Abstract

Over two decades ago, Jerold Edmondson and Li Jinfang conducted linguistic fieldwork in the China–Vietnam borderlands, and posited the existence of a migration corridor running between Guizhou province and the northern provinces of Vietnam, passing through the eastern part of Yunnan. This hypothesis was based on linguistic evidence, so they called it the language corridor, and looked at the correspondences between the speech of isolated communities in northern Vietnam and speech varieties in Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan. Historic migrations of populations, large and small, bring with them other traces of their original homelands. In the case of the Tai-speaking peoples of the China–Vietnam area, the evidence includes local varieties of vernacular character scripts based on Chinese. This article will present new information based on survey evidence, and propose a new enhancement of established methods in historical anthropology and historical linguistics.

Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.