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The Bai language (Bai: ; ) is a language spoken in China, primarily in Yunnan province, by the Bai people. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three main dialects. It is a tonal language with eight tones and a rather rich set of vowels. As is common among Southeast Asian languages, the vowels of Bai have a phonemic opposition between tense vowels and lax vowels (creaky voice vs. normal voice). There exists a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, Bowen (), as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation using the Latin alphabet. == Varieties == Within the core Bai area, three dialects are recognized, which may actually be distinct languages: Jianchuan (Central), Dali (Southern), and Bijiang (Northern). Jianchuan and Dali are close, and speakers are reported to be able to understand one another after living together for a month. Bijiang is more divergent, and may itself be two languages, Panyi and Lama. The Laemae (', Leimai, Leimo), a clan numbering about 50,000 people who are submerged within the Lisu, are reported to speak a "Bai group language" (Bradley 2007:363). Bradley (2007) estimates that there are about 15,000 speakers of Laemae in Fugong County, Yunnan. Lisu and Northern Bai are also spoken in the region. Wang Feng (2012)〔Wang Feng (). (2012). ''Language Contact and Language Comparison: The Case of Bai'' (). Beijing: Commercial Press (). 92–94〕 gives the following tree for 9 Bai dialects (datapoints). The ''Lama'' () are in Tuoluo, Gongxing, and Enqi; the ''Lemo'' () are in Ega and Jinman. ;Bai *Northern * *Gongxing (), Lanping County * *(''core'') * * *Enqi (), Lanping County; Jinman (金满), Lushui County * * *Tuoluo (), Weixi County * * *Ega (), Lushui County *Southern * *Mazhelong (), Qiubei County * *(''core'') * * *Jinxing (), Jianchuan County * * *Dashi (), Heqing County * * *Zhoucheng (), Dali City 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bai language」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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