Jinuo, Buyuan

A language of China

ISO 639-3

Alternate Names

Buyuan, Jino

Population

1,000 (1994). Most monolingual. Ethnic population: All Jinuo: 20,900 (Bradley 2007).

Location

South Yunnan Province, Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous prefecture, near Laos and Myanmar borders, east of Jinghong. Youle mountains. 40 villages.

Language Status

6b (Threatened).

Classification

Dialects

Buyuan and Youle dialects not inherently intelligible. Chinese used for communication.

Typology

SOV; initial consonant clusters (stop or nasal plus, r); no syllable-final consonants; mostly monosyllabic words; tonal, 6 tones

Language Use

Vigorous. All domains. All ages. Some also use Lu [khb] or Mandarin Chinese [cmn].

Language Development

Literacy rate in L2: 83% in any language (2000 census, Jinuo nationality). Grammar.

Language Resources

Writing

Latin script.

Other Comments

Officially classified within Jinuo nationality. Traditional religion.