Baima language

Baima
Pe
白马语
Pronunciation/pe˥˧/
Native toChina
RegionSichuan and Gansu
Ethnicity14,000 Baima people (2007)[1]
Native speakers
10,000 (2007)[1]
Dialects
  • Northern Baima, Southern Baima, Western Baima
Language codes
ISO 639-3bqh
Glottologbaim1244
ELPBaima
Baima is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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Baima (autonym: pe˥˧)[2] is a language spoken by 10,000 Baima people,[3] of Tibetan ethnicity,[citation needed] in north-central Sichuan Province and Gansu Province, China.[3] Baima is passed on from parents to children in Baima villages. It is spoken within the home domain and is not used in any media of mass communication.[3]

Baima uses subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, word-initial consonant clusters and is tonal. It is unclassified within Sino-Tibetan; there are multiple layers of borrowings from Amdo, Khams, and Zhongu Tibetan, as well as lexical and grammatical connections with Qiangic languages. Basic vocabulary is about 85% Tibetic and 15% Qiangic, and the Tibetic words do not link to any established group of Tibetic languages. Chirkova (2008) suggests that the Qiangic vocabulary "might be a retention from the language originally spoken by the Báimǎ before their shift to a form of Tibetic in the 7th century." She accepts Baima as Tibetan, but as an isolate within the Tibetic languages.[4]

  1. ^ a b Baima at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Sun2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b c "Did you know Baima is threatened?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  4. ^ Katia Chirkova, 2008, "On the position of Báimǎ within Tibetan", in Lubotsky et al (eds), Evidence and Counter-Evidence, vol. 2.