Lisu language

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Lisu (Lisu: ꓡꓲ-ꓢꓴ or ꓡꓲꓢꓴ; Chinese: 傈僳语; pinyin: lìsùyǔ; Burmese: လီဆူဘာသာစကား, pronounced [lìsʰù bàðà zəɡá]) is a tonal Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Yunnan (southwestern China), northern Burma (Myanmar), and Thailand and a small part of India. Along with Lipo, it is one of two languages of the Lisu people. Lisu has many dialects that originate from the country in which they live. Hua Lisu, Pai Lisu, and Lu Shi Lisu dialects are spoken in China. Although they are mutually intelligible, some have many more loan words from other languages than others.

The Lisu language is closely related to the Lahu and Akha languages and is also related to Burmese, Jingphaw, and Yi languages.

Dialects

Lisu can be split up into three dialects: northern, central, and southern, with northern being the standard.^[3]

Bradley (2003)

Bradley (2003) lists the following three Lisu dialects.^[4]

• Northern (/lo˧˥nɛ̱˦/ 'Black Lo' (autonym), /lo˧˥wu˥/ 'Northern Lo' (name given by other Lisu)): northwest Yunnan, extreme northern Burma and Arunachal Pradesh, India
• Central (/ɕɑ̱˦ɕɑ̱˦/ Flowery Lisu or Hua Lisu): western Yunnan, northeastern Burma
• Southern (/lo˧˥ʂɨ˧/ 'Yellow Lo'): extreme southwestern Yunnan, Shan State of Burma, Thailand

Mu & Sun (2012)

In the introduction of A Study of Lisu dialects (傈僳语方言研究), Mu & Sun (2012) split Lisu into 3 dialects.

• Nujiang 怒江方言: 550,000 speakers in Nujiang Prefecture (all counties), Baoshan Prefecture (all counties), Dehong Prefecture (some counties), Lincang Prefecture (some counties), Dali Prefecture (a few counties), and Weixi County
• Luquan 禄劝方言: 65,000 speakers in parts of Chuxiong Prefecture (in Luquan County, Wuding County, etc.), and parts of neighboring prefectures
• Yongsheng 永胜方言: 18,000 speakers in the counties of Yongsheng, Huaping, Panzhihua, Muli, Yanyuan, and others

Mu & Sun (2012) compare a total of 5 datapoints in their comparative vocabulary table.

• Fugong 福贡: 140,000 speakers in Fugong, Gongshan, Lanping, etc.
• Luquan 禄劝 (autonym: li33 phɒ31, Lipo): 45,000+ speakers in Binchuan, Wuding, Yuanmou, Dayao, Yao'an, Yongren, Dechang, Huili, Huidong, Yanyuan, etc.
• Weixi 维西: 100,000+ speakers in Weixi, Deqin, Zhongdian, Lijiang, etc.
• Tengchong 腾冲: 120,000+ speakers in Longling, Dehong Prefecture, Gengma, Simao, Lushui, Shan State (Burma), Chiang Mai (Thailand)
• Yongsheng 永胜: 90,000+ speakers in Yongsheng, Huaping, Ninglang, Dayao, Yongren, Dechang, etc.

Orthography

Pollard alphabet

Sam Pollard's A-Hmao was adapted to write Lipo, another Lisoish language (sometimes called Eastern Lisu) spoken by the Lisu people.

Fraser alphabet

The Lisu alphabet currently in use throughout Lisu-speaking regions in China, Burma, and Thailand was primarily developed by two Protestant missionaries from different missionary organizations. The more famous of the two is James O. Fraser, a British evangelist from the China Inland Mission. His colleague, who developed the original version of the alphabet (later revised and improved with Fraser and various colleagues from the C.I.M.) was Sara Ba Thaw, a polyglot Karen preacher based in Myitkyina, Burma, who belonged to the American Baptist Mission.

Ba Thaw had prepared a simple Lisu catechism by 1915. The script now widely known as the "Fraser alphabet" was finished by 1939, when Fraser's mission houses in the Lisu ethnic areas of Yunnan Province (China) received their newly printed copies of the Lisu New Testament.

Lisu syllabary

Lisu syllabary

From 1924 to 1930, a Lisu farmer called Ngua-ze-bo (pronounced [ŋua˥ze˧bo˦]; Chinese: 汪忍波/哇忍波) invented the Lisu syllabary from Chinese script, Dongba script and Geba script. However, it looks more different from the Chinese script than Chu Nom and Sawndip (Zhuang logograms). Since Ngua-ze-bo initially carved his characters on bamboos, the syllabary is known as the Lisu Bamboo script (傈僳竹书).

It has a total of 1250 glyphs and 880 characters.

Latin Lisu alphabet

A new Lisu alphabet based on pinyin was created in 1957, but most Lisu continued to use the old alphabet. The Fraser alphabet was officially recognized by the Chinese government in 1992, since which time its use has been encouraged.

Burmese Lisu script

In a few places in Myanmar in which Lisu is spoken, an orthography based on the Burmese alphabet has been developed and is taught to speakers and used in several publications and school books.

Phonology

The Lisu phonological inventory is as follows.^[5]

Vowels

[i] and the fricative vowel [ɨ] are in complementary distribution: [ɨ] is only found after palato-alveolars, though an alternate analysis is possible, with the palato-alveolars viewed as allophones of the palatals before [u] and [ɨ].^[6] The distinction originates from proto-Lolo–Burmese consonant clusters of the type *kr or *kj, which elsewhere merge, but where Lisu normally develops /i/, they remain distinct with the latter producing the type [tʃɨ], the former the type [tɕi]. Inherited palatal affricates + /i/ also become [tʃɨ].

/y/ is variable across dialects. It may be either endolabial or exolabial, central [ʉ], or even merged with /u/. The distinction between ɯ and ɤ is marginal, and both are written ⟨e⟩ in pinyin.

Tones

Lisu has 6 tones: high [˥], mid creaky [˦ˀ], mid [˧], low [˨˩], rising [˧˥], and low checked [˨˩ʔ] (that is, [tá ta̰ ta tà tǎ tàʔ]). In some dialects the creaky tone is higher than mid tone, in others they are equal. The rising tone is infrequent, but common in baby talk (which has a stereotypical disyllabic low–rising pattern); both high and rising tone are uncommon after voiced consonants.

Consonants

[v] and [w] are in complementary distribution, with [v] before front vowels. /f/ is marginal, occurring in a few words before /u/ or /y/. The subdialect Fraser first encountered also distinguishes a retroflex series, /tʂ tʂʰ dʐ ʂ ʐ/, but only before /ɑ/.

Medial glides appear before /ɑ/. These are /w/ with velars and /j/ with bilabials and /h̃/. The latter consonant (see rhinoglottophilia) has a non-nasal allophone in the imperative particle [hɑ́]. /ɣ/ is only distinctive before /ɑ/, and in some dialects is merged with /j/.

In Southern Lisu, the velar plosives become alveopalatal before front vowels. The vowels /u/ and /e/ trigger an offglide on preceding consonants, so /tu du te de/ are pronounced [tfu dvu tje dje].

The vowels ɯ ɤ do not occur initially—or, at least, in initial position they are pronounced [ɣɯ ɣɤ]. It has been argued that the initial vowels /i e y u ɯ ɤ/ are phonetically [ji je fy fu ɣɯ ɣɤ], so initial consonants do not need to be posited in such cases (and marginal /f/ can be removed from the inventory of native words), or that they are phonemically /ʔV/, with glottal stop (Bradley 2003).

References

• Mu Yuzhang, Sun Hongkai [木玉璋, 孙宏开]. 2012. A Study of Lisu dialects [傈僳语方言研究]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House.

External links

• Handbook of the Lisu language