A Study On Dongxiang Language

Abstract:In this dissertation a descriptive study is made on phonetic distributions, types of grammatical form and hybrid words of Dongxiang language in an attempt to show its characteristics, based on field research made at Sarbolag Town, Huocheng County, Yili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang and Dongxiang Autonomous County in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture. In spite of being cognate with Mongol, Dongxiang language is quite different from Mongol in the results of development and evolution, which provides us new line of thought during the future research.The introduction presents the significance, an overview on the research and investigation.Chapter I describes the phonemes and their evolution in detail and depth in order to solve previous questionable point through an analysis of statistics and acoustics. What’s more, the data on phonetic distributions plays an important role in this dissertation, for it can reflect the phonetic evolution of Dongxiang language which is progressive, restrictive, distributed and directional.Chapter II presents mainly the types of grammatical form, which include meaning and function of grammatical form. It is concluded that one type of grammatical form in Dongxiang language has several grammatical meanings. Therefore, through the study of multifunctional grammatical form, it is more likely to find out unique characteristics of Dongxiang language while the research on one form with single meaning is likely to find more similarities with other languages.Chapter III presents structure feature and word-formation of hybrid words, a distinguishing feature of Dongxiang language, which is not only the subject of linguistics but also worthwhile in the field of anthropology and history. In the conclusion, which is a theoretical summary made on the basis of actual investigation using new research methods and thoughts, it is summarized that it is unreasonable to make the study of Dongxiang language in isolation. In other words, it is unwise to conclude that all evolution of Dongxiang is related with Mongol because it is cognate with Mongol or all evolution of Dongxiang is related with language contact. To study the evolution of Dongxiang, it ought to be described in detail from an objective and actual angle and known that its evolution is complex and many-sided.