An Analysis of the Phenomenon of Language Blending between Naxi and Chinese in the Lijiang Old Town, and Its Influencing Factors
This article examines the long-term linguistic contact and blending between Naxi and Chinese in the Lijiang Old Town, historically the Naxi people's political, economic, and cultural center. Drawing on theories of language blending, the author analyzes borrowing in both directions: Chinese loanwords make up over half of Naxi vocabulary, while Naxi has shaped a distinctive "Lijiang type" Chinese dialect with unusual tone correspondences and loss of nasal codas. The paper argues that three factors govern this contact: Naxi's own phonological, morphological, and syntactic structure, which allowed largely unimpeded absorption of Chinese elements; geography, including mountain terrain and contact with Tibetan, Bai, Mongolian, and Sichuanese speech, which produced irregular borrowing patterns; and social factors such as Ming-era Mu-clan language policy, post-1723 educational reforms, and modern tourism-driven migration, which have alternately slowed and accelerated Naxi's shift toward Chinese, prompting recent revitalization efforts.
This page publishes the bibliographic record and the project's summary. The scanned article text belongs to its publisher and is shown to readers under a research-use policy; it is not reproduced in this record.