Lisu
ꓡꓲ-ꓢꓴ ꓥꓳꓽ,Lisu ngot
Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture Middle School logo written in Lisu
Native to	China,Myanmar (Burma),India,Thailand
Ethnicity	Lisu
Native speakers	(c. 940,000 cited 2000–2007)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Lolo–Burmese Loloish Lisoish Lisu–Lalo Lisu
Writing system	Fraser alphabet, Lisu syllabary,Latin
Official status
Official language in	Weixi Lisu Autonomous County,Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture (PRC)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lis
Glottolog	lisu1250
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Lisu (Fraser alphabet:ꓡꓲ-ꓢꓴ,ꓡꓲ‐ꓢꓴ ꓥꓳꓽ orꓡꓲꓢꓴ;Latin:Lisu ngot; Lisu syllabary:;Chinese:傈僳语;pinyin:Lìsùyǔ;Burmese:လီဆူဘာသာစကား,pronounced[lìsʰùbàðàzəɡá]) is atonalTibeto-Burman language spoken inYunnan (SouthwesternChina), NorthernBurma (Myanmar) andThailand and a small part ofIndia. Along withLipo, it is one of two languages of theLisu 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 theLahu andAkha languages and is also related toBurmese,Jingphaw andYi languages.

In China, the Lisu people are mostly found inYunnan, the majority living mainly inNujiang andWeixi,^[2] but also inBaoshan,Dehong,Dêqên,Lijiang,Lincang,Pu'er,Chuxiong,Luquan andDali. InLiangshan andPanzhihua,Sichuan, where they make a small minority, some speak Lisu and others speakLipo, and some are classified under theYi nationality. A number of Lisu can also be found in southernTibet.

In Myanmar, it is spoken inShan State,Kachin State,Sagaing Division andMandalay Division. The two states are bordered by Yunnan. TheFraser script was invented in Myanmar bySara Ba Thaw.

In India, it is spoken in theChanglang District ofArunachal Pradesh and possibly in theTinsukia District ofAssam. SeeLisu people § Lisu in India for more information. Lisu people in India are called Yobin.

InNorthern Thailand, it is spoken mainly in the provinces ofChiang Mai,Chiang Rai,Mae Hong Son andKamphaeng Phet.

Possibly, there are also perhaps some Lisu speakers inLaos and inVietnam. The Lisu villages in Laos and Vietnam are rare and isolated from the outside world, and are difficult to distinguish among theHmong andYao villages, which make up the majority.^{[citation needed]}

Three dialects can be distinguished: northern, central and southern, with northern being the standard.^[3]

Bradley (2003) lists the following three Lisu dialects.^[4]

• Northern (/lo35nɛ̠44/, 'Black Lisu' (autonym),/lo35wu55/, 'Northern Lisu' (name given by other Lisu)): Northwest Yunnan, Kachin State, Mandalay region, Sagaing Region and India
• Central (/ɕɑ̠44ɕɑ̠44/, Flowery Lisu or Hua Lisu): Western Yunnan, Burma
• Southern (/lo35ʂɨ33/, 'Yellow Lisu'): extreme Southwestern Yunnan, Shan State of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam

In their study of Lisu dialects, Mu and Sun (2012) split Lisu into three dialects.^[5]

• Nujiang 怒江方言: 550,000 speakers inNujiang Prefecture (all counties),Baoshan Prefecture (all counties),Dehong Prefecture (some counties),Lincang Prefecture (some counties),Dali Prefecture (a few counties) andWeixi County
• Luquan 禄劝方言: 65,000 speakers in parts ofChuxiong Prefecture (inLuquan County,Wuding County, etc.) and parts of neighboring prefectures
• Yongsheng 永胜方言: 18,000 speakers in the counties ofYongsheng,Huaping,Panzhihua,Muli,Yanyuan and others

Mu and Sun (2012) compare a total of five datapoints in their comparative vocabulary table.^[5]

• Fugong 福贡: 140,000 speakers inFugong,Gongshan,Lanping, etc.
• Luquan 禄劝 (autonym:li33pʰɒ31,Lipo): 45,000+ speakers inBinchuan,Wuding,Yuanmou,Dayao,Yao'an,Yongren,Dechang,Huili,Huidong,Yanyuan, etc.
• Weixi 维西: 100,000+ speakers inWeixi,Deqin,Zhongdian,Lijiang, etc.
• Tengchong 腾冲: 120,000+ speakers inLongling,Dehong Prefecture,Gengma,Simao,Lushui,Shan State (Burma),Chiang Mai (Thailand)
• Yongsheng 永胜: 90,000+ speakers inYongsheng,Huaping,Ninglang,Dayao,Yongren,Dechang, etc.

Sam Pollard'sA-Hmao was adapted to writeLipo, another Lisoish language (sometimes calledEastern Lisu) spoken by the Lisu people.

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 isJames 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.

From 1924 to 1930, a Lisu farmer named Ngua-ze-bo (pronounced[ŋua˥ze˧bo˦];Chinese:汪忍波/哇忍波) invented the Lisu syllabary fromChinese script,Dongba script andGeba script. However, it looks more different from the Chinese script thanChữ Nôm andSawndip (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.^{[citation needed]}

A new Lisu alphabet based onpinyin 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.

In a few places inMyanmar in which Lisu is spoken, an orthography based on theBurmese alphabet has been developed and is taught to speakers and used in several publications and school books.

In the 1970s, missionary Edward Hope ofOMF International created a variant of theThai script 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:^[6]

Tones are marked with ่, ๋, ๊.

The Lisu phonological inventory is as follows.^[4]

[i] and thefricative vowel[ɨ] are in complementary distribution:[ɨ] is only found after palato-alveolars, though an alternate analysis is possible, with the palato-alveolars viewed as allophones of the palatals before[u] and[ɨ].^[7] The distinction originates from proto-Lolo–Burmese consonant clusters of the type *kr or *kj, which elsewhere merge, but where Lisu normally develops/i/, they remain distinct with the latter producing the type[tʃɨ], the former the type[tɕi]. Inherited palatal affricates +/i/ also become[tʃɨ].

In Central Lisu,[i] is heard as a syllabic[z̩] when after alveolar sibilant sounds, and as[ʐ̩] when after retroflex sibilant sounds./ɑ/ is heard as more fronted[a] when following alveolo-palatal sounds.^[8]

/y/ is variable across dialects. It may be eitherendolabial orexolabial, central[ʉ] or even merged with/u/. The distinction betweenɯ andɤ is marginal, and both are written⟨e⟩ in pinyin.

Lisu has six tones: high[˥], mid creaky[˦ˀ], mid[˧], low[˨˩], rising[˧˥] and low checked[˨˩ʔ] (that is,[táta̰tatàtǎtàʔ]). 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.

[v] and[w] are in complementary distribution, with[v] beforefront vowels./f/ is marginal, occurring in a few words before/u/ or/y/. The subdialect Fraser first encountered also distinguishes a retroflex series,/tʂtʂʰdʐʂʐ/, but only before/ɑ/.

Medial glides appear before/ɑ/. These are/w/ with velars and/j/ with bilabials and/h̃/. The latter consonant (seerhinoglottophilia) has a non-nasal allophone in the imperative particle[hɑ́]./ɣ/ is only distinctive before/ɑ/ and in some dialects is merged with/j/.

In Central Lisu,/j/ can be heard as an alveolo-palatal[ʑ] when before/i/.^[8] In Southern Lisu, the velar plosives become alveopalatal before front vowels. The vowels/u/ and/e/ trigger an offglide on preceding consonants, so/tudutede/ are pronounced[tfudvutjedje].

The vowels/ɯɤ/ do not occur initially—or, at least, in initial position they are pronounced[ɣɯɣɤ]. It has been argued that the initial vowels/ieyuɯɤ/ are phonetically[jijefyfuɣɯɣɤ], so initial consonants do not need to be posited in such cases (and marginal/f/ can be removed from the inventory of native words), or that they are phonemically/ʔV/, with glottal stop.^[4]

Lisu language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Handbook of the Lisu language (1922)
• SOUTHERN LISU DICTIONARY
• A DICTIONARY OF THE NORTHERN DIALECT OF LISU (CHINA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA)

• Loloish languages
• Languages of Yunnan
• Languages of India
• Languages of Myanmar
• Languages of Thailand
• Languages of Sichuan

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