EVOLUTION OF THE INITIAL CONSONANTS IN THE SHE LANGUAGE INDUCED BY CONTACT WITH HAKKA

The She language is a member of the Hmong-Mien family, spoken in mountainous areas in eastern Guangdong of China by about 1,500 people. Its long history of contact with the Hakka dialects of Chinese is well acknowledged in literature. In this paper, we investigate how contact governed the evolution of She initial system, making it become a Hakka-like pattern. It is thought that Hakka-She, the second language spoken by the Hakka people when they came into contact with the She, played a particular important role in shaping the present She initials.