Longjia (autonym: ') is a Sino-Tibetan language of Guizhou, China related to Caijia and Luren. Longjia may already be extinct (Zhao 2011).
The Longjia people now speak Southwestern Mandarin, though they used to speak their own language, and have had a long presence in western Guizhou. According to the Guizhou Ethnic Gazetteer (2002), the Longjia language was spoken in Dafang County, Qianxi County (Zhongping District ä¸Âåªåº; Xinfacun æ°åÂÂæ of Pojiao District å¡èÂÂåº), and Puding County (Jiangyizhai 讲ä¹Â寨 of Baiyan Township ç½岩乡). It is reportedly most similar to Caijia, and has many Old Chinese loanwords.
Guizhou (1984) shows that Longjia is closely related to Caijia and Luren. However, the classification of Caijia within Sino-Tibetan is uncertain. Zhengzhang (2010) suggests that Caijia and Bai are sister languages, while Sagart argues that Caijia is Sinitic and a close relative of Waxiang.
The following dialects of Longjia have been described.
The following comparative word list of three Longjia dialects is from Guizhou (1984:2-3). Guizhou (1984) notes that the dialect of Jiangyizhai 讲ä¹Â寨 (Puding County) is divergent, while the dialects of Pojiao å¡è (Dafang County) and Huaxi èÂ񑧦 (Qianxi County) are more closely related to each other.
The Puding County Almanac (1999) reports that the Longjia language (autonym: Songnibao æ¾泥ä¿Â) has 38 onsets and 22 rimes (8 simple, 14 complex). The Bijie County Almanac (1996:143) reports that there are many prenasalized onsets. In Dafang County, the autonym is Songlibao æ¾ç«Âä¿Â.
The most extensive lexical data of Longjia can be found in Zhang & Li (1982).
The Nanjing people (Ã¥ÂÂ京人) have usually been classified with the Longjia people, and claim to be descendants of soldiers from the Nanjing area who had intermarried with the local Longjia in Guizhou. Their language is known as Nanjinghua (Ã¥ÂÂ京è¯Â; "Nanjing speech"), which is probably now functionally extinct.
In Jianxinhe village 建æ°河æÂÂ, Kunzhai Township æÂÂ寨乡, Nayong County, Guizhou Province, the phrase suo55 mu33 âÂÂeat riceâ was elicited from an elderly rememberer of Nanjinghua. As suo55 is derived from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *dzya âÂÂto eatâÂÂ, this points to Nanjinghua having an SVO word order like Caijia, Longjia, Bai, and Sinitic languages.