On Zhuang Languages Across Border

The ancestors of Zhuang People had been living in the area where is now the Vietnam-China border area since very ancient time. When China and Vietnam (Giao Chi) demarcated the boundaries in A.D.1078-1084, ancient Zhuang people was devided by the border and later developed into the ethnic group of Zhuang in China and Tay, Nung etc. in Vietnam. We call all these ethnic groups "Zhuang Peoples Across Border" (ZPAB). The subject of this dissertation is about their languages, Zhuang Languages Across Border (ZLAB), including three sub-dialects of Southern Dialect of Zhuang in China and languages of Tay and Nung in Vietnam. We examined the factors which may mainly influence ZLAB and their working mechanism, explained the reasons which helped ZLAB to maintain high resemblance despite the border and took a close view of diversity of ZLAB to find out rules of linguistic changes. In Chapter 1 the history and the actual state of ZPAB and their languages were introduced and related research were reviewed. In Chapter 2, phonologies of 7 Zhuang dialects across border were listed. We also compared the initial consonants, vowels and tones of these dialects and found out that phonologies of ZLAB have high similarity in spite of a long history of being separated by the border. In Chapter 3 characteristics of ZLAB lexical system were discussed and the newly-created words and loan words in different ZLAB were compared. It was concluded that lexis in ZLAB experienced the same developing process during a long time and only until A.D. 19th century did some difference occur. In Chapter 4 we discussed diversity in ZLAB grammar and found that ZLAB from both sides of the border borrowed some grammar elements from Chinese. Vietnamese slightly influenced Tay-Nung grammar through loan words. In Chapter 5 we researched into ZLAB writing system. Ch? N?m, an immature writing system of Tay-Nung was analyzed and some suggestions were given to help the generalization of new phonetic writing system. In Chapter 6 we examined the social function of ZLAB and found that it was decreased as a consequence of being influenced by Chinese and Vietnamese. We also evaluated advantage and potential of ZLAB as a supranational communication tool. In Chapter 7, we reviewed the development of ZLAB and explained the reasons that helped ZLAB maintain the resemblance. We also anticipated that diversity between ZLAB would increase gradually. Our research showed that even separated by the China-Vietnam border, Zhuang Languages of both sides of the border still developed in the same direction and were highly similar in many aspects. Neighboring location, close contact and communication of cultures, and highly congregating population in the area and so on, conduced to the highly similar development of ZLAB. However, the situation is changing since Vietnamese is increasing its influence on Tay-Nung Languages. It can be concluded that diversity between Zhuang Languages across border will increase in the future.