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Red Gelao

Critically endangered, around 400 languages 

A'ou language: spoken in Guizhou Province, China

Vandu language: spoken in Ha Giang Province, Vietnam

A'ou or Red Gelao is an endangered Gelao language spoken by fewer than 100 people in Guizhou, China. Only the Hongfeng 红丰 and Bigong 比贡 dialects are still spoken, each with only a few dozen speakers.

The main dialects of A'ou, which all have limited mutual intelligibility, are:

Hongfeng

Bigong

Qiaoshang (extinct)

Only one elderly speaker of the Houzitian 猴子田 dialect was found in 2013, and it is likely now extinct.

Source:

Li Jinfang [李锦芳]. 2006. Studies on endangered languages in the Southwest China [西南地区濒危语言调查研究]. Beijing: Minzu University [中央民族大学出版社].

Zhou Guoyan 周国炎. 2004. Gelao zu mu yu sheng tai yan jiu 仡佬族母語生态硏究 (Studies on the linguistic ecology of the Gelao people). Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House 民族出版社.

Li Xia; Li Jinfang; Luo Yongxian. 2014. A Grammar of Zoulei, Southwest China. Bern: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. ISBN 978-3-0343-1344-5

Ostapirat, Weera. 2000. "Proto-Kra." Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 23 (1): 1-251.

Hsiu, Andrew. 2017. Red Gelao (Houzitian) audio word list. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1122531

Red Gelao: Publications
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