Dulong/Rawang is a Tibeto-Burman language cluster spoken on both sides of the China/Myanmar border just south and east of Tibet. Within Myanmar, the people who speak the Dulong language live in northern Kachin State, particularly along the Mae Hka and Mali Hka River valleys. In the past, they had been called 'Hkanung' or 'Nung', and have often been considered to be a subgroup of the Kachin. Around 1950, speakers of this language in Myanmar began a movement to use the name /rəwɑŋ/ to represent all of its speakers. The speakers in China, though, continue to use the name 'Dulong'.
Geographic distribution
There are 14,000 people speaking in two dialects: 8,500 in Nu River dialect, and 5,500 in Dulong River dialect. The locations of Dulong are Yunnan province, Xizang Autonomous Region, Gongshan county, Bingzhongluo, and Tibet. In the past, the Dulong River was known as the Kiu river, and the Dulong people were known as the Kiu, Kiutze, Kiupa, or Kiao.
Dialects/varieties
Dulong has two dialects: Dulong River, and Nu River. Dialects reportedly inherently intelligible. Other possible dialect names are Melam, Metu, Tamalu, and Tukiumu.
Sounds/phonology
Consonants
Dulong has twenty-four initial consonants at six points of articulation, plus the consonant clusters /pr, br, mr, kr, xr, gr, pl, bl, ml, kl, gl/ in initial position; only the consonants /p, t, ʔ, k, n, m, ŋ, r, l/ occur in final position.
Vowels
Dulong has seven vowels, /i, ε, ə, ɑ, ɔ, ɯ, u/, and three diphthongs, /əi, ɑi, ɯi/, which only appear in open syllables.
Tones
Dulong has 3 tones: high level, high falling, and low falling. In the Dulong language, tone has the role of differentiating the meaning of a few words, with about 8% words completely relying on tones to distinguish them.
Grammar
Words can be formed by prefixation, suffixation, or compounding. Word classes include nouns, defined by the ability to appear with a numeral classifier; verbs, defined by the ability to appear with negation and the person and tense marking; postpositions, which are enclitic to NPs, numerals, and classifiers. Adjectives are a subset of stative verbs for which reduplication means intensification or adverbialization rather than the perfective aspect. Adjectives can be used as predicates or can appear nominalized in a copula clause.
Vocabulary/Lexis
Lexical similarity: 74% with Matwang dialect of Rawang.
