Abstract: Laze is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in the county of Muli, in Sichuan, by a population of less than 1,000. The article proposes a synchronic account of Laze phonology, supplemented by a list of about 1,400 words in the Appendix. A phonemic analysis is proposed, with an inventory of syllables that brings to light the synchronic distributional properties of Laze onsets and rhymes–properties that are crucial to ongoing research into the historical phonology of the subgroup of Sino-Tibetan to which Laze belongs.

This monograph presents a comparative lexicon of five representative Phula languages: Phola [ypg], Phuza [ypz], Hlepho Phowa [yhl], Southern Muji [ymc] and Azha [aza]. These languages belong to the Southeastern Ngwi branch of Burmic in the Tibeto-Burman family and are spoken in southeastern Yunnan Province, China. Following a brief introduction to the ethnohistory, social geography, linguistic typology and genetic lineage of these languages and their next-of-kin, the lexicon provides over 1,100 comparative entries for each representative lect with Chinese and English glosses organized by semantic domain. Footnotes follow each set of 25 entries page-by-page for the clarification of semantic field ambiguities, usage idiosyncrasies, subtle dialect distinctions and other notes of interest gleaned during elicitation sessions. The primary comparative list is followed by a transposed 660-item list sorted according to Ngwi protoforms (Bradley 1979) for diachronic comparison. These combined wordlists constitute a sampling of the data collected by the author from 2005-2006 in cooperation with the Honghe Nationalities Research Institute, Yuxi Normal University, the Wenshan Zhuang Studies Council, La Trobe University and SIL-International, East Asia Group. The work is intended to serve as a companion to Pelkey (2011), in which historical dialectology is undertaken to operationalize these languages, along with 19 others—validating them in the process as ontogenetic representatives of their respective macro-clades.

The purpose of this survey was to make an initial sociolinguistic documentation of Kua-nsi (跨恩斯话) and related Yi (Ngwi) varieties of northern Heqing county (鹤庆县), Yunnan province, and to make a preliminary evaluation of levels of inter-comprehension and lexical similarity. Five different language varieties were documented: Kua-nsi (跨恩斯话), Kuamasi (跨玛斯话), Laizisi (莱兹斯话), Zibusi (子逋斯话), and Sonaga (锁内嘎话). Based on an initial evaluation, the authors believe that none of these varieties are mutually intelligible to a high degree. Based on both lexical similarity scores and Levenshtein distance analysis, the closest known Yi variety to Kua-nsi is Talu (他留话), spoken in Yongsheng county (永胜县). All of these varieties exhibit typical features of other Central Ngwi languages, such as Lalo (拉罗话) and Lolo (倮倮话). They are all threatened speech varieties. Kua-nsi, with over 5,000 speakers, and Sonaga, with over 2,000 speakers, can be said to have the highest linguistic and cultural vitality.

Prior work has suggested that proto-Rma was a non-tonal language and that tonal varieties underwent tonogenesis (Liú 1998, Evans 2001a-b). This paper re-examines the different arguments for the tonogenesis hypothesis and puts forward subgroup-internal and subgroupexternal evidence for an alternative scenario in which tone, or its phonetic precursors, was present at the stage of proto-Rma. The subgroup-internal evidence comes from regular correspondences between tonal varieties. These data allow us to put forward a working hypothesis that proto-Rma had a two-way tonal contrast. Furthermore, existing accounts of how tonogenesis occurred in the tonal varieties are shown to be problematic. The subgroup-external evidence comes from regular tonal correspondences to two closely related tonal TransHimalayan subgroups: Prinmi, a modern language, and Tangut, a mediaeval language attested by written records from the 11th to 16th centuries. Regular correspondences among the tonal categories of ...

The study of language contact epitomizes the dynamics of language as a system of human communication. The competing linguistic forces at work when speakers of different language varieties come into contact can be narrowed down to two basic concepts––convergence and divergence. Looking at linguistic areas using a macro approach, languages in contact tend to show convergence across all structural levels through diffusion and borrowing, but nevertheless, linguistic diversity persists in regions of high interethnic language contact. Ethnicity often plays a significant role in constructing identity, therefore a speaker’s linguistic choices can reflect ethnic identity and intergroup relations. Because these processes occur in and as a result of complex societies, “studies of interethnic language contact must begin by understanding the context in which speakers in a community construct their own ethnicity, as well as the ideologies that affect how they view other groups” (Fought 2013: 395). Southwest China is a particularly interesting region for language contact research because high levels of ethnolinguistic diversity in remote areas perpetuates traditional interethnic contact relations while these same groups are also currently under social and economic pressure to assimilate to mainstream Chinese society. This dissertation describes the social context of language contact in Yunnan Province’s Wuding County, an under-researched mountainous county with more than half of the population classified as non-Han ethnic minorities. Speakers of at least eight Ngwi varieties (Lolo-Burmese, Tibeto- Burman), two Hmong varieties, and one Tai variety are represented in villages across the county, although speaker numbers are diminishing due to widespread shift to Mandarin Chinese. This dissertation presents original ethnolinguistic maps of the distribution of ethnic minority villages in the county followed by two localized studies of interethnic contact scenarios in a Yi village area. A demographic survey of reported language proficiency in Miqie and Geipo households illustrates the role of access and geographic location in the rate of language shift to Mandarin; while the second study discusses the role of ethnic identity in persisting Miqie and Geipo language variation in intermarried households in the same village area. These studies highlight the dynamic social context in which language is used and changes for constructing identity and improving social mobility for speakers of languages facing endangerment in a rapidly changing society.

Gerald Roche and CK Stuart. 2015. Introduction: Mapping the Monguor IN Gerald Roche and CK Stuart (eds) Asian Highlands Perspectives 36: Mapping the Monguor, 5-15, 301-332. The thirteen contributions in this collection shed new light on the people, officially referred to in China as the Tu, but in the West more commonly known as the Monguor, who numbered 289,565 in 2010 (Poston and Xiong 2014:118), and who lived mostly in Qinghai and Gansu provinces. While considered in China to be a unitary minzu, or nationality, with a single history, language, and culture, and also assumed to be as much by Western scholars, a growing body of research is suggestive of the diversity within this group (Janhunen 2006). One indication of this diversity has been the proliferation of names used to describe localized populations of the Tu, including Karilang, Mongghul, Huzhu Mongghul, Huzhu Tu, Tianzhu Tu, Mangghuer, Gansu Mangghuer, Reb gong Tu, Dordo, Wutun Tu, Baoan Tu, Shaowa Tu, Mongolic Tu, Naringhuor Mongghuor, Datong Tu, and Halchighul Mongghul. Linguistic research has also revealed diversity among the Monguor, showing that their first languages may include Qinghai Chinese (Datong Tu) and other 'Creolized' Sinitic varieties (Wutun), as well as Mongolic (Mongghul, Mangghuer, Reb gong Tu) and Bodic varieties (Shaowa Tu) (Janhunen et al. 2007).