Zaiwa

Zaiwa (ISO 639-3 code: atb; Glottocode: zaiw1241) belongs to the Burmese branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, sharing many common features with the Burmese and Achang languages of the same branch. It is primarily spoken by a subgroup of Jingpo people, who identify as ‘Zaiwa’. Beyond Zaiwa, the Jingpo people encompass four distinct subgroups, each conversing in unique linguistic variations, namely Jingpo (景颇), Langsu (浪速), Leqi (勒期), and Bola (波拉). Jingpo is distinctively affiliated with the Jingpo branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages, whereas the other three languages, including Zaiwa, are categorized within the Burmese branch (He, 2016). The majority of Zaiwa speakers are found in Luxi (潞西), Yingjiang (盈江), Longchuan (陇川), Ruili (瑞丽), Lianghe (梁河), and Wanding (畹町) counties within the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture (德宏傣族景颇族自治州) of Yunnan province (云南省) as well as the Shan and Kachin states in Myanmar. Zaiwa is widely used in Zaiwa-dominant areas or communities with a significant Zaiwa presence. It is used not only in daily life contexts, such as among family members, villages, markets, and shops, but also in a range of social sectors, including in government and judicial offices, as well as on radio and broadcasting stations. Among the Jingpo languages, Zaiwa has the largest number of users. Individuals who speak Zaiwa often speak languages of other Jingpo subgroups in addition to Mandarin Chinese. Due to the extensive promotion and dissemination of Mandarin, particularly in educational and media contexts, Mandarin has emerged as the predominant second language for the youth within the community. Moreover, in neighboring regions or mixed communities where the Zaiwa subgroup is prominent, individuals from other ethnic groups such as the Achang, Han, Dai, and Lisu also frequently speak Zaiwa. According to the statistics from China’s Sixth National Population Census in 2010, the total population of the Jingpo ethnic group is approximately 140,000. There were over 80,000 Zaiwa speakers within China, constituting more than 60% of the total Jingpo ethnic population in the country (He, 2016). Scholars such as Xu and Xu (1984), Dai (1989), Kong (2001), Pan (2014), He (2016), Lu and Kong (2019), and Lu et al. (2025) have conducted studies on the phonetics of Zaiwa.