The Zhuang language (autonym: Cuengh or Cueŋь; 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, which belongs to the Tai language group, is an official language in that region. Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Tai-Kadai languages are a language family found in Southeast Asia and southern China. ... The Tai languages are a subgroup of the Tai Kadai language family. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Zhuang language (autonym: Cuengh; Chinese: 壮语; pinyin: Zhuàngyǔ) is used by the Zhuang people in the Peoples Republic of China. ... The Zhuang language (autonym: Cuengh; Chinese: 壮语; pinyin: Zhuàngyǔ) is used by the Zhuang people in the Peoples Republic of China. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... An ethnonym (Gk. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ... The Zhuang (Simplified Chinese: 壮族; Traditional Chinese: 壯族; Hanyu Pinyin: ; own name: BouчcueÅ‹ÑŒ/Bouxcuengh) are an ethnic group of people who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. ... Guangxi (Zhuang: Gvangjsih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ«; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi), full name Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西壮族自治区; Traditional Chinese: 廣西壯族自治區; Pinyin: GuÇŽngxÄ« Zhuàngzú ZìzhìqÅ«) is a Zhuang autonomous region of... The Tai languages are a subgroup of the Tai Kadai language family. ... An official language is a language that is given a unique legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. ...

Standardized Zhuang is based on the dialect of Wuming County (武鸣县). Buyei, 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 Buyei. The Buyi or Bouyei people (Self called: Puyi, Puzhong, Burao, Puman; Chinese: 布依族; pinyin: bùyī zú) are an ethnic group living in southern Peoples Republic of China. ... (Simplified Chinese: 贵州; Traditional Chinese: è²´å·ž; pinyin: Gùizhōu; Wade-Giles: Kuei-chou; also spelled Kweichow) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ...

Zhuang is a tonal language. It has six tones in open syllables: This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ...

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

Writing systems

books of Zhuang language

Zhuang had been written with logographs called sawndip 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 Chữ nôm. Sawndip are used for writing songs about every aspect of life, including in more recent times encouraging people to follow official family planning policy. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 794 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (980 × 740 pixel, file size: 94 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 794 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (980 × 740 pixel, file size: 94 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms. ... Zhuang logograms or sawndip is a logogram created as a derivative characters of Han characters and used by Zhuang in Guangxi, China. ... Various styles of Chinese calligraphy. ... Chữ nôm (𡦂喃 lit. ...

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.^[1] Year 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar). ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ...

The tables below compare spelling before and after the 1986 reform.

A 1980 Chinese 10 Yuan bill bears the 1957 Zhuang text: Cuŋƅgoƨ Yinƨminƨ Yinƨhaŋƨ cib mənƨ.

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Collection of Chinese yuan (renminbi) paper currency. ...

Bibliography

• Wéi Qìngwěn 韦庆稳, Tán Guóshēng 覃国生: Zhuàngyǔ jiǎnzhì 壮语简志 (Beijing, Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社 1980).
• Tán Xiǎoháng 覃晓航: Xiàndài Zhuàngyǔ 现代壮语 (Beijing, Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社 1995).
• Tán Guóshēng 覃国生: Zhuàngyǔ fāngyán gàilùn 壮语方言概论 (Nanning, Guǎngxī mínzú chūbǎnshè 广西民族出版社 1996).
• Liáng Tíngwàng 梁庭望 (ed.): Gǔ Zhuàngzì wénxiàn xuǎnzhù 古壮字文献选注 (Tiānjīn gǔjí chūbǎnshè 天津古籍出版社 1992).
• Zhāng Yuánshēng 张元生: Zhuàngzú rénmín de wénhuà yíchǎn – fāngkuài Zhuàngzì 壮族人民的文化遗产——方块壮字. In: Zhōngguó mínzú gǔ wénzì yánjiū 中国民族古文字研究 (Beijing, Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè 中国社会科学出版社 1984).
• Lín Fāng 林方: Tán lìyòng gǔ Zhuàngzì yánjiū Guǎngxī Yuèyǔ fāngyán 谈利用古壮字研究广西粤语方言. In: Mínzú yǔwén 民族语文 2004.3:16–26.
• Gǔ Zhuàngzì zìdiǎn 古壮字字典 (Nanning, Guǎngxī mínzú chūbǎnshè 广西民族出版社 1989). Dictionary of old Zhuang characters; contains 4,900 entries and more than 10,000 characters.
• Zhuàng-Hàn cíhuì 壮汉词汇 (Nanning, Guǎngxī mínzú chūbǎnshè广西民族出版社 1984).

External links

• Unicode Latin Extended-B code chart specifies the Unicode characters to be used for the Zhuang special letters
• Omniglot - Zhuang language & alphabet
• - The Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing's introduction to sawndip that mentions usages both ancient and modern

Footnotes

1. ^ Minglang Zhou: Multilingualism in China: the politics of writing reforms for minority languages 1949-2002 (Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter 2003), ISBN 3-11-017896-6, p. 251–258.

See also

Zhuang language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Zhuang people
• Languages of China