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Language vitality and glottonyms in the Ethnic Corridor: The rTa'u language

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Published/Copyright: May 2, 2017

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is twofold. First, I describe the vitality of rTa'u – one of the languages of the Ethnic Corridor region of Western Sichuan Province. Using UNESCO’s nine-factor model of language vitality, the analysis finds rTa'u to be endangered and in urgent need of documentation. Secondly, this article argues that linguists have a role to play in supporting this endangered language, by using glottonyms that are salient to the community and coherent with their professed ethnic identity. After analyzing the two most commonly used names for the language used in the literature – Ergong and Horpa – I suggest that linguists should from now on use the preferred glottonym rTa'u.

Appendix

In articleTibetanWyllieChinesePinyin
Horpaཧོར་པ།Hor pa霍尔Huo er
Ergongཡར་སྒོ།Yar sgo尔龚Er gong
Dijiao Hua地脚话Dejiao Hua
Rongskeརོང་སྐད།Rong skad农区话Nong qu hua
rTa'uརྟའུ།rTa'u道孚Dao fu
GeShenzhaདགེ་བཤེས་རྩ།Dge bshes rtsa格什扎Ge shen zha
Lavrongཁྲོ་སྐྱོསབ།Khro skyabs拉坞戎La wu rong
rGyalrongརྒྱལ་རོང་།rGyal rong嘉荣Jia rong
Sidabaསྟོད་པ།Stod paSi da ba
Situ四土Si tu
Chabaoཡ་ཕུག།Ya phug茶堡Cha bao
Ganziདཀར་མཛེས།Dkar mdzes甘孜Gan zi
Luhuoབྲག་མགོ།Brag mgo炉霍Lu huo
Danbaརོང་བྲག།Rong brag丹巴Dan ba
Xinlongཉག་རོང།Nyag rong新龙Xin long
Qiangསྤྱང་རིགས།Spyang rigsQiang
Trehorཏྲེ་ཧོར།Tre hor朱倭Zhu wo
Stong skarསྟོང་སྐོར།Stong skor东谷Dong gu
Xianshuiheཤི་སཆུ།Shi schu鲜水河Xian shui he
Yalongཉག་ཆུ།Nyag chu雅砻江Ya long jiang
Yajingཉག་ཆུ།Nyag chu雅江Ya jiang
Zla chuཟླ་ཆུ།Zla chu大曲Da qu
Abaརྔ་བ།Rnga ba阿 坝A ba
Khang gsarཁང་གསར།Khang gsar孔色Kong se
mazuམ་ཟུ།Ma zu麻孜Ma zi
Bragmda'བྲག་མདའ།Brag mda'章达Zhang da
Bawangབླ་བོན།Bla bon巴旺Ba wang

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Published Online: 2017-5-2
Published in Print: 2017-5-24

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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