TheLoloish languages, also known asYi (like theYi people) and occasionallyNgwi[1] orNisoic,[2] are a family of 50–100Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily in theYunnan province ofSouthwestern China. They are most closely related toBurmese and its relatives. Both the Loloish andBurmish branches are well defined, as is their superior node,Lolo-Burmese. However, sub-classification is more contentious.
The 2013 edition ofEthnologue estimated a total number of 9 million native speakers of Loloish ("Ngwi") languages, the largest group being the speakers ofNuosu (Northern Yi) at 2 million speakers (2000 PRC census).[a]
Loloish is the traditional name for the family in English. Some publications avoid the term under the misapprehension thatLolo is pejorative, but it is the Chinese rendition of the autonym of theYi people and is pejorative only in writing when it is written with a particular Chinese character (one that uses a beast, rather than a human,radical), a practice that was prohibited by the Chinese government in the 1950s.[3]
David Bradley uses the termNgwi, and Lama (2012) usesNisoic.Ethnologue has adopted 'Ngwi', butGlottolog retains 'Loloish'.Paul K. Benedict coined the termYipho, from ChineseYi and a common autonymic element (-po or -pho), but it never gained wide usage.
Loloish was traditionally divided into a northern branch, withLisu and the numerousYi languages and a southern branch, with everything else. However, per Bradley[1] and Thurgood[4] there is also a central branch, with languages from both northern and southern. Bradley[5][6] adds a fourth, southeastern branch.
Ugong is divergent; Bradley (1997) places it with theBurmish languages. TheTujia language is difficult to classify due to divergent vocabulary. Other unclassified Loloish languages areGokhy (Gɔkhý),Lopi andAche.
Lama (2012) classified 36 Lolo–Burmese languages based on a computational analysis of shared phonological andlexical innovations. He finds theMondzish languages to be a separate branch of Lolo-Burmese, which Lama considers to have split off beforeBurmish did. The rest of the Loloish languages are as follows:
The Nisoish, Lisoish, and Kazhuoish clusters are closely related, forming a clade ("Ni-Li-Ka") at about the same level as the other five branches of Loloish. Lama's Naxish clade has been classified asQiangic rather than Loloish byGuillaume Jacques and Alexis Michaud[9] (seeQiangic languages).
ALawoish (Lawu) branch has also been recently proposed.[10]
Satterthwaite-Phillips' (2011) computational phylogenetic analysis of the Lolo-Burmese languages does support the inclusion ofNaxish (Naic) within Lolo-Burmese, but recognizes Lahoish and Nusoish as coherent language groups that form independent branches of Loloish.[11]
Bradley, David (2002). "The subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman". In Beckwith, Christopher & Blezer, Henk (eds.).Medieval Tibeto-Burman languages. International Association for Tibetan Studies Proceedings 9 (2000) and Brill Tibetan Studies Library 2. Leiden: Brill. pp. 73–112.
Bradley, David (2007). "East and Southeast Asia". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.).Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 349–424.
Satterthwaite-Phillips, Damian (2011).Phylogenetic inference of the Tibeto-Burman languages or On the usefulness of lexicostatistics (and "Megalo"-comparison) for the subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman (Ph.D. dissertation). Stanford University.
Thurgood, Graham (2003), "A subgrouping of the Sino-Tibetan languages", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.),Sino-Tibetan Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 3–21,ISBN978-0-7007-1129-1.
Driem, George van (2001).Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Leiden: Brill.
