Zhuang language

(Redirected from Northern Zhuang language)

The Zhuang language (autonym: Cueŋь/Cuengh; Chinese: 壮语; pinyin: Zhuàngyǔ) is used by the Zhuang people in the People's Republic of China. Most of them live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Zhuang is an official language in that region. Language use is however rapidly declining as the Zhuang assimilate to the Han Chinese.

Standardized Zhuang is based on the dialect of Wuming County (武鸣县).

Bouyei, considered a separate language in China, is actually just a slightly different standard form of Zhuang, used across the province border in Guizhou. There is a dialect continuum between Zhuang and Bouyei.

Zhuang is a tonal language. It has six tones in open syllables:

number	contour	description
1	24	rising
2	31	low falling
3	55	high level
4	42	falling
5	35	high rising
6	33	mid level

It has two (high and low) in closed syllables.

Writing systems

Zhuang had been written with ideographs that were borrowed from Han characters adopted to this language, and original characters made out by using the similar manner of construction, for more than a thousand years, similar to Vietnamese Chu Nom. In 1957, in the People's Republic of China a Latin alphabet with some special letters was introduced to write the new standardised Zhuang language. A spelling reform in 1986 replaced these special letters with regular letters of the Latin alphabet to facilitate printing and the use of computers. The table below compares spelling before and after the 1986 reform.

1957	1986	1957	1986	1957	1986	1957	1986	1957	1986
consonants
B b	B b	Ƃ ƃ	Mb mb	M m	M m	F f	F f	V	V
D d	D d	Ƌƌ	Nd nd	N n	N n	S s	S s	L l	L l
G g	G g	Gv gv	Gv gv	Ŋ ŋ	Ng ng	H h	H h	R r	R r
C c	C c	Y y	Y y	Nv ny	Ny ny	Ŋv ŋv	Ngv ngv
By by	By by	Gy gy	Gy gy	My my	My my

1957	1986	1957	1986	1957	1986
vowels
A a	A a	E e	E e	Ə ə	AE ae
I i	I i	O o	O o	Ɯ ɯ	W w

	1957	1986
tones
1	not indicated
2	Ƨ ƨ	Z z
3	З з	J j
4	Ч ч	X x
5	Ƽ ƽ	Q q
6	Ƅ ƅ	H h

Zhuang language

Writing systems

See also