Southern Qiang is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Qiangic branch spoken by approximately 81,300 people along the Minjiang (Chinese: 岷江) river in Sichuan Province, China.
It consists of seven dialects: Dajishan, Taoping, Longxi, Mianchi, Heihu, Sanlong, and Jiaochang, which are greatly divergent and are not mutually intelligible.
Names seen in the older literature for Southern Qiang dialects include Lofuchai (Lophuchai, Lopu Chai) for Luobozhai (萝卜寨); Wagsod (Wa-gsod, Waszu) for Wasi (瓦寺) in modern-day Heping (河坪);[3] and Outside/Outer Mantse (Man-tzŭ), likely from a term for "barbarians", from Chinese: 蠻子; pinyin: mánzǐ or from Tibetan སྨན་རྩེ (Wylie: sman tse).
[6] Liu (1998) adds Sānlóng (Chinese: 三龍) and Jiàocháng (較場) as Southern subdialects.
Its tones are added to a pitch-accent system of high and low(-falling) pitch, wherein native words may only have one accented syllable.
In the dialect of Hou'ergu, Li County, tones are variable on monosyllables depending on the directional prefix (e.g. sɹ̩31 t'ie53; sɹ̩33 t'ie21; dæ55 t'ie33).