Pumi, Southern
A language of China
| Population | 19,000 (1999). 6,000 monolinguals. Ethnic population: 28,000 (2000). |
| Region | Northwest Yunnan Province, Lanping, Weixi, Yongsheng, and Lijiang counties; Ninglang County, Xinyingpan District. |
| Language map |
Southwestern China |
| Alternate names | Pimi, Primmi, Pruumi, P’ömi, P’rome, P’umi |
| Dialects | Qinghua. Southern Pumi has 4 subdialects. Intelligibility with Northern Pumi is difficult. Lexical similarity: 60% between Northern and Southern. |
| Classification | Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Tangut-Qiang, Qiangic |
| Language use | Vigorous. All domains. Positive attitude. Also use Mandarin Chinese [cmn], Tibetan [bod], Lisu [lis], Bai [bca], Naxi [nbf], or Lipo [lpo]. |
| Language development | Literacy rate in L2: 70%. Grammar. |
| Writing system | Unwritten. |
| Comments | Part of the Pumi nationality. SOV; adjectives and numbers follow noun heads; uvular obstruents; initial ‘s’ + consonant clusters; different vowels from N. Pumi; loans mainly from Chinese (making up 15% of the vocabulary); tonal, 2 tones. Agriculturalists; animal husbandry; lumber. Buddhist (Lamaist). |
Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:
Academic Publications
CHAN, Jo, author. 1998. A preliminary study on the classifiers of the Pumi language.
MATISOFF, James A., author. 1997. "Dàyáng Pumi phonology and adumbrations of comparative Qiangic."
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Bibliography data last updated: April-2012
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