The Chinese Influence on the Western Yugur Language
Chinese functions as a secondary language throughout the Yugur community, and its influence on Western Yugur is considerable.
There are many loanwords from Chinese in Western Yugur. Some of these are adapted to the Western Yugur pronunciation, but currently, many loanwords are simply borrowed 'as is'. However, Western Yugur does not have tones, and the tones of the Chinese loanwords are simply disregarded in Western Yugur.
Examples of nouns borrowed by Western Yugur are shïje, world, from Chinese shìjiè; s'ü, boot, from Chinese xue; and ijhi, altogether, from Chinese yiqi.
Western Yugur also preserved some older Chinese loanwords, e.g. qhay, shoe (Northwest Mandarin dialect xai, modern Chinese xié), or Kamsï, the town of Ganzhou (now called Zhangyè).
Chinese verbs are also borrowed into Western Yugur. They are always affixed with the verbalizer suffix -LA, e.g. fangjala-, to have a holiday, from the Chinese verb fàngjià (fàng to let go, jià holiday), or khayxueyla-, to hold or attend a meeting, from the Chinese verb kaixuì (kai to open, huì meeting).
Chinese homophones (words of the same form but with a different meaning) and near homophones (having only a tonal difference) are used to develop secondary meanings of Western Yugur words (a process called calquing), and some of these calques show great creativity, e.g.:
- ayaq, large bowl, also means 'ten thousand', calqued on the basis of Chinese wan (third tone), bowl, and its near homophone wàn, ten thousand; a similar formation exists in Eastern Yugur, Baoan, Dongxiang, Kangjia, and Salar.
- azaq, foot, also means 'dime', calqued on the basis of Chinese jiao (third tone), foot, and its homophone jiao, dime.
- tahqta, board or plank, also means 'mu (an areal unit)', calqued on the basis of Chinese mù, wood, and its near homophone mu (third tone), an areal unit.
- arkan, box, a loanword from the Tibetan Aryk-dialect, also means 'township', calqued on the basis of Chinese xiang (first tone), box, and its homophone xiang, township.
- qhurahqï, worm or maggot, a loanword from Eastern Yugur, also means 'district', calqued on the basis of Chinese qu (first tone), district, and its homophone qu, maggot.
- ohsïrïq arahkï, beer, literally 'fart liquor' (ohsïrïq fart, arahkï liquor), is calqued on the basis of Chinese pí as in píjiu, beer, (jiu liquor), and pì, fart.
- qoy oht, matches, literally 'sheep fire' (qoy sheep, oht fire), is calqued on the basis of Chinese yánghuo, matches (yáng foreign, huo fire), and yáng, sheep.
- qïzïl su, flood, literally 'red water' (qïzïl red, su water), is calqued on the basis of Chinese hóngshui, flood, (hóng flood, shui water) and hóng, red.
- qhaq kïsï, cadre, literally 'dry person' (qhaq dry, kïsï person), is calqued on the basis of Chinese gànbù, cadre, (gàn cadre, bù section) and gan, dry.
Back to the index of The Western Yugur Language