Minyak Language Preservation

Progress Report, July 2008

Submitted by the Minyak Culture and Environment Association

A brief summary of the project activities in this stage

In an effort to guarantee the successful implementation of Minyak Language Preservation Program, Minyak Cultural and Environment Association (MCE) carefully designed the program implementation plan, sent staff to do field research in the interior area of Minyak, including Sewurong, Tanggu, Yulongxi, Pusarong, Pengbuxi, Nizixi, etc, to have collected original Minyak vocabulary and expression patterns and traditional stories,  by both recording audio materials and writing down text materials. We also invited language experts to our workshop to analyze linguistic characteristic of Minyak language, and also invited professionals to sort out the materials we collected to have compiled e-version of audio and text files with interpretation in Tibetan, Chinese and English, have made brochure of Minyak Reading Materials. We also organized workshops for Minyak Language preservation. Additionally, we invited the local dancers to Kangding for recording Minyak dances and dancing rhythm.

The key leadership involved with the project activities

The director of MCE, Tuden Gele, has taken the charge of the leadership of the program to directly organize the implementation activities. We invited Professor Chongni from Kangding Normal College to have led the experts group; We arranged Denba leading the working group to have had field research, have recorded audio files, have interpreted the files in Tibetan, Chinese and English. We also have the program implemented with the participation of other leaders and members of MCE, including Gyaltso, Wangjie and others, in addition to a profound teacher— Jiega, who has taught Tibetan for tens of years in Minyak area. Our staff also includes Zhaba Sojia, Layitao Denba and Pubu Zhaxi who are all experienced in translation amongst Tibetan, Chinese and English.        

The project activities’ primary achievement

During this period, we have completed collection of Minyak vocabulary, everyday expressions, some traditional Minyak stories, and initially completed the editing of audio and text files for the materials we collected, set up audio and text files with Tibetan alphabet writing system, standardized Minyak Language pronunciation, recorded and edited some Minyak dances and dancing rhythms,  organized some Minyak language conservation workshops for the local people to recognize the importance of our language preservation. .   

Preliminary findings

Some documents show that the Minyak dialects used around Gongga Mountain area can be classified as eastern and western language dialects. The eastern dialect zone includes the townships in Shimian County of Xianfeng, Xieluo and Xinmin, and the townships in Jiulong County of Shaba and Hongba. The western dialect zone includes Tanggu Township in Jiulong County, the Zhusang Township in Yajiang County, and the townships in Kangding County of Shade, Gonggashan, Pusarong, Pengbuxi, etc. Our program focused on the western dialect zone.

Minyak Language is centered on the Sewurong area in Gonggashan township, and extended to other townships mentioned above. This language is now spoken by a population of approximately 12,000. Historically, people in Bamei of Dawu, Xinduqiao of Kangding and Quka area of Yajiang, used to speak this language, but they speak Kham dialect now, instead of Minyak language, though there remains some traces of Minyak in the names of regions, lands, house parts, tools, etc.

As we implemented the program, we analyzed the structure of Minyak language by Tibetan language structure and grammar, and concluded the primary characteristics of Minyak language as follows:

1, it is in miscellaneous pronunciation, we can’t use Tibetan alphabet to match the pronunciation for the words of needle and snow, and we created two words for the pronunciation of these two words with Tibetan alphabet system.

2, the expression of noun is similar with Tibetan structure, for example, an adjective is located before a noun for embellishment.

3, adverbs are placed before verbs for vividness.

4, there are tenses of verbs showing the differences in the time which the actions or states happen.       

5, the basic structure for a sentence is accorded with Tibetan structure of Subject – Object – Predicate.

6, religious vocabulary is all from Tibetan expressions originated from Tibetan Buddhism.

7, they use Tibetan expressions for lyrics and sutra chanting.

Conclusion and remarks

Minyak Language, a key symbol representing Minyak culture, once was regarded as a living legacy in Tibetology, but is now considered an endangered Language. This situation has encouraged many scholars and common people to take the historical responsibility for the preservation of Minyak Language, and also precipitated the partnership between Kham Aid Foundation and MCE to put forward actual implementation for Minyak language preservation.