| Lalo | |
|---|---|
| Western Yi | |
| Spoken in | China |
| Ethnicity | Yi |
| Native speakers | 400,000 (1991–2002) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | variously: ywt – Xishanba yik – Dongshanba yit – Eastern ywl – Western |
Lalo is a Central Loloish language cluster spoken in western Yunnan, China by fewer than 300,000 speakers. Speakers are officially part of the Yi nationality, and Chinese linguists refer to it as "Western Yi" due to its distribution in western Yunnan. Lalo speakers are mostly located in southern Dali Prefecture, especially Weishan County, considered the traditional homeland of the Lalo.[1] Historically, this area is the home of the Meng clan, who ruled the Nanzhao Kingdom (737–902 CE). Many Core Lalo claim to be descendants of the Meng clan.
A recent dialectological survey[2] shows that the Lalo cluster comprises at least seven closely related languages. Three, Eastern, Western, and Central, together constitute the Core Lalo group and are located in the traditional Lalo homeland of southern Dali Prefecture. There are also four peripheral languages, Mangdi, Eka, Yangliu, and Xuzhang, whose ancestors migrated out of the Lalo homeland at different times. The Central cluster has approximately 213,000 speakers; West, 44,000; East, 15,000; Yangliu, 7,000; Eka, 3,000; Mangdi, 3,000; and Xuzhang, 2,000. All Lalo languages show a reflex of the Proto-Lalo autonym *la2lo̠Hpa̠ᶫ; i.e. the name that the Proto-Lalo called themselves are still preserved in the various modern Lalo languages. Eka speakers’ autonym is now /o˨˩kʰa˨˦/, but elder speakers remember a time when they called themselves /la˨˩u̠˧po̠˨˩/.