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Lisu ( Fraser alphabet: , or ;
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
: ; Lisu syllabary: ; zh, c=傈僳语, p=Lìsùyǔ; , ) is a tonal Tibeto-Burman language spoken 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 ...
(Southwestern
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 ...
), Northern
Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
(Myanmar) and
Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
and a small part of
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. Along with Lipo, it is one of two languages of the Lisu people. Lisu has many dialects that originate from the country in which they live. Hua Lisu, Pai Lisu and Lu Shi Lisu dialects are spoken in China. Although they are mutually intelligible, some have many more loan words from other languages than others. The Lisu language is closely related to the Lahu and Akha languages and is also related to Burmese, Jingphaw and Yi languages.


Demographics

In China, the Lisu people are mostly found 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 ...
, the majority living mainly in Nujiang and Weixi, but also in Baoshan, Dehong, Dêqên, Lijiang, Lincang, Pu'er, Chuxiong, Luquan and Dali. In Liangshan and
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 ...
,
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 ...
, where they make a small minority, some speak Lisu and others speak Lipo, and some are classified under the Yi nationality. A number of Lisu can also be found in southern
Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
. In Myanmar, it is spoken in
Shan State Shan State (, ; , ) is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha Province, Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai Province, Chia ...
,
Kachin State Kachin State (; Jingpho language, Kachin: ) is the northernmost administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east (Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibet and Yunnan, respectively), Shan State to the sou ...
, Sagaing Division and Mandalay Division. The two states are bordered by Yunnan. The
Fraser script The Fraser or Old Lisu script is an constructed script, artificial abugida for the Lisu language invented around 1915 by Sara Ba Thaw, a Karen people, Karen preacher from Myanmar, and improved by the missionary James O. Fraser. It is a single-le ...
was invented in Myanmar by Sara Ba Thaw. In India, it is spoken in the
Changlang District Changlang district (Pron:/tʃæŋˈlæŋ/) is located in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, located south of Lohit District, Lohit district and north of Tirap District, Tirap district. Naga people reside here . As of 2011 it is the second ...
of
Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeast India. It was formed from the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and India declared it as a state on 20 February 1987. Itanagar is its capital and la ...
and possibly in the Tinsukia District of
Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...
. See for more information. Lisu people in India are called Yobin. In
Northern Thailand Northern Thailand, or more specifically Lanna, is a region of Thailand. It is geographically characterized by several mountain ranges, which continue from the Shan Hills in bordering Myanmar to Laos, and the river valleys that cut through them. ...
, it is spoken mainly in the provinces of
Chiang Mai Chiang Mai, sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the List of municipalities in Thailand#Largest cities by urban population, second largest city in Thailan ...
,
Chiang Rai Chiang Rai (, ; , ) is the northernmost major city in Thailand, with a population of about 200,000 people. It is located in Mueang Chiang Rai District, Chiang Rai Province. Chiang Rai was established as a capital city in the reign of King Ma ...
, Mae Hong Son and Kamphaeng Phet. Possibly, there are also perhaps some Lisu speakers in
Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...
and in
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 ...
. The Lisu villages in Laos and Vietnam are rare and isolated from the outside world, and are difficult to distinguish among the Hmong and Yao villages, which make up the majority.


Dialects

Three dialects can be distinguished: northern, central and southern, with northern being the standard.


Bradley (2003)

Bradley (2003) lists the following three Lisu dialects. *Northern (, 'Black Lisu' (autonym), , 'Northern Lisu' (name given by other Lisu)): Northwest Yunnan, Kachin State, Mandalay region, Sagaing Region and India *Central (, Flowery Lisu or Hua Lisu): Western Yunnan, Burma *Southern (, 'Yellow Lisu'): extreme Southwestern Yunnan, Shan State of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam


Mu and Sun (2012)

In their study of Lisu dialects, Mu and Sun (2012) split Lisu into three dialects. *Nujiang 怒江方言: 550,000 speakers in Nujiang Prefecture (all counties), Baoshan Prefecture (all counties), Dehong Prefecture (some counties), Lincang Prefecture (some counties), Dali Prefecture (a few counties) and Weixi County *Luquan 禄劝方言: 65,000 speakers in parts of Chuxiong Prefecture (in Luquan County, Wuding County, etc.) and parts of neighboring prefectures *Yongsheng 永胜方言: 18,000 speakers in the counties of Yongsheng, Huaping,
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 ...
, Muli, Yanyuan and others Mu and Sun (2012) compare a total of five datapoints in their comparative vocabulary table. *Fugong 福贡: 140,000 speakers in Fugong, Gongshan, Lanping, etc. *Luquan 禄劝 (autonym: ', Lipo): 45,000+ speakers in Binchuan, Wuding, Yuanmou, Dayao, Yao'an, Yongren, Dechang, Huili, Huidong, Yanyuan, etc. *Weixi 维西: 100,000+ speakers in Weixi, Deqin, Zhongdian, Lijiang, etc. *Tengchong 腾冲: 120,000+ speakers in Longling, Dehong Prefecture, Gengma, Simao, Lushui,
Shan State Shan State (, ; , ) is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha Province, Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai Province, Chia ...
(Burma),
Chiang Mai Chiang Mai, sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the List of municipalities in Thailand#Largest cities by urban population, second largest city in Thailan ...
(Thailand) *Yongsheng 永胜: 90,000+ speakers in Yongsheng, Huaping, Ninglang, Dayao, Yongren, Dechang, etc.


Orthography


Pollard alphabet

Sam Pollard's A-Hmao was adapted to write Lipo, another Lisoish language (sometimes called ''Eastern Lisu'') spoken by the Lisu people.


Fraser alphabet

The Lisu alphabet currently in use throughout Lisu-speaking regions in China, Burma and Thailand was primarily developed by two Protestant missionaries from different missionary organizations. The more famous of the two is James O. Fraser, a British evangelist from the China Inland Mission. His colleague, who developed the original version of the alphabet (later revised and improved with Fraser and various colleagues from the C.I.M.) was Sara Ba Thaw, a polyglot Karen preacher based in Myitkyina, Burma, who belonged to the American Baptist Mission. Ba Thaw had prepared a simple Lisu catechism by 1915. The script now widely known as the "Fraser alphabet" was finished by 1939, when Fraser's mission houses in the Lisu ethnic areas of Yunnan Province (China) received their newly printed copies of the Lisu New Testament.


Lisu syllabary

From 1924 to 1930, a Lisu farmer named Ngua-ze-bo (pronounced ; zh, 汪忍波/哇忍波) invented the Lisu syllabary from
Chinese script 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 ...
, Dongba script and Geba script. However, it looks more different from the Chinese script than
Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...
and
Sawndip (Sawndip: ; ) are Chinese characters used to write the Zhuang languages in the Chinese provinces of Guangxi and Yunnan. is a Standard Zhuang, Zhuang word that means "immature characters". The Zhuang word for Chinese characters used in the Chi ...
(Zhuang logograms). Since Ngua-ze-bo initially carved his characters on bamboos, the syllabary is known as the Lisu Bamboo script (傈僳竹书). It has a total of 1250 glyphs and 880 characters.


Latin Lisu alphabet

A new Lisu alphabet based on
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...
was created in 1957, but most Lisu continued to use the old alphabet. The Fraser alphabet was officially recognized by the Chinese government in 1992, since which time its use has been encouraged.


Burmese Lisu script

In a few places in
Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...
in which Lisu is spoken, an orthography based on the
Burmese alphabet The Burmese alphabet (, MLCTS: ''mranma akkha.ya'', ) is an abugida used for writing Burmese, based on the Mon–Burmese script. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The ...
has been developed and is taught to speakers and used in several publications and school books.


Thai script

In the 1970s, missionary Edward Hope of OMF International created a variant of the
Thai script The Thai script (, , ) is the abugida used to write Thai language, Thai, Southern Thai language, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai script itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols (, ), 16 vowel s ...
for the Lisu of Thailand. In doing so, he was guided by the policy of the Thai authorities, who believed that the writing systems of the country's national minorities should be based on the Thai script. However, this alphabet did not gain any popularity. Thai alphabet for Lisu: Tones are marked with ่, ๋, ๊.


Phonology

The Lisu phonological inventory is as follows.


Vowels

and the fricative vowel are in complementary distribution: is only found after palato-alveolars, though an alternate analysis is possible, with the palato-alveolars viewed as allophones of the palatals before and . The distinction originates from proto-Lolo–Burmese consonant clusters of the type *kr or *kj, which elsewhere merge, but where Lisu normally develops , they remain distinct with the latter producing the type , the former the type . Inherited palatal affricates + also become . In Central Lisu, is heard as a syllabic when after alveolar sibilant sounds, and as when after retroflex sibilant sounds. is heard as more fronted when following alveolo-palatal sounds. is variable across dialects. It may be either endolabial or exolabial, central or even merged with . The distinction between and is marginal, and both are written in pinyin.


Tones

Lisu has six tones: high , mid creaky , mid , low , rising and low checked (that is, ). In some dialects the creaky tone is higher than mid tone, in others they are equal. The rising tone is infrequent, but common in baby talk (which has a stereotypical disyllabic low–rising pattern); both high and rising tone are uncommon after voiced consonants.


Consonants

and are in complementary distribution, with before
front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...
s. is marginal, occurring in a few words before or . The subdialect Fraser first encountered also distinguishes a retroflex series, , but only before . Medial glides appear before . These are with velars and with bilabials and . The latter consonant (see rhinoglottophilia) has a non-nasal allophone in the imperative particle . is only distinctive before and in some dialects is merged with . In Central Lisu, can be heard as an alveolo-palatal when before . In Southern Lisu, the velar plosives become alveopalatal before front vowels. The vowels and trigger an offglide on preceding consonants, so are pronounced . The vowels do not occur initially—or, at least, in initial position they are pronounced . It has been argued that the initial vowels are phonetically , so initial consonants do not need to be posited in such cases (and marginal can be removed from the inventory of native words), or that they are phonemically , with glottal stop.


References


Works cited

* * * *


Further reading

* Miyake, Marc. 2011
Unicode 5.2 (not 6.1!): the Old Lisu script
*


External links


Handbook of the Lisu language
(1922)
SOUTHERN LISU DICTIONARY

A DICTIONARY OF THE NORTHERN DIALECT OF LISU (CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA)
{{Authority control Loloish languages Languages of Yunnan Languages of India Languages of Myanmar Languages of Thailand Languages of Sichuan