Zaiwa (autonym: tsau³¹va⁵¹; 载瓦; Burmese: ဇိုင်ဝါး/အဇီး) is a Burmish language spoken in parts of southwest China and eastern Burma. There are around 100,000 speakers. It is also known as Atsi, its name in Jingpo. Zaiwa may be spelled 'Tsaiva' or 'Tsaiwa', and Atsi may be spelled 'Aci', 'Aji', 'Atshi', 'Atzi' or 'Azi'. Other names include Atsi-Maru, Szi and Xiaoshanhua.[1]Pela (Bola), with 400 speakers, was once classified as a dialect. From the 1950s Zaiwa was written using the Roman script. A Gospel of Mark was published in Zaiwa in 1938 in the Fraser alphabet and in 1951 in the Roman script.[2][3]
Distribution
There are more than 70,000 Zaiwa speakers in Yunnan, China, including in:[4]
Zaiwa has five tones. Three of these five tones are in unchecked syllables and the remaining two are in checked syllables.[3] The tones are distinguished through a numbering system of one to five; one being the lowest pitch and five the highest pitch.[7]
^Zhu, Yanhua (2017). "Zaiwa". In Graham Thurgood; Randy J. LaPolla (eds.). The Sino-Tibetan Languages (2nd ed.). London & New York: Routledge. pp. 877–884.
Lustig, Anton (2010). A Grammar and Dictionary of Zaiwa. Leiden: Brill. ISBN978-90-04-18489-3.
Yabu, Shirō 藪 司郎 (1982). アツィ語基礎語彙集 / Atsigo kiso goishū / Classified Dictionary of the Atsi or Zaiwa Language (Sadon Dialect) with Atsi, Japanese and English Indexes. Tokyo: 東京外国語大学アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所 Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku Ajia Afurika Gengo Bunka Kenkyūjo.
Yabu, Shirō 藪 司郎 (1988). "A Preliminary Report on the Study of the Maru, Lashi and Atsi Languages of Burma". In Ishizawa, Yoshiaki (ed.). Historical and Cultural Studies in Burma. Tokyo: Institute of Asian Studies, Sophia University. pp. 65–132.
