Mpi is a

Loloish language 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 rela ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

. The number of speakers is in decline. It is spoken in the following two villages in northern

. *Ban Dong, Tambon Suan Khuean สวนเขื่อน, Mueang Phrae District, Phrae Province (autonym: ' in Ban Dong) *Ban Sakoeng, Tambon Yot ยอด, Song Khwae District, Nan Province (autonym: ' Ban Sakoeng) Since the

Mpi MPI or Mpi may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Magnetic particle imaging, an emerging non-invasive tomographic technique * Myocardial perfusion imaging, a nuclear medicine procedure that illustrates the function of the hear ...

of Thailand migrated from

Mengla Mengla County (; Tai Lue: , ''Mueang La''; lo, ເມືອງລ້າ; th, เมืองล้า) is a county under the jurisdiction of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, in far southern Yunnan province, China. ''Meng'' is a vari ...

Xishuangbanna Xishuangbanna, Sibsongbanna or Sipsong Panna (Tham: , New Tai Lü script: ; ; th, สิบสองปันนา; lo, ສິບສອງພັນນາ; shn, သိပ်းသွင်ပၼ်းၼႃး; my, စစ်ဆောင်� ...

, Yunnan, China over 300 years ago, there could also possibly be Mpi speakers in China (Nahhas 2007).

Phonology

Mpi has six tones and two phonations in its

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...

modal voice Modal voice is the vocal register used most frequently in speech and singing in most languages. It is also the term used in linguistics for the most common phonation of vowels. The term "modal" refers to the resonant mode of vocal folds; that ...

and

stiff voice The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants or vowels with a glottal opening narrower, and the vocal folds stiffer, than occurs in modal voice. Although there is no specific IPA diacritic for stiff voice, the voicing diacritic ( ...

Phonology

References

Further reading