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Lakkia
Lakkia
拉珈语; Lakkja
Native to	China
Region	Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi
Native speakers	9,000 (2007)
Language family	Kra–Dai Kam–Tai? Biao–Lakkia? Lakkia; ; ;
Early form	Proto-Lakkia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lbc
Glottolog	lakk1238
ELP	Lakkia

The Lakkia language (Chinese: 拉珈语; pinyin: Lājiāyǔ), also spelled Lakkja after its IPA transcription, is a Kra–Dai language spoken in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Laibin, East-Central Guangxi, China.

Lakkia speakers are thought to have migrated from further east, possibly from the Biao-speaking areas of Northwestern Guangdong Province (L.-Thongkum 1992). Today, they live mostly in the Dayaoshan (Chinese: 大瑶山; lit. 'Big Yao Mountain') region of Jinxiu County.

Names

Lakkia people are also known as the Cháshān Yáo 茶山瑶, meaning "Tea Mountain Yao", since they were traditionally considered by neighboring peoples to be ethnic Yao people. The name Lakkia is an autonym (self-designated name) that means "mountain people". All Lakkia dialects have 5 tones.

Classification

There is currently no consensus on the classification of Lakkia within the Kra–Dai family. Solnit (1988) and Hansell (1988) classify Lakkia as a sister of the Kam–Sui branch. Additionally, Solnit (1988) classifies Biao and Lakkia together as part of a Biao–Lakkia branch that is coordinate to Kam-Sui. However, L.-Thongkum (1992) considers Lakkia to be most closely related to the Tai branch, based on the large number of shared lexical items.

Norquest (2021) proposes a Biao–Lakkja branch as the first branch to split off from Kra-Dai.^[2]

Dialects

Dialects of Lakkia include (L.-Thongkum 1992):

Jintian 金田
Liula 六拉
Jinxiu 金秀
Lingzu 岭祖
Changdong 长峒

The Lingzu dialect still preserves /kl-/ initial clusters, which corresponds to /kj-/ in most other dialects (L.-Thongkum 1992). Additionally, Changdong 长洞 and Jintian 金田 tone /˥˩/ (51) corresponds to Jinxiu 金秀 tone /˨˧˩/ (231). Also, L.-Thongkum (1992) reports that Jintian 金田 is a less conservative dialect.

Classification of Lakkia dialects by Norquest (2021):^[2]

Lakkja
- Western
  - Jintian 金田
- Eastern
  - Liula 六拉
  - Jinxiu 金秀

Distribution

Lakkia is spoken in the following locations.^[3]

Jinxiu Township 金秀镇: Jinxiu 金秀, Baisha 白沙, Liula 六拉, Xidi 昔地, Changtan 长滩, Chang'er 长二, Zhaibao 寨保, Yangliu 杨柳, Liuduan 六段, Jiangjun 将军, Sanpian 三片, Tiancun 田村, Liucun 刘村, Shecun 社村, Mengcun 孟村, Meicun 美村, Jincun 金村, Jintian 金田, Luomeng 罗梦
Changdong Township 长洞乡: Changdong 长洞, Gufang 古放, Pingdao 平道, Daojiang 道江, Dishui 滴水, Rongdong 容洞
Sanjiao Township 三角乡: Liuding 六定
Zhongliang Township 忠良乡: Lingzu 岭祖, Bale 巴勒
Luoxiang Township 罗香乡: Pingzhu 平竹

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial		Dental/ Alveolar		Palatal		Velar			Glottal
		plain	lat.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	pal.	plain	lab.	pal.
Stop	voiceless	p	pˡ	t	tʷ			k	kʷ	kʲ	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	pʰˡ	tʰ				kʰ	kʰʷ	kʰʲ
	glottalized/vd.	ˀb	bˡ
Affricate	voiceless			ts
Affricate	aspirated			tsʰ	tsʰʷ
Nasal	voiceless	m̥		n̥				ŋ̊		ŋ̊ʲ
Nasal	voiced	m	mˡ	n				ŋ	ŋʷ	ŋʲ
Fricative		f		s	sʷ						h	hʷ	hʲ
Approximant		w				j	jʷ
Lateral	central			l
Lateral	fricative			ɬ

Vowels

Oral vowels
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ə
Open	a

Other sounds /y/ and /ɹ̩/, also occur in Chinese loanwords as a result of being introduced from Chinese.

Nasal vowels
	Front	Back
Close	ĩ	ũ
Close-mid	ẽ	õ
Open-mid	ɛ̃
Open	ã

Historical phonology

Lakkia is notable for preserving many prefixes that have been lost in most other Kra-Dai languages, including prefixes (such as *k.-) in archaic Chinese loanwords that are crucial for the reconstruction of Old Chinese.^[4]

Lexical isoglosses

Some Biao–Lakkja lexical isoglosses as proposed by Norquest (2021):^[2]

Gloss	Proto-Biao–Lakkja	Proto-Kam-Sui	Proto-Kra	Proto-Hlai	Proto-Be	Proto-Tai
‘house’	*ljaːk	*r̥aːn	*qran	*hrɯːn	*raːn	*rɤːn
‘road’	*tsaːŋ	*qʰwən	*qron	*kuːn	*ʃwən	*r̥wɤn
‘heavy’	*N-tsak	*C-dʑan	*qχəl	*kʰɯn	*xən	*n̥ak
‘leg’	*puk	*p-qaː	*C-qaː	*kʰok	*kok	*f-qaː
‘neck’	*ʔən	*ʔdənʔ	*C-joː	*hljoŋʔ	*liəŋX	*ɣoː

Notes

^ Lakkia at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c Norquest, Peter (2021). "Classification of (Tai-)Kadai/Kra-Dai languages". The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia. De Gruyter. pp. 225–246. doi:10.1515/9783110558142-013.
^ Guangxi Minority Languages Orthography Committee. 2008. Vocabularies of Guangxi ethnic languages [广西民族语言方音词汇]. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House [民族出版社].
^ Baxter, William H. and Laurent Sagart. 2014. Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-994537-5.