Kathu (Chinese: 嘎苏话) is a Lolo-Burmese language of Balong (坝聋), Nanping Township (南屏镇), Guangnan County, Yunnan, China.[2] The Kathu are locally known as the White Yi (白彝). Wu Zili (2004) estimates that Kathu has a total of more than 7,000 speakers in Guangnan County (including in Dayashao 大牙少[3]), as well as in Jinping County, Yunnan. Ethnologue mentions a possible presence in Guangxi Province.
A related variety is known as Thou.
Kathu-Thou is notable for having initial consonant clusters, which within the Lolo-Burmese branch are also found in Written Burmese (Old Burmese) and Jinuo (Hsiu 2014:66).[4] Wu (2004) lists the onset clusters pl, pʰl, bl, ml, kl, kʰl, gl, ql, qʰl, ɢl, ŋl.
Varieties
Hsiu (2014:65)[4] identifies two varieties, both spoken in Nanping Township (南屏镇).
- Kathu (autonym: ka33 θu33), spoken in Anwang village 安王村
- Thou (autonym: θou̯53), spoken in Balong village 坝聋村
Classification
Kathu vocabulary is largely similar to those of other Mondzish languages. However, there are various words that do not appear to be of Lolo-Burmese origin, and are derived from an unknown Tibeto-Burman branch (Hsiu 2014).[4] Hsiu (2014) suggests that Kathu could be added to George van Driem's list of Trans-Himalayan "fallen leaves."
Bradley (1997)[5] classified Kathu as a Northern Loloish language, while Bradley (2007)[6] classified it as a Southeastern Loloish language. However, Pelkey (2011:458)[7] notes that Kathu and Mo'ang are not Southeastern Loloish languages.
See also
- Kathu word list (Wiktionary)
References
- ^ Kathu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-12-30. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-09-14. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ a b c Hsiu, Andrew. 2014. "Mondzish: a new subgroup of Lolo-Burmese Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine". In Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14). Taipei: Academia Sinica.
- ^ Bradley, David. 1997. "Tibeto-Burman languages and classification". In Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas, Papers in South East Asian linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- ^ Bradley, David. 2007. East and Southeast Asia. In Moseley, Christopher (ed.), Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages, 349-424. London & New York: Routledge.
- ^ Pelkey, Jamin. 2011. Dialectology as Dialectic: Interpreting Phula Variation. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
- Wu Zili [武自立]. 2004. "Gasu language [嘎僳话]". In Studies on selected languages of Yunnan [云南特殊语言研究], 486-513. Kunming: Yunnan People's Press [云南民族出版社]. ISBN 7536730624
Further reading
- Hsiu, Andrew. 2014. "Mondzish: a new subgroup of Lolo-Burmese Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine". In Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14). Taipei: Academia Sinica.
- Wu Zili [武自立]. 1994. A preliminary study of the Gasu language of Guangnan County, Yunnan Province [云南省广南县嘎苏话初探]. Minzu Yuwen 2. http://wuxizazhi.cnki.net/Search/MZYW402.006.html
- Wu Zili [武自立]. 2004. "Gasu language [嘎僳话]". In Studies on selected languages of Yunnan [云南特殊语言研究], 486-513. Kunming: Yunnan People's Press [云南民族出版社]. ISBN 7536730624
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
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| Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
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| East and Southeast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
This page was last edited on 22 May 2023, at 15:16