Kathu and Thou () constitute a Lolo-Burmese language of Balong (坝聋), Nanping Township (南屏镇),

Guangnan County Guangnan County (; Zhuang: ) is located in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China. The seat of Guangnan, known today as Liancheng (), was the heart of the Gouding Kingdom () that lasted approximately 400 years, f ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

, China. 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

(including in Dayashao 大牙少), as well as in Jinping County, Yunnan. ''Ethnologue'' mentions a possible presence in Guangxi Province. Kathu-Thou is notable for having initial consonant clusters, which within the Lolo-Burmese branch are also found in Written Burmese (

Old Burmese Old Burmese was an early form of the Burmese language, as attested in the stone inscriptions of Pagan, and is the oldest phase of Burmese linguistic history. The transition to Middle Burmese occurred in the 16th century. The transition to Middle ...

) and Jinuo (Hsiu 2014:66). Wu (2004) lists the onset clusters pl, pʰl, bl, ml, kl, kʰl, gl, ql, qʰl, ɢl, ŋl.

Varieties

Hsiu (2014:65) identifies two varieties, both spoken in Nanping Township (南屏镇). *Kathu (

autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...

: '), spoken in Anwang village 安王村 *Thou (

: '), 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 The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...

branch (Hsiu 2014).Hsiu, Andrew. 2014.
Mondzish: a new subgroup of Lolo-Burmese
. In ''Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14)''. Taipei: Academia Sinica. Hsiu (2014) suggests that Kathu could be added to

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch linguist associated with the University of Bern, where he is the chair of Historical Linguistics and directs the Linguistics Institute. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gramma ...

's list of Trans-Himalayan "

fallen leaves Fallen Leaves may refer to: * "Fallen Leaves" (song), a 2006 song by Billy Talent * ''Fallen Leaves'' (film), a 2023 Finnish film See also * The Fallen Leaves The Fallen Leaves are a British garage rock group that formed in Richmond, Londo ...

." Bradley (1997) classified Kathu as a

Northern Loloish The Northern Loloish languages, also known as Northern Ngwi, are a branch of the Loloish languages that includes the literary standard of the Yi people. In Lama's (2012) classification, it is called ''Nisoid'' (''Nisu–Lope''), which forms the ...

language, while Bradley (2007) classified it as a

Southeastern Loloish The Southeastern Loloish languages, also known as Southeastern Ngwi, are a branch of the Loloish languages. In Lama's (2012) classification, it is called ''Axi-Puoid'', which forms the Nisoish branch together with the ''Nisoid'' (''Nisu–Lope'' ...

language. However, Pelkey (2011:458)Pelkey, Jamin. 2011. ''Dialectology as Dialectic: Interpreting Phula Variation''. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. notes that Kathu and Mo'ang are not Southeastern Loloish languages.

References

*Wu Zili ��自立 2004. "Gasu language ��僳话. In ''Studies on selected languages of Yunnan'' ��南特殊语言研究 486-513. Kunming: Yunnan People's Press ��南民族出版社

Varieties

Classification

See also

References

Further reading