Wutun language


The Wutun language is a Chinese–Tibetan–Mongolian creolized language. It is spoken by about 2,000 people, most of whom are classified as Monguor by the Chinese government. Wutun speakers reside in two villages of Tongren County, eastern Qinghai province, China. It is also known as the Ngandehua language.
The two Wutun villages, as well as other villages in the area, were under the control of a Mongol banner for several centuries, and have long been regarded by governments as members of a Mongol ethnic group. However, they self-identify as Tibetans.

Vocabulary

The greatest portion of Wutun lexical items is Chinese ; a smaller one, Tibetan; and an even smaller one comes from the Bonan Mongolian language.

Grammar

The Wutun grammar is of Mongolic type, particularly similar to that of the Bonan language. There is also Tibetan influence.

History

A number of theories have been proposed about the origin of the Wutun villagers, and their peculiar dialect. The Chinese linguist Chen Naixiong infers from the vowel distribution of the Chinese lexical items in Wutun speech that their ancestors may have spoken an old Nanjing dialect. Others think that they may have been a group of Hui people from Sichuan who, for reasons unknown, converted to Lamaism and moved to eastern Qinghai. In any event, historical documents as old as 1585 attest to the existence of the Wutun community.
Today's Wutun villagers don't speak Chinese, but the knowledge of Tibetan is common both in Wutun and in Tongren County in general, as the Tibetan language is the lingua franca of this multiethnic region, which is populated by Tibetans and Hui people, as well as some Han Chinese and Mongols.