Ranks Are Gelao Language Research

The Gelao is an endangered language with very few speakers. It is one of the languages in the Ge-Yang branch which has just been confirmed as belonging to Kam-Tai family recently. The Ge-Yang branch of languages differs greatly from the other three branches of the Kam-Tai family, and inside the Ge-Yang, differences are also obvious.Judu is a linguistic location of the Gelao classified under the Duluo dialect which has the largest amount of speaker and distributed in large areas. Judu is a big village where all villagers can speak the Gelao language fluently. The language here has been preserved very well, and the village is an ideal place for linguistic survey.The present writer did a field-trip in Judu last year and collected plentyof first- handed linguistic data for studying.This thesis deals with three aspects, i.e. phonology, vocabulary and grammar.In Chapter I, the present writer gives a general introduction to the phonology system and the main features of the Gelao language spoken in Judu village .In Chapter II, the writer describes briefly some of the features in word formation in Gelao language of Judu. Just as it is in other Gelao dialects, the Judu Gelao language also has noun prefixes. But what important is that, adjectives and verbs in Judu also has prefixes.Chapter III is the key part of this thesis, in which the present writer gives a description of some special phenomena of the grammar system in Judu Gelao. With plenty of linguistic data, the thesis deals with some important questions which the predecessors had not talked about, e.g. the suffixes of the adjectives.The thesis also notices the historic origin of the Gelao language, and has made a comparative analysis among different dialects. So far, this thesis is the most detailed introduction of Judu Gelao language, it can not only help to know the Duolo dialect well but can also help to study the Ge-Yang languages as a whole.