Audio recordings: Andrew Hsiu. (2017). Gelao (Hongfeng) audio word list. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1122523
Conference presentations: Hsiu, Andrew. 2013. The Gelao languages: Preliminary classification and state of the art.
Journal entry: July 25, 2012
At 9 am, I went to the 民宗局 in Dafang County, Guizhou, China. They said that since Pudi Township is now “autonomous,” I can go straight to Pudi without having to first go through the county government offices. I then took a 25 RMB bus from Dafang to Pudi Township, and I arrived at Pudi around noontime. I walked inside the government building, and the government officials invited me to a buffet lunch. I was introduced to the mayor of Hongfeng village, Wang Liguo 王礼国. Wang took me to his home in Hongfeng village from Pudi in his minivan. Surprisingly, the road to Hongfeng was a newly paved road, which Wang said was finished only around last year. I also showed him the names of informants that He Yancheng had consulted at least 6 years ago, and Wang said that one had passed away only last year, and another one a few years ago. Therefore the Hongfeng Gelao language is now more critically endangered than ever.
Wang Liguo was an ethnic Gelao, and both of his parents are completely fluent in Gelao. His father, Wang Lunguang 王伦光 (65), communicates with his wife entirely in Gelao, but speaks to most of the family in Southwestern Mandarin (or Guizhouhua). He is multilingual in Red Gelao, Southwestern Mandarin, and some Miao. Wang Lunguang had to walk around with crutches, as his legs were not in good health. He did not talk much and had a serious demeanor. His wife appeared to be in good health, and was a vibrant middle-aged lady who laughed a lot. They both had four grandchildren through two children, who were Wang Liguo and his younger sister. Wang Liguo said that his family roots go back to Jiangxi, unlike the Gelao of Pingzheng who said that they were the autochthonous people of Guizhou.
I showed the Wang family audio recordings of various languages on my computer, including Jerold Edmondson’s recordings of Qabiao, White Gelao, and Red Gelao dialects of northern Vietnam, as well as my own Mam recordings taken from a native speaker of Todos Santos Cuchumatan, Guatemala. Wang Lunguang’s wife as pleasantly surprised by the similarities among their own Red Gelao numerals and Qabiao numerals, and also Taiwanese aboriginal numbers that I had repeated to them.
Wang Lunguang agreed to accept my offer of 20 RMB per hour, and signed the forms agreeing to let me release the recordings to academia. The recordings mostly went smoothly, except for a few moments where I had to try to fix the microphone-sound card connection in order to minimize the static noise. He said that several years ago, He Yancheng, a graduate student from Minzu University, had stayed in Hongfeng for a month in September 2006. Wang Liguo later added that he had collected many sentences, made many audio recordings, and asked for the names of virtually every single plant and animal in the surrounding countryside. “He got everything,” Wang Liguo said. Wang also said that He Yancheng had to walk to Hongfeng on a dirt road, which took one hour each way. However, the government had recently built the new road in order to connect Pudi to a nearby tourist destination, where wealthy Chinese tourists from the coastal cities stay in 4-star hotels that cost over 600 RMB per night. Luckily, Hongfeng happened to be in the middle of that road. During the winters, heavy snows blocked the roads so that the locals are cut off from Dafang, and during the summers, there can be very heavy rains. He said that rains had been the heaviest this summer compared to those of the past several years.
I recorded about 500 words into my Acer Aspire One netbook, as well as at least 4 songs and 1 religious chant by Wang Lunguang. Wang Liguo wrote down 7 stanzas of translations of the songs, though he was struggling since he claimed to understand only 40% of his father’s Gelao speech. Wang himself could only speak some dozens of Gelao words, many of which he knew are incorrectly pronounced (For one word, his father had corrected his j to z\). Meanwhile, his grandchildren were preoccupied by my Rubik’s Cube, and were fighting for it. One girl managed to get all the blue stickers on one side.
As Wang Lunguang was repeating some Gelao words into my microphone, his 4-year-old grandson would occasionally rush out of the door and yell out the Gelao words that he had just heard. The adults were dumbfounded, and said that the children normally would not ever say anything in Gelao. One 13-year-old girl was amazed, and told me “Thank you.” At the end of the session, I loaded my files on a USB drive and copied them into the family computer.
Afterwards at Wang Liguo’s house, I had a brief chat with the vice mayor, who was an ethnic Miao. He was intrigued by my Laotian-style lusheng, which had 16 pipes. He said that the local Miao have two types of lusheng, both of which have only 6 pipes. In Pudi, only the Miao play the lusheng, while the Gelao, Yi, and Bai do not. He added that my Laotian-style lusheng sounded similar to the local Miao lushengs. He said he could play the lusheng a little, but it was in his house, which he could not bring because it was raining outside. I then recorded his speech for the numbers 1-10. Interestingly, 5 was [pz].
Wang said that Hongfeng is about 80% Gelao, and that Pudi does not have many Han Chinese. The largest ethnicity is the Miao, followed by the Yi, and then the Gelao and Bai. Wang also said that the average annual income for the villages around Pudi is about 3,000 RMB, regardless of ethnicity. (On the other hand, in Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan, the Han Chinese are the richest, followed by the Zhuang, then the Miao, Yao, and Yi.) Even though children can be undernourished, there is nothing as serious as protruding bellies or yellow hair. Local crops include corn and tea, but not rice due to lack of irrigation water. He added that the Miao have preserved their language the best by far, and many Miao children can still only speak and understand Miao. On the contrary, most Gelao, Yi, and Bai have switched to Mandarin. Wang also said that the Miao still do not like to marry non-Miao, while this is not the case for the Gelao.
Wang Liguo took me back to Pudi in his minivan, and I stayed at a local budget motel for 50 RMB that night.