISO 639-1 element and [zha] as an ISO 639-2 element are a little messed up as ISO 639-2 "macrolanguages" are supposed to have a shared history of written usage, literature, etc. like all the Arabic languages, etc. Though there is ancient literature in various Zhuang languages using the fang-kuai (square character) scripts, it was never unified or widely shared. Anyway, yes, all the ISO 639-3 Zhuang languges are linked to ISO 639-1 code [za] and the ISO 639-2 element [zha]. (I'm oversimplifying but basically 639-1 uses two letter codes and deals with languages as used by computing systems and 639-2 deals with shared bodies of literature and literary history, whereas 639-3 which uses three letter codes deals with natural/oral languages.)

"Cuengh" is the spelling of "Zhuang" using the official Zhuang orthography as pronounced in Wuming county Yongbei Zhuang. "Zhuang" is the Hanyu Pinyin Romanization for the Chinese character 壮, used for the language group and the official nationality. This Chinese character replaced the homophonic character 獞 used prior to 1958, because the latter contains the pig radical (as did many other names of Chinese minority groups prior to the 1950s).

--User: Lug Dih'ndin, 18 May 2011

Zhuang siniform script
I think this page should say something more of the old siniform script of the Zhuang, or at least a source should be given for the statement. This is important stuff. --149.159.2.216 02:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A link has now been added to Zhuang logograms which introduces the old sinoform script.Johnkn63 05:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Zhuang language
(Discussion moved from my talk page --Amir E. Aharoni 08:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC))

Shalom Amire,

I notice that you made some comments about references to some changes I made to the Zhuang language page to do with tone numbers. Noting that you mother tongue is Russian you should be in a better position than myself to comment on the Cyrillic based script used for Zhuang, and how many of the letters used are Cryllic, and how many are unique to Zhuang.

I have posted a fuller reply on User talk:Babelfisch.

Please delete this message when it is no longer useful and just taking up space.

Johnkn63 02:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

As to the language Zhuang it is still spoken by over 10 million people - a long way from being extinct. Chinese however is the language used in the classroom. The romanized form is used for official documents, it is one of the five official languages of China and so all national laws must be translated in this. The writing system using Chinese characters has never been standardized, and is mainly used for writing Zhuang folk songs. Children are often raised by grand-parents, and so Zhuang is still to the mother tongue for most Zhuang children to this day. Johnkn63 03:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I was unable to post this on Babalfisch's talk page -- so I will put it here as I know he will look here

Hi again


 * Re the ancient Zhaung dictionary 'contains 4,900 characters and more than 10,000 variants' more accurate would be 'has 4,900 enteries, and contains more than 10,000 different characters in all' (This is the first sentance of the introduction to the dictionary it says 10,700 and 4918.) Using an approximation here is good as neither of these figures is accurate, especially the 10,700 -- there may not even be 10,000 different characters in the dictionary -- unless one adds in the characters included in the example sentances but not in the entries themselves.


 * Re the article itself it would be good if we could agree on a wording that we are both happy with, it would not be productive for things to be changed back and forth again and again. I am more than happy to drop the comment about the use numbers for tones.
 * (1) Even a small change from 'Zhuang had been written with logographs ' to 'Zhuang has been written with logographs'  would be clearer, the sawndip writing system was never official and continues to be used to this day in much the way it always was and the link is more relevant. Or it could be worded so that links to both exist  'Zhuang has been written with  logographs, sometimes called  sawndip'.


 * (2) Describing the 1957 as special letters is not very exact it is a wikipedia policy to be as exact as possible, most of the 'special letters' are Cyrillic letters, and two of the vowels are common ipa symbols.


 * There is enough to say on the Zhuang language to make several pages, there is not much wikipedia material on Zhuang, a collective effort to improve this is best.

Yours sincerely Johnkn63 10:57, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Re User talk:Babelfisch my problem with viewing is that the page only opens as far as the end of point 9. It is point 10 that seems to be the cause, a rather self fulfilling prophercy. No points given for guessing where I am trying to open from . My talk page is open the thread could be moved to there if that helps. Johnkn63 23:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm in Beijing and I have serious problems to access and edit Wikipedia at the moment. My impression is that they've changed the censorship mechanism three days ago, and my favorite workaround doesn't work any more. I wonder if Wikipedia users elsewhere are aware that a quarter of the world doesn't have unrestricted access to Wikipedia. This is the comment I've posted on my talk page:


 * You wrote: "For a reference see Cyrillic alphabet, this is definitely correct. The writting system was designed by Russian nad Chinese linguists in the 1950's and so they naturally used a Cyrillic alphabet."
 * Sorry, this is not correct. Have a look at the section on writing systems in the article on the Zhuang language: The 1957 Zhuang alphabet consists of 18 Latin letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, r, s, v and y) plus 10 non-Latin letters. Of the non-Latin letters, ƽ is definitely not Cyrillic; it marks the 5th tone and looks like a number 5. The letters з, ч and ƅ look like Cyrillic letters, but don't have their sound values; they mark the 3rd, 4th and 6th tones and also look a bit like numbers 3, 4 and 6. The letter ƨ is not Cyrillic; it marks the 2nd tone and could actually be derived from a number 2. The letter ƌ is not cyrillic either. The letter ƃ looks a bit like the cyrillic Ƃ, but it seems more logic that ƃ was derived from b and ƌ from d. The letters ə and ŋ look like IPA letters; both have also been used in both Latin and Cyrillic orthographies of many languages in the Soviet Union, as well as in the Latin orthographies of some minority languages—in Xinjiang and elsewhere—in China. The letter ɯ looks a bit like the Cyrillic ш, but it doesn't have it's sound value.
 * Conclusion: It is a Latin alphabet with 10 extra letters; 5 of them are derived from numbers, 3 from Latin letters and 2 from some phonetic alphabet. Five of the extra letters look a bit like Cyrillic letters, but not a single one has the sound value of the Cyrillic letter it looks like. (The result actually reminds me of the African reference alphabet which was created much later, and other attempts to create new written languages.)
 * I agree that we have to be precise; you should check your sources once more. I really recommend the book by Zhou Minglang. (If you happen to be in Beijing, you can find it in the National Library.)
 * Maybe this discussion should be continued at the talk page of the article in question. —Babelfisch 02:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I too have similar problmes assessing wikipedia -- mentioning where one is, makes blocking easier. The exact rationale behind the 1957 writing system is complex, there is surely a better wording than 'strange letters', I will let you decide. If Minglang suggests that the character based writing system is no longer used he is wrong. Please see talk:Zhuang for more details. To be accurate the article shoudld reflect this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johnkn63 (talk • contribs) 14:13, 10 November 2006.


 * It doesn't say "strange letters", but "special letters". Maybe they should be listed in the text, or we can find another way to phrase that sentence. —Babelfisch 07:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Zhuang
(Discussion moved from my talk page. --Amir E. Aharoni 08:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC) )

Hi Babelfisch,

I saw that you corrected the part about tone-letters in Zhuang. Do you know any more info about this language? The article used to say that it is assimilated by Mandarin and on the way to extinction; I marked it as unsourced, and then someone removed it, but actually it may be true. If you can add something to subject, it will be most helpful. --Amir E. Aharoni 07:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a list of books I've read to the article on the Zhuang language. Having extensively travelled in Guangxi, I also have the impression that Zhuang is on the way to extinction, but at the moment I can't quote any sources that would conform to Wikipedia policies. —Babelfisch 08:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello The list of references is very good. Many talk about the writing system based on Chinese charcters. Therefore the link to [[Zhuang logogram]s is valuable, as it is the only wikipedia article on these. The difference in terminology logogram vs logograph is a little unsightly, if they were changed to match that would read better.

The information put in re tone-letters had two parts to it, firstly that the change in 1986 was from a Cyrillic alphabet to an English or Latin alphabet. For a reference see Cyrillic alphabet, this is definitely correct. The writting system was designed by Russian nad Chinese linguists in the 1950's and so they naturally used a Cyrillic alphabet. Second the change from numbers to letters, exact wording here might be in questionable in the 1957 Cyrillic Zhuang the second to sixth tones are marked by final letters that look like 2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively, the similarity is very close in the 1957 system, these in 1986 were changed to z,j,x,q, and h of which look a little like 2,3,4,5, and 6. z,j,x, and q only represent tones, h can also represent sounds. It is much clearer to talk about the Cyrillic alphabet than about "a Latin alphabet with some special letters". The comment about tone numbers could be left out as the visual data already shows this.

A lot of work has gone into this page, a link to Zhuang logogram and a clear mention of the Cyrillic alphabet would add to it. Added by Johnkn63. Nov 8 10.01 (Chinese time)

PS I have edited this -- however it seems there shouls be a way to post a reply I would be grateful to know how to post replies in the normal way. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Johnkn63 (talk • contribs) 10:07, 8 November 2006.


 * Hi again


 * Re the ancient Zhaung dictionary 'contains 4,900 characters and more than 10,000 variants' more accurate would be 'has 4,900 enteries, and contains more than 10,000 different characters in all' (This is the first sentance of the introduction to the dictionary it says 10,700 and 4918.) Using an approximation here is good as neither of these figures is accurate, especially the 10,700 -- there may not even be 10,000 different characters in the dictionary -- unless one adds in the characters included in the example sentances but not in the entries themselves.
 * Re the article itself it would be good if we could agree on a wording that we are both happy with, it would not be productive for things to be changed back and forth again and again. I am more than happy to drop the comment about the use numbers for tones.
 * (1) Even a small change from 'Zhuang had been written with logographs ' to 'Zhuang has been written with logographs'  would be clearer, the sawndip writing system was never official and continues to be used to this day in much the way it always was and the link is more relevant. Or it could be worded so that links to both exist  'Zhuang has been written with  logographs, sometimes called  sawndip'.
 * (2) Describing the 1957 as special letters is not very exact it is a wikipedia policy to be as exact as possible, most of the 'special letters' are Cyrillic letters, and two of the vowels are common ipa symbols.
 * There is enough to say on the Zhuang language to make several pages, there is not much wikipedia material on Zhuang, a collective effort to improve this is best.
 * Yours sincerely Johnkn63 10:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * You wrote: "For a reference see Cyrillic alphabet, this is definitely correct. The writting system was designed by Russian nad Chinese linguists in the 1950's and so they naturally used a Cyrillic alphabet."
 * Sorry, this is not correct. Have a look at the section on writing systems in the article on the Zhuang language: The 1957 Zhuang alphabet consists of 18 Latin letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, r, s, v and y) plus 10 non-Latin letters. Of the non-Latin letters, ƽ is definitely not Cyrillic; it marks the 5th tone and looks like a number 5. The letters з, ч and ƅ look like Cyrillic letters, but don't have their sound values; they mark the 3rd, 4th and 6th tones and also look a bit like numbers 3, 4 and 6. The letter ƨ is not Cyrillic; it marks the 2nd tone and could actually be derived from a number 2. The letter ƌ is not cyrillic either. The letter ƃ looks a bit like the cyrillic Ƃ, but it seems more logic that ƃ was derived from b and ƌ from d. The letters ə and ŋ look like IPA letters; both have also been used in both Latin and Cyrillic orthographies of many languages in the Soviet Union, as well as in the Latin orthographies of some minority languages—in Xinjiang and elsewhere—in China. The letter ɯ looks a bit like the Cyrillic ш, but it doesn't have it's sound value.
 * Conclusion: It is a Latin alphabet with 10 extra letters; 5 of them are derived from numbers, 3 from Latin letters and 2 from some phonetic alphabet. Five of the extra letters look a bit like Cyrillic letters, but not a single one has the sound value of the Cyrillic letter it looks like. (The result actually reminds me of the African reference alphabet which was created much later, and other attempts to create new written languages.)
 * I agree that we have to be precise; you should check your sources once more. I really recommend the book by Zhou Minglang. (If you happen to be in Beijing, you can find it in the National Library.)
 * Maybe this discussion should be continued at the talk page of the article in question. —Babelfisch 02:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Zhuang.PNG
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Zhuang is not a unified language
"Zhuang" is a cover term used for many divergent languages. In fact, all of the Southwestern Tai languages (Thai, Lao, Shan, Ahom) are more related to each other than Southern Zhuang varieties are to each other! Here's the tree from the Tai languages article:


 * Proto-Tai
 * A
 * F - Lungchow, Leiping
 * E
 * H - Lungming, Daxin
 * G
 * L - Debao, Jingxi, Nung
 * K
 * P - Bao Yen, Cao Bang, Wenma
 * O
 * R - Sapa
 * Q - Shan, Siamese, Black Tai, Lue, other Southwestern Tai
 * D
 * I - Qinzhou
 * J
 * M - Wuming, Yongnan, Long'an, Fusui
 * N - Saek, Po-ai, Yay, Lingyue, Rong'an, Qinbei, Bouyei, other Northern Tai
 * B - Ningming
 * C - Chongzuo, Shangsi, Caolan

Except for group K, every one of those other varieties fall under the label "Zhuang." This is because "Zhuang" is an identity recently created by the Chinese Communist government (cf. Creating the Zhuang by Kaufman). &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

As always there is the question of what one calls a different language and what one calls a different dialect. The fact that in ISO-639-3 Zhuang is divided into 16 different parts confirms the diversity. The above tree has both northern and southern Zhuang lects, also for example it uses Debao and Jingxi, place names, rather than talk abouts the dialects there. Pittayaporn's work is certainly interesting.Johnkn63 (talk) 06:16, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Ask some linguists and Chinese isn't a unified language either. Some argue that the difference between Taiwanese Min and Cantonese is greater than the difference between Romanian and Italian, and many Chinese languages are not mutually intelligible. Similarly, the Japanese government officially classifies the Ryukyuan languages as a "dialect" of Japanese. After all, a language is a dialect with an army and navy. What makes something a dialect, and what makes something a language? Ask three different people, and you will probably get seven different answers. --  李博杰  &#124; —Talk contribs email 13:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The difference here is that, per either Ethnologue or Pittayaporn, the only valid "Zhuang" node is Tai: if the different varieties of Zhuang are a single language, then Siamese, Lao, Shan, and Ahom are varieties of the Zhuang language as well. That is, Zhuang as currently understood is either polyphyletic or paraphyletic; the ancestor of Zhuang is the ancestor of all Tai languages. This is different from Chinese and Lewchew, which are monophyletic (single, well-defined nodes). Regardless of whether you consider them to be single languages or not, the immediate ancestor of Chinese is not the ancestor of anything else, with the possible exceptions of Dungan and Bai, and likewise with Lewchew. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Confusion regarding Thai and Tai
I became quite confused about the use of the terms Tai and Thai in the Introduction. (The latter term occurs only two times in the article— excluding the References section—both in the Introduction.) Are they intended to be synonyms? The sentence containing "the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, when the Tai who remained in China began to take family names" was the one that confused me the most. Is there any way that the Introduction could be rewritten—or perhaps provide a supplementary explanation— to make it clearer?Ricklaman (talk) 07:40, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * They're quite distinct. The following should be distinguished: Tai languages, Southwestern Tai languages Thai languages, Thai language. --JorisvS (talk) 09:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Pittayawat Pittayaporn claims that proto-Tai has no voicless aspiration, i.e /tʰ/, /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /cʰ/. Therefore, the word Thai /tʰai/ may be a current evolution of Tai /tai/ because the autonym "Thai" can be found not only in the speakers of Central Thai in Bangkok and its surrounding area, but also in some Tai groups in Guangxi that are now labeled as "Zhuang", such as in Longzhou one could find a group calling themselves as Pho Thai /pʰo tʰai/. Bookworm8899 (talk) 18:22, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

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 * Also removed this link from the further reading section for now, as User:Johnkn63 had requested. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 16:05, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Miyake, Marc. 2011. Sawgun stratography?


 * Thank you for removing this. There is still the question as to how many of the other links should remain. The items are all short, mainly off topic and have inaccuracies. Even basic facts are manifestly incorrect, the item The roots of rawness says "Tones 7 and 8 are identical to 5 and 6" which is simply not true. If this were a wikipeddia article we could change it, but it is not, but we can not, therefore surely the correct thing to do is not link to it. Links should be to items that reliable. Johnkn63 (talk) 05:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * To use the termminology of Further reading the links in general do not meet the first criteria of being 'topical' more importantly they are neither 'reliable' nor balanced. It should also be noted that further reading lists should be 'limited' in length not exhaustive, that means significant works which these most certainly are not. Johnkn63 (talk) 11:11, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The way ahead is to add links to significant works. Links to very short, off topic, unreliable blogs is not the way.Johnkn63 (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Miyake, Marc. 2012.3itting on fire moved to talk as this 22 line long blog is almost entirely comments on the 14 characters used for naengh in Sawndip Sawdenj so off topic, and unbalanced as makes no reference to other authors explanations of said characters.Johnkn63 (talk) 16:36, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Miyake, Marc. 2011. The roots of rawness moved to talk as inaccurate (see above) and off topic. Johnkn63 (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Moved as of topic Miyake, Marc. 2012. Pondering over water. 2012. Speaking of heaven in Zhuang.Johnkn63 (talk) 07:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)


 * All right, makes sense, looks like we'll keep these links here for now. &mdash; Stevey7788 (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you.Johnkn63 (talk) 07:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Hanyu Pinyin problems
There are several incorrect Hanyu Pinyin words on this page. Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
Old link from Baiyue that would be helpful for some historical bits here and/or at Kam-Thai languages. Very cursory treatment but shows where recent Chinese scholarship is at on the topic. — Llywelyn II   08:59, 2 September 2023 (UTC)