| Ersu | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | China |
| Native speakers | 9,000 (date missing) |
| Language family |
Sino-Tibetan
|
| Writing system | Ersu Shaba script |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ers |
Ersu (Chinese: 尔苏, Ersu; also called Duoxu or Erhsu) is a Qiangic language of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is spoken by about 9,000 people in China; other sources claim the existence of 20,000 speakers,[1][2] with some 500 monolingual Ersu speakers.[1]
Ersu speakers live in the western part of China's Sichuan province (several counties within the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and the prefecture-level city of Ya'an).[2] Most of them are classified by the official statistics as members of the Tibetan ethnic group (Zang zu), [2][1] although some are registered as Han Chinese.[1]
There are three main dialects of Ersu, Eastern Ersu, Central Ersu, and Western Ersu but mutual intelligibility is fading. Some linguists speculate Menia is a dialect of Ersu. Older adults use the language in most situations but younger people also use Chinese or Yi. The Ersu Shaba script is the pictographic script of Ersu shābā religious books. The system, in which the color of the characters has an effect on the meaning, was inspired by Chinese writing and it was created in the 11th century.
Ersu is primarily a subject–object–verb language. It has three tones.