| Language name: | BAI |
| UPSID number: | 2506 |
| Alternate name(s): | MINKIA, MINJIA |
| Classification: | Sino-Tibetan, Sinitic |
| This language has | 29 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.357137396 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p tD k ph tDh kh "ts "tsh f x v "s zD m nD N lD j i e E a O o u uu @) 3) uuF |
| Comment: | Bai is spoken primarily in the Dali Bai autonomous county in western Yunnan, China. Dell (1981) notes 8 tones: high, mid and low level, high falling and low falling, mid rising and low fall-rise -- the 8th tone is very high with a final glottal stop which shortens the vowel. Since no initial glottal stops occur this feature is analyzed as part of an extra high tone. There are no final consonants. /j,w/ can appear after some consonants, as well as initially. /w/ has a labial-palatal variant before /i/. The labio-dental fricative vowel does not occur after bilabials. |
| Source(s): | Dell, F. 1981. La Langue Bai: Phonologie et Lexique. Etudes Linguistiques No. 2, Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. |