Jizhao language

Jizhao is an endangered language that only has speakers above the age of 60 (Shao 2016:70). Within Jizhao Administrative Village (), it is spoken in the hamlets (natural villages) of Jizhao (), Meilou (), and Hong villages (). Jizhao speakers are officially classified as ethnic Han by the Chinese government. As of 2017, there are fewer than 100 speakers of Jizhao, most of whom are above the age of 70. == Classification ==

Shao & Meng (2016) observe some similarities with the Be language of northern Hainan, but provisionally consider Jizhao to be unclassified within the Kam-Tai (壮侗) branch. Jizhao has many loanwords from Yue Chinese and Minnan Chinese. Weera Ostapirat (1998), analyzing data from Zhang (1992), notes that Be and Jizhao share many lexical similarities and sound correspondences, and that Jizhao may be a remnant Be-related language in China. In a 100-item Swadesh list, Shao (2016) found lexical matches between Jizhao and the following languages. • Ong Be: 56 words • Zhuang: 6 words • Yue Chinese: 7 words • Min Chinese: 1 word • No parallels: 30 words == Phonology ==

Jizhao has 6 tones (Shao 2016:15). • 21 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 55 • 45 Jizhao, like Hlai, also has the implosive consonants /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ (Li & Wu 2017). == See also ==