Luoji (

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 ...

: ') is a moribund

Loloish The Loloish languages, also known as Yi in China and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of fifty to a hundred Sino-Tibetan languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of China. They are most closely related to Burmese and its relat ...

language of

Weining County Weining Yi Hui and Miao Autonomous County (; Xiao'erjing: ) is a county of Guizhou, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Bijie. Notable attractions include Majie Ethnic Yi Village () and the historic site of Shime ...

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

, China that is spoken by the

Qixingmin people The Qixingmin () are an officially unrecognized ethnic group of western Guizhou province, China. They are officially classified as Bai by the Chinese government. The Qixingmin speak a Yi ( Loloish) language known as Luoji. The ''Guizhou Province ...

. There are a few semi-fluent elderly speakers in Shejie Village 蛇街村, Yangjie Town 羊街镇, Weining County, with no fluent speakers remaining.Hsiu, Andrew
Luoji

Classification

The Qixingmin speak a language closely related to the local

Yi language Nuosu or Nosu (, transcribed as ), also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language () and, as such, is the only one taug ...

, which is intermediate between the Western and Eastern Yi dialects of

(Weining 1997:328).威宁彜族回族苗族自治县民族事务委员会编. 1997. ''Weining County Ethnic Gazeteer'' ��宁彝族回族苗族自治县民族志 Guiyang: Guizhou People's Press ��州民族出版社 Some vocabulary items differ, such as the word for 'chili pepper' (), which is "zi 自" in the Western Yi dialect, "shapo 傻迫" in the Eastern Yi dialect, and "boji 薄几" in Qixingmin. However, the Qixingmin claim that they are distinct from the Yi, and that their ancestors spoke a non-Yi language that had become extinct centuries ago. Qixingmin is geographically located between the Western Yi and Eastern Yi areas. These languages are spoken in: *''Qixingmin'' ("Qixingmin Liangzi" 七姓民梁子): Xiangshui 响水, Jinhai 金海, Sandaohe 三道河, Shejie 蛇街, Yangjie 羊街, and Yanjia 严家 *''Western Yi'': Guanfenghai 观风海, Niupeng 牛棚, Dajie 大街, and Longjie 龙街 *''Eastern Yi'': Yancang 盐仓, Jinzhong 金钟, and Ertang 二塘

References

{{Lolo-Burmese languages Loloish languages Languages of China