A study on literacy of the Wa people

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26884043
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Japan Health Care College
• Principal Investigator: Yamada Atsushi 日本医療大学, 保健医療学部, 准教授 (20609094)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: ワ族 / リテラシー / 無文字社会 / 雲南

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The Wa people, a Mon-Khmer speakering people living in south-western Yunnan province of China, is an ethnic group which did not have their own character for a long time. However, some types of characters are transmitted to their society after the 19th centuries. The aim of this study is to reveal their literacy. We conducted some field surveys on the Wa people living in (or originated from) Yunnan province. The result of these surveys, we collected many valuable socio-linguistic data. Based on these data, we contributed some papers and reports about socio-linguistic studies of the Wa people, especially in two kinds of roman transcriptions and an Indian script.

Free Research Field

言語学