Cun (; meaning "village language/speech"), also known as Gelong (仡éÂÂ诠/ å¥éÂÂè¯Â) or Ngan-Fon, is a KraâÂÂDai language spoken on Hainan Island. It is a part of the Hlai languages branch and has a lexical similarity with standard Hlai at 40%. The language has approximately 80,000 speakers, 47,200 of which are monolingual. Cun is a tonal language with 10 tones, used depending on whether a syllable is checked or unchecked. The speakers of this language are classified by the Chinese government as ethnic Han; in Hainan, Nadou and Lingao speakers are also classified as ethnic Han.
The Cun are descended from Han Chinese migrants to Hainan Island who intermarried with the local Li people. As a result, Cun has more Chinese loanwords than other Hlai languages.
Nearby, the Fuma (Chinese: ä»Â马è¯Â, åºÂçÂÂè¯Â, or ) dialect, a variety of Chinese similar to Gan-Hakka that has been strongly influenced by Cun, is spoken in Fuma Village ä»Â马æÂÂ, Sigeng Town Ã¥ÂÂæ´éÂÂ, Dongfang City. It had about 800 speakers in 1994.
The tables below show the vowel and consonant phonemes of Cun:
Cun has many diphthongs. With : , . With : , . With : , , , , , , . With : , , , , , , , , .
Cun is a tonal language with ten tones. Four of the tones occur only in syllables ending with a consonant: , , or .