Nuosu or Nosu (, transcribed as ), also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the

prestige language Prestige may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett: woman travels to French Indochina to meet up with husband * ''The Prestige'' (film), a 2006 American thriller direct ...

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 ...

; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard

Yi language The Loloish languages, also known as Yi (like the Yi people) and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of 50–100 Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of Southwestern China. They are most closely related to Bur ...

() and as such is the only one taught in schools in both oral and written forms. It was spoken by two million people and was increasing (as of PRC census); 60% were monolingual (1994 estimate). Nuosu is the native Nuosu name for their own language and is not used in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, though it may sometimes be translated as ''Nuòsūyǔ'' (). The occasional terms "Black Yi" () and 'White Yi' () are

caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...

s of the Nuosu people, not dialects. Nuosu is one of several often

mutually unintelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

varieties known as Yi, Lolo, Moso, or Noso. The six Yi languages recognized by the Chinese government have only 25% to 50% of their vocabulary in common. They share a common traditional writing system, but that is used for

shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

, rather than daily accounting. According to the ''

Encyclopedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

'', it is one of the eight

Tibeto-Burman languages 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 spe ...

with over 1,000,000 speakers (others being Burmese, Tibetan, Meitei, Bai, Karen, Hani, Jingpo).

Distribution

Nuosu is mainly spoken in the

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture (Nuosu language, Northern Yi: /nɛ˨˩ʂa˧/) is an autonomous prefecture occupying much of the southern extremity of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China. Its seat is Xichang. Liangshan covers an area o ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

. There are other parts of Sichuan where Yi is spoken, including

Panzhihua Panzhihua ( zh, c=攀枝花, p=Pānzhīhuā), formerly Dukou ( zh, labels=no, c=渡口), is a prefecture-level city located in the far south of Sichuan province, China, at the confluence of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers. It has an administrative ...

and

Leshan Leshan, formerly known as Jiading and Jiazhou, is a prefecture-level city located at the confluence of the Dadu River, Dadu and Min River (Sichuan), Min rivers, on the southwestern fringe of the Sichuan Basin in southern Sichuan, about from the ...

. In

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 ...

, Northern Yi (Nuosu) is spoken in the north.

Dialects

Lama (2012)

Lama (2012) gives the following classification for Nuosu dialects. *Nuosu **''Qumusu (Tianba)'' **Nuosu proper ***Nuosu ****''Muhisu'' ****Nuosu (') *****''Yinuo'' *****''Shengzha'' ***Niesu (') ****''Suondi'' ****''Adu'' The Qumusu (曲木苏, Tianba 田坝) dialect is the most divergent one. The other dialects group as Niesu (聂苏, and Adu) and as Nuosu proper (Muhisu 米西苏, Yinuo 义诺, and Shengzha 圣乍). Niesu has both lost voiceless nasals and developed diphthongs. Adu (阿都话), characterized by its

labial–velar consonant Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as . They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant . Labial ...

s, is spoken in the Butuo and Ningnan counties of

province, and also in parts of Puge, Zhaojue, Dechang, and Jinyang counties. Nyisu or Yellow Yi (黄彝) of Fumin County, Yunnan may either be a Soundi Yi (Nuosu) dialect or Nisu dialect. Zhu and Zhang (2005) reports that the Shuitian people () reside mostly in the lowlands of the Anning River

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

, in Xichang, Xide, and Mianning counties of Liangshan Prefecture in

. They are called Muhisu (''mu33 hi44 su33'') by the neighboring Yi highland people. Shuitian is spoken in the following locations. Shuitian belongs to the Shengzha dialect () of Northern Yi. * Mianning County: Jionglong 迥龙, Lugu 泸沽, Hebian 河边; Manshuiwan 漫水湾Main datapoint used in Zhu & Zhang (2005) *

Xichang Xichang ( Northern Yi: /o̝˨˩dʐo̝˧/) is a city in and the seat of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the south of Sichuan, China. History The Qiongdu were the local people at the time of contact with China. The county of Qiongdu is ...

: Lizhou 礼州, Yuehua 月华 * Xide County: Mianshan 冕山镇 (including Shitoushan Village 石头山村), Lake 拉克

Bradley (1997)

According to Bradley (1997), there are three main dialects of Nosu, of which the Southeastern one (Sondi) is most divergent. *Northern **Tianba 田坝 Northwestern **Yinuo 义诺 a.k.a. Northeastern *Central (Shengzha 圣乍) *Southeastern (Sondi) **Sondi **Adur

Chen (2010)

Chen (2010) lists the following dialects of Nosu. Also listed are the counties where each respective dialect is spoken. *Nosu 诺苏方言 **Senza, Shèngzhà 圣乍次方言 ***Senza, Shèngzhà 圣乍 ('): 1,200,000 speakers primarily in Xide, Yuexi, Ganluo, Jinyang, Puge, Leibo,

, Dechang, Mianning, Yanyuan,

Yanbian The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in the east of Jilin Province, China. Yanbian is bordered to the north by Heilongjiang Province, to the west by Jilin's Baishan City and Jilin City, to the south by North K ...

, Muli, Shimian, Jiulong, and Luding; also in Huaping, Yongsheng, Ninglang,

Lijiang Lijiang ( zh, s= ), formerly romanized as Likiang, is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China. It has an area of and had a population of 1,253,878 at the 2020 census whom 288,787 lived in the built-up area (metro) ...

, Jianchuan, Yongshan, and Qiaojia ***Yino, Yìnuò 义诺 ('): 600,000 speakers primarily in Meigu,

Mabian Mabian Yi Autonomous County ( zh, s=马边彝族自治县 , t=馬邊彝族自治縣 , p=Mǎbiān Yízú Zìzhìxiàn; ) is a county of Sichuan, Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of Leshan city. In 2020 it had a population of 1 ...

, Leibo, and Ebian, Ganluo; also in Yuexi, Zhaojue, and Jinyang ***Lidim, Tiánbà 田坝 ('): 100,000 speakers primarily in Ganluo, Yuexi, and Ebian; also in Hanyuan **Sodi, Suǒdì 所地次方言 ('): 600,000 speakers primarily in Tuoxian, Huili, Huidong, Ningnan, Miyi, Dechang, and Puge

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Nuosu has five pairs of phonemic vowels, contrasting in a feature Andy Eatough calls ''loose throat'' vs. ''tight throat''. Underlining is used as an ad-hoc symbol for tight throat; phonetically, these vowels are laryngealized and/or show a

retracted tongue root In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR or +ATR), or expanded pharynx, and retracted tongue root (RTR or −ATR) are contrasting states of the pharynx during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Afric ...

. Loose vs. tight throat is the only distinction in the two pairs of

syllabic consonant A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represe ...

s, but in the

vocoid A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness ...

s it is reinforced by a

height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For an example of vertical extent, "This basketball player is 7 foot 1 inches in height." For an e ...

difference. The syllabic consonants are essentially the usual Sinological vowels , so can be identified with the vowel of the Mandarin "four", but they have diverse realizations. completely assimilates to a preceding coronal except in voice, e.g. "to marry", and is after a labial nasal, e.g. "cloth". assimilates similarly after laterals, retaining its rounding, e.g. "to stir-fry", and is after a labial nasal, e.g. "mushroom"; moreover it induces a labially trilled release of preceding labial or alveolar stops, e.g. "to hit". The tight-throat phone occurs as the realization of in the high tone. That it is phonemically loose-throat is shown by its behaviour in tightness harmony in compound words. Nuosu syllable structure is (C)V.

Tones

* high / – written * high-mid / or mid falling / – written (written with diacritic ̑ over symbol in the syllabary) * mid / – unmarked * low falling / – written The high-mid tone is only marginally contrastive. Its two main sources are from

tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a phonological change that occurs in tonal languages. It involves changes to the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes, based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. This change typically simplifies a bidirec ...

rules, as the outcome of a mid tone before another mid tone, and the outcome of a low-falling tone after a mid tone. However, these changes do not occur in all compounds where they might: for instance "bear" + "mother" regularly forms "female bear", but "jackal" + "mother" forms "female jackal" without sandhi. The syntax creates other contrasts: tone sandhi applies across the boundary between object and verb, so is present in SOV clauses like "Mujy looks for Luti", but is absent in OSV clauses like "Luti looks for Mujy". A few words, like "what?", have underlying high-mid tone.

Writing system

Classic Yi is a syllabic

logographic In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese c ...

system of 8,000–10,000 glyphs. Although similar to

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

in function, the glyphs are independent in form, with little to suggest a direct relation. In 1958 the Chinese government had introduced a Roman-based alphabet based on the romanized script of Gladstone Porteous of Sayingpan. This was later replaced by the Modern Yi script. The Modern Yi script ( 'Nosu script') is a standardized

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

derived from the classic script in 1974. It was made the official script of the Yi languages in 1980. There are 756 basic glyphs based on the Liangshan dialect, plus 63 for syllables only found in Chinese borrowings. The government requires the use of the script for signs in some designated public places.

Vocabulary and grammar

Nuosu is an

analytic language An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...

. The basic word order is Subject–object–verb. Vocabularies of Nuosu can be divided into content words and

function words In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speak ...

. Among content words, nouns in Nuosu do not perform inflections for grammatical gender, number, and cases, classifiers are required when the noun is being counted; verbs do not perform conjugations for its persons and tenses; adjectives are usually placed after the word being fixed with a structural particle and do not perform inflections for comparison. Function words, especially grammatical particles, have a significant role in terms of sentence constructions in Nuosu. Nuosu does not have article words, but conjunctions and

postposition Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

words are used.

Numbers

Classifiers are required when numbers are used for fixing nouns.

References

External links

Yi font by SIL

Pronunciation of Yi Consonant and Vowel

Learn Yi Vocabulary

Yi language edition of the People's Daily

Yi keyboard input

Large Chinese forum dedicated to speaking and studying Yi language

All Yi characters with audio at Zwordy.com
{{Lolo-Burmese languages Loloish languages Languages of Yunnan Yi people Languages attested from the 15th century Languages of Sichuan Nosuland, Sichuan