Northern Loloish languages
| Northern Loloish | |
|---|---|
|
Northern Ngwi Yi | |
| Ethnicity: | Yi people |
| Geographic distribution: | Southern China, Vietnam |
| Linguistic classification: |
|
| Glottolog: | None |
The Northern Loloish languages, also known as Northern Ngwi, are a traditional branch of the Loloish languages that includes the literary standard of the Yi people. It has been abandoned in Lama's (2012) classification.
Languages
Thurgood & LaPolla (2003)[1] list four Northern Loloish (Northern Yi) languages, with no internal subclassification: Nusu, Nasu, Nosu, Nisu.
The Nisu languages, however, are apparently Southeastern Loloish; Lama (2012) includes Nasu and Nosu and well, leaving only Nusu on its own.
Bradley (1997)[2] also lists the endangered Kathu and Mo'ang languages of Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan, China as Northern Loloish languages. These two languages had first been documented in the early 1990s by Wu Zili (武自立), a Chinese linguist specializing in Yi (Loloish) languages.
Innovations
Pelkey (2011:368) lists the following as Northern Ngwi innovations that had developed from Proto-Ngwi.
- Proto-Ngwi tone categories H and L flipped (*L > ˩˧ in Nasu)
- Proto-Ngwi tone categories *1 and *2 merged to mid-level
- Proto-Ngwi tone category *3 > low-falling
- Lexicalized family group classifiers with frequent monosyllabic forms
- Burmic extentive paradigm is highly grammaticalized, with few lexical innovations
References
- ↑ Thurgood & LaPolla, 2003, The Sino-Tibetan languages, p. 8
- ↑ Bradley, D. 1997, "Tibeto-Burman languages and classification", in Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics No. 14: Tibeto-Burman Languages of the Himalayas, ed. D. Bradley, vol. 14, pp. 1-72. Pacific Linguistics, the Australian National University.