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Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund

Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund rather than just read about it. In short: The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund or Amdo sprachbund is a sprachbund in the plateau traversed by the upper Yellow River, including northeastern Qinghai and southern Gansu. This has long been an area of interaction between speakers of northwestern varieties of Mandarin Chinese, Amdo Tibetan and Mongolic and Turkic languages.

Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund — main illustration
Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund — illustration

Key takeaways

  • Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund or Amdo sprachbund is a sprachbund in the plateau traversed by the upper Yellow River, including northeastern Qinghai and southern Gansu. This has long been an area of interaction between speakers of northwestern varieties of Mandarin Chinese, Amdo Tibetan and Mongolic and Turkic languages. These families feature contrasting typologies, which spread between languages in the region. The languages have come to share many features, and differ significantly from their relatives outside the region.

Languages The languages involved include

Chinese Hezhou, the language of the Hui people in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture (Gansu) and Tongren, Xunhua, Minhe, Ledu and Datong counties of Qinghai. Gangou, spoken in Minhe county (Qinghai). Tangwang, spoken in northeastern Dongxiang Autonomous County (Gansu). Wutun, spoken in the Upper and Lower Wutun villages, Tongren county (Qinghai). Tibetic Amdo Tibetan, the Tibetic language of Qinghai, varies considerably across the region. Mongolic Monguor (Tu) has two major varieties, often treated as separate languages: Mangghuer in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County and Mongghul in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County. Eastern Yugur, spoken in Sunan Yugur Autonomous County (Gansu) Bonan (Bao'an) is spoken in Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County (Gansu) and Tongren County (Qinghai). Santa (Dongxiang), centred on Dongxiang Autonomous County (Gansu) Kangjia, spoken in Jianzha County (Qinghai). Turkic Salar, spoken in Xunhua county (Qinghai) Western Yugur, spoken in Sunan county (Gansu) More mainstream varieties of northwestern Mandarin are spoken in the provincial capitals, Xining and Lanzhou. All these languages are subject to a superstrate influence from Standard Mandarin. These languages belong to families with three sharply contrasting typologies:

The Mandarin varieties have acquired such features as spirantized voiceless stops, SOV word order and case markers. The Wutun language of Tongren county, Qinghai, is a highly divergent Mandarin variety, with phonological and grammatical structures resembling Amdo Tibetan. In some cases, the changes progress through the speaker population in a few decades, so that they can be observed in progress. A common pattern is to add a borrowed structure beside an indigenous structure with the same function, after which the indigenous structure loses its function and eventually disappears, leaving a changed syntactic pattern. For example, the indigenous Bonan comparative structure was N-si, where the noun N represents the standard being compared against. Bonan added the equivalent Mandarin structure, bi+N, yielding a composite bi+N-si. The original suffix was then lost, leaving a transformed syntactic pattern.

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

Further reading Janhunen, Juha (2015), "Describing and transcribing the phonologies of the Amdo Sprachbund" (PDF), Asian Highlands Perspectives, 37: 122–137, archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-05-06, retrieved 2023-04-30. Kawasumi, Tetsuya, "Shìlùn Hànyǔ Hézhōuhuà de xíngchéng guòchéng" 试论汉语河州话的形成过程 [On the Formative Process of the Hezhou Dialect of Chinese], Diversity and Dynamics of Eurasian Languages: The 20th Commemorative Volume (PDF) (in Chinese). Li, Charles N. (1985), "Contact-induced semantic change and innovation", in Fisiak, Jacek (ed.), Historical Semantics – Historical Word-Formation, Moulton, pp. 325–337, ISBN 0-89925-115-3. Nugteren, Hans (2011), Mongolic phonology and the Qinghai-Gansu languages (PhD thesis), University of Leiden, hdl:1887/18188, ISBN 978-94-6093-070-6. Slater, Keith W. (2021), "Introduction: Language contact in the Amdo Sprachbund", Himalayan Linguistics, 20 (3): 1–7, doi:10.5070/H920355370.

Illustrations

Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund: Area of the sprachbund, with shading indicating official minority designation of counties or prefectures: .mw-parser-output .col-begin{border-collapse:collapse;padding:0;color:inherit;width:100%;border:0;margin:0}.mw-parser-output .col-begin-small{font-size:90%}.mw-parser-output .col-break{vertical-align:top;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .col-break-2{width:50%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-3{width:33.3%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-4{width:25%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-5{width:20%}@media(max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .col-begin,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody>tr,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody>tr>td{display:block!important;width:100%!important}.mw-parser-output .col-break{padding-left:0!important}} .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}  Hui   Tibetan   Tu (Monguor)   Dongxiang   Bonan   Salar   Yugur
Area of the sprachbund, with shading indicating official minority designation of counties or prefectures: .mw-parser-output .col-begin{border-collapse:collapse;padding:0;color:inherit;width:100%;border:0;margin:0}.mw-parser-output .col-begin-small{font-size:90%}.mw-parser-output .col-break{vertical-align:top;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .col-break-2{width:50%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-3{width:33.3%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-4{width:25%}.mw-parser-output .col-break-5{width:20%}@media(max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output .col-begin,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody>tr,.mw-parser-output .col-begin>tbody>tr>td{display:block!important;width:100%!important}.mw-parser-output .col-break{padding-left:0!important}} .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}  Hui   Tibetan   Tu (Monguor)   Dongxiang   Bonan   Salar   Yugur

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund

In research
Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Languages of China, Linguistic typology, Sprachbund, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.
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How to study Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund in simple terms?

The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund or Amdo sprachbund is a sprachbund in the plateau traversed by the upper Yellow River, including northeastern Qinghai and southern Gansu. This has long been an area of interaction between speakers of northwestern varieties of Mandarin Chinese, Amdo Tibetan and Mongolic…

Why does Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund.

Tags

  • Languages of China
  • Linguistic typology
  • Sprachbund

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