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There has been two phonetic writing system for Qiang commissioned by PRC authorities, both based on the Latin-script alphabet. The first design was commissioned centrally in 1958 following early PRC work on distinguishing minority ethnic groups in China, but was never officially promoted. The second system, known as the Qiang Phonetic Alphabet Scheme (羌族拼音文字方案; Qiāngzú Pīnyīn Wénzì Fāng'àn) was commissioned by the local government of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and the provincial Ethnic Affairs Commission (EAC) of Sichuan in 1989. Qiang Phonetic Alphabet Scheme uses 26 standard English alphabet letters, and is a standardised form based on the Qugu Qiang dialect, which belongs to the Northern dialect area but roughly situated at linguistic middle point between the two dialects.[2]
Qiang Phonetic Alphabet Scheme was completed in late 1990 and was approved for trial operation by Sichuan provincial government in 1991, in tandem with recommending the Scheme for official approval by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission (NEAC) in 1991. In 1993, the NEAC requested Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to organise an academic review, which concluded favourably, but NEAC only informed their approval of the Scheme to the provincial EAC by telephone. Qiang Phonetic Alphabet Scheme never ended up being officially published by NEAC or other national authorities thereafter, although the Scheme was acknowledged as legitimate in one written report from NEAC to the central government in 1999. [3]
In 2015, Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County government commissioned a Qiang language graded reader for schools, which uses Qiang Phonetic Alphabet Scheme.[4]
In 2019, a local TV station at Maoxian county started weekly news programme using the Qiang language and the Latin-based alphabet.[5]
Rma script
Rma Script from Qiang Language
In 2017, Wei Jiuqiao (魏久乔) finalised their design of the Rma script.[6] There is no published information as to whether the script is compatible with both the Northern Qiang language and the Southern Qiang language or if it is only compatible with one of the languages. In 2022, preliminary proposal was made to encode this system in the Universal Character Set of Unicode.[7]
Consonants
b /p/
p /pʰ/
bb /b/
m /m/
f /f/
w /w/
wf /v/
d /t/
t /tʰ/
dd /d/
n /n/
lh /ɬ/
l /l/
lr /lʴ/
g /k/
k /kʰ/
gg /ɡ/
ng /ŋ/
h /h/
hh /ɣ/
—
j /tɕ/
q /tɕʰ/
jj /dʑ/
x /ɕ/
xx /ʑ/
y /j/
—
gv /q/
kv /qʰ/
v /χ/
vh /ɦ/
vv /ʁ/
—
—
z /ts/
c /tsʰ/
zz /dz/
s /s/
ss /z/
—
—
zh /tʂ/
ch /tʂʰ/
dh /dʐ/
sh /ʂ/
rr /ʐ/
—
—
Vowels
a /a/
ae /æ/
ea /e/
u /u/
e /ə/
nn /◌̃/
i /i/
ü /y/
o /o/
/ʔ/
r /ʴ/
—
Classification
Sims (2016)[8] gives the following classification for the "Qiangish" (or "Rma") languages, which include Northern Qiang and Southern Qiang. Individual dialects are highlighted in italics.
Sims (2017)[9] reconstructs tones for Proto-Rma (alternatively called Proto-Qiangish), proposing that the lack of tones in Northern Qiang is due to Tibetan influence. High tones and low tones are reconstructed for Proto-Rma, as well as for Proto-Prinmi.
References
^Wen, Maotao (2014). The Creation of the Qiang Ethnicity, its Relation to the Rme People and the Preservation of Rme Language (Master's thesis). Duke University.
^Sims, Nathaniel (2017). The Suprasegmental Phonology of Proto-Rma (Qiang) in Comparative Perspective. Presented at the 50th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Beijing, November 26, 2017.
