Mantsi (autonym: '; also called Lô Lô, Flowery Lolo, White Lolo or Black Lolo, is a Lolo-Burmese language. Speakers are mostly located in

Hà Giang Province Hà Giang (, ) was formerly a Provinces of Vietnam, province in the Northeast (Vietnam), Northeast region of Vietnam. It was located in the far north of the country, and contains Vietnam's northernmost point. It shared a 270 km long China-Vi ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

. In

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, speakers are classified as a subgroup of the

Yi people The Yi or Nuosu people (Nuosu language, Nuosu: , ; see also #Names and subgroups, § Names and subgroups) are an ethnic group in South China, southern China. Numbering nine million people, they are the seventh largest of the 55 Ethnic minorit ...

. In Vietnam they are called '' Lô Lô'' and is classified as one of the official 54

ethnic groups in Vietnam There have been 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam as officially recognized by the Vietnamese government since 2 March 1979.Kathu Kathu is a town in South Africa, and the iron ore capital of the Northern Cape province. Its name means "town under the trees", after the Camel Thorn forest it is situated in. The phrase "the town under the trees" was coined by an engineer wo ...

(Kasu, Gasu) and Mo'ang (') languages of

Wenshan Prefecture Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in southeastern Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China, and is the easternmost prefecture-level division of the province. It borders Baise, Guangxi, to the east, Vietn ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

, China (Edmondson 2003). Lama (2012) concludes that Mantsi (Mondzi) and Maang constitute the most divergent branch of the

Lolo-Burmese languages The Lolo-Burmese languages (also Burmic languages) of Burma and Southern China form a coherent branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan family. Names Until ca. 1950, the endonym ''Lolo'' was written with Graphic pejoratives in written C ...

Distribution

''Monji'' or ''Mondzi'' is reportedly spoken in some villages of Muyang Township, Funing County,

, China. ''Munji'' is reportedly spoken by the Flowery Yi (Lolo) of Donggan (董干) Town,

Malipo County Malipo County () is under the administration of the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in the southeast of Yunnan province, China, bordering Ha Giang Province to the southeast. Geography Malipo County is located in the south of Wensha ...

, Yunnan. It is closely related to the Mandzi or Mantsi language of the Flowery Lolo and Black Lolo people of Vietnam and of the White Lolo people of Funing Country. The Red Lolo and Flowery Lolo live across the border in Đồng Văn district,

Hà Giang Hà Giang (, ) is a city located on the banks of the Lô River in Northeast Vietnam. It is the capital of Hà Giang Province. The city has an area of 135.33 km2 and had a population of 55,559 inhabitants as of the 2019 census. The popula ...

province of Vietnam. Both speak similar languages. The language spoken by the Red Lolo was investigated by Jerold A. Edmondson in the late 1990s.

In Vietnam

The Lô Lô ethnic group of northern Vietnam consists of 3,134 people in Hà Giang and Cao Bằng, also including some in

Mường Khương District Mường Khương is a huyện, rural district of Lào Cai province in the Northeast (Vietnam), Northeast region of Vietnam. ''Mường'' is as variation of ''Mueang#Etymology, Mueang''. As of 2003, the district had a population of 48,242. The di ...

of Lào Cai Province. They are also known as Mùn Di, Di, Màn Di, La La, Qua La, Ô Man, and Lu Lộc Màn. ;Flowery Lolo *

Province **Xín Cái,

Mèo Vạc District Miao is a word that the Chinese use to designate some ethnic minority groups living in southern China and Mainland Southeast Asia. Miao is thus officially recognized by the Chinese government as one of the largest ethnic minority groups that ha ...

**Lũng Cù, Đồng Văn District ;Red Lolo *

Province **

** Yên Minh District ;Black Lolo * Bảo Lạc District,

Cao Bằng Cao Bằng () is a city in northern Vietnam. It is the capital and largest settlement of Cao Bằng Province. It is located on the bank of the Bằng Giang river, and is around away from the border with China's Guangxi region. According to the 2 ...

Province **Hồng Tri (including Nà Van village) **Đức Hạnh (Bảo Lạc) **Nghàm Lồm, Cô Ba Township

Phonology

Phonology of Mondzi:

Consonants

�can appear only as a coda. Mondzi also has three

consonant clusters In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

: g k

kʰ In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breathing, breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the Stop consonant#articulation, closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones i ...

Distribution

In Vietnam

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Monophthongs

Diphthongs

Tones

References

Further reading