Muya language

Muya
Muya
Munya
Native to	China
Region	Sichuan
Native speakers	Eastern: 2,000 (2020); Western: 12,000 (2020)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Qiangic Northern Muya; ; ; ;
Dialects	East; West;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either:; emq – Eastern Minyag; wmg – Western Minyag
Glottolog	muya1239
ELP	Muya
	Muya is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Munya or Muya (simplified Chinese: 木雅语; traditional Chinese: 木雅語; also Manyak 曼牙科,^[2] Menia 么呢阿;^[3] Tibetan: མི་ཉག, Wylie: Mi nyak, THL: Minyak^[4]) is one of the Qiangic languages spoken in China. There are two dialects, Western and Eastern, which are not mutually intelligible. Most research on Munya has been conducted by Ikeda Takumi. There are about 2,000 monolinguals.

Names

The language has been spelled in various ways, including Manyak, Menya, Minyag, and Minyak. Other names for the language are Boba and Miyao.

Dialects

Ethnologue (21st edition) lists two Muya dialects, namely Eastern (Nyagrong) and Western (Darmdo). Muya is spoken in

Sun (1991) documents Muya (木雅) of Liuba Township (六坝乡), Shade District (沙德区), Kangding County (康定县), Sichuan.^[5]

Phonology

Consonants^[6]
		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	oral	p b	t d			k g	q ɢ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ	qʰ
	prenasalized	ᵐpʰ ᵐb	ⁿtʰ ⁿd			ᵑkʰ ᵑg	ᶰqʰ ᶰɢ
Affricate	oral		ts dz	ʈʂ ɖʐ	tɕ dʑ
	aspirated		tsʰ	ʈʂʰ	tɕʰ
	prenasalized		ⁿtsʰ ⁿdz	ⁿʈʂʰ ⁿɖʐ	ⁿtɕʰ ⁿdʑ
Fricative		f v	s z	ʂ ʐ	ɕ ʑ	x ɣ	χ ʁ	h ɦ
Nasal		m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Approximant		w	l		j

/ʑ/ can sometimes be heard as [r].

Vowels^[6]
	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Central	Back
High	i ĩ	y	ɯ ɯ̰	u ũ
Mid-high	e ẽ	ø		o õ
Mid-low	ɛ ɛ̃			ɔ
Low	æ æ̰		ɐ ɐ̰	ɑ ɑ̃

Additionally, the following diphthongs have been observed: /yi/, /ui/, /ie/, /ye/, /ue/, /uø/, /iɛ̃/, /yɛ/, /yɛ̃/, /uɛ/, /uæ/, /uæ̰/, /yɐ/, /yɐ̰/, /uɐ/, /yɯ/, /uɯ/, /yɑ/, /yɑ̃/, /uɑ/.

Muya also has four tones:^[6]

[ ˥ ] - high, level
[ ˥˧ ] - high-falling
[ ˧˥ ] - high-rising
[ ˧ ] - mid, level

Popular culture

In 2008, Bamu, a singer with the Jiuzhaigou Art Troupe in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, recorded an album of Muya songs (木雅七韵).^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b Eastern Minyag at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Western Minyag at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ "Manyak" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-11-02 – via Asia Harvest.
^ "Menia" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10 – via Asia Harvest.
^ "Minyak". places.kmaps.virginia.edu. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
^ Sun (1991), p. 219
^ ^a ^b ^c Namkung, Ju (1996). Matisoff, James A. (ed.). "Phonological Inventories of Tibeto-Burman Languages" (PDF). Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Monograph Series (3). University of California, Berkeley.
^ Huang, Zhiling (2014-05-27). "Chasing the Fading Music". China Daily USA. One woman's passion for the songs of a remote ethnic people may save not only the Muya's music, but the language itself. Huang Zhiling reports from Chengdu. Muya music might already be lost if Yang Hua had not given up her job as a mathematics teacher." ..."After the recording was over, Bamu told Yang it was a folk song of the Muya people. The song told how a girl working outside her hometown misses her mom, who says jewelry does not mean anything if one is not educated, and the singer wishes her mom good health. "It was the first time I heard the word 'Muya'," Yang says.

Bibliography

Bai, Junwei (2019). A Grammar of Munya (PhD thesis). James Cook University. doi:10.25903/2SHV-X307.
Drolma, Dawa; Suzuki, Hiroyuki (2016). Preliminary report on the Darmdo Minyag linguistic area, with a geolinguistic description of terms for ‘sun’.

Studies in Asian Geolinguistics 1. 72–78.

Ikeda, Takumi (1998). "Mùyǎyǔ yǔyīn jiégòu de jǐ gè wèntí" 木雅語語音結構的幾個問題 [Some Phonological Features of Modern Munya (Minyak) Language]. Nairiku Ajia Gengo No Kenkyuu 内陸アジア言語の研究 (in Chinese). 13: 83–91. hdl:11094/16189.
Ikeda, Takumi (2002). "On Pitch Accent in the Mu-Nya Language" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 25 (2): 27–45.
Sun, Hongkai, ed. (1991). Zàngmiǎnyǔ yǔyīn hé cíhuì 藏缅语语音和词汇 [Tibeto-Burman Phonology and Lexicon] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.
Minyak language elementary textbook, a project of the Kham Aid Foundation, 2009.

[e25-1] Eastern Minyag at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
Western Minyag at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] "Manyak" (PDF). Retrieved 2021-11-02 – via Asia Harvest.

[3] "Menia" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-06-10 – via Asia Harvest.

[4] "Minyak". places.kmaps.virginia.edu. Retrieved March 24, 2023.

[5] Sun (1991), p. 219

[namkung96-6] Namkung, Ju (1996). Matisoff, James A. (ed.). "Phonological Inventories of Tibeto-Burman Languages" (PDF). Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus Monograph Series (3). University of California, Berkeley.

[7] Huang, Zhiling (2014-05-27). "Chasing the Fading Music". China Daily USA. One woman's passion for the songs of a remote ethnic people may save not only the Muya's music, but the language itself. Huang Zhiling reports from Chengdu. Muya music might already be lost if Yang Hua had not given up her job as a mathematics teacher." ..."After the recording was over, Bamu told Yang it was a folk song of the Muya people. The song told how a girl working outside her hometown misses her mom, who says jewelry does not mean anything if one is not educated, and the singer wishes her mom good health. "It was the first time I heard the word 'Muya'," Yang says.

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