Tujia (Bizisa)

Tujia is an independent member of the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan languages. It is spoken by about 70,000 people in the Chinese province of Hunan, specifically in the northern part of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in north-western Hunan.

The native name for the Tujia language is Bizisa, while the Tujia people, who number around 8 million, call themselves Bizika. Tujia (土家) is the Chinese name for the language and people. The Tujia live in an area that straddles the provinces of Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou and Chongqing Municipality in central China.

Tujia is used to a limited extent in schools, but has no presence in the media. There is no standard written form of Tujia.

Tujia pronunciation

Tujia is a tonal language with four tones: 1 = high level, 2 = high rising, 3 = low falling, and 4 = high falling.

Source: http://www.brassett.org.uk/tujia/elng/epron.html

Sample text in Tujia

bi²zi¹ka³ luo⁴ yo wei, da⁴ bo³ ca² luo wei, ku²bi¹ bao¹bao¹ ga³ ong³-bo³-la¹ yo wei, se³ke¹ pe²ti¹ jie³-xi² xie² luo wei. la² long¹ ri¹-lie³ qie⁴ duo³ xie² luo wei, ang² da⁴ ai¹ka²se¹pa² ri¹ ya, se¹pa² ri¹ yo wei.

Translation

The Tujia are good to one another, sitting on Kubi Outcrop, we have our own fields and land. A year's work gives us all we need, we work in the fields together, work in the fields.
Traditional song, Source: http://www.brassett.org.uk/tujia/earch/etxt62.html