Nuosu language

Nuosu or Nosu (ꆈꌠꉙ, transcribed as Nuo su hxop), also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language (Chinese: 彝语) and, as such, is the only one taught in schools, both in its 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/Yi name for their own language and is not used in Mandarin Chinese, though it may sometimes be translated as Nuòsū yǔ (simplified Chinese: 诺苏语; traditional Chinese: 諾蘇語).^[2]

The occasional terms 'Black Yi' (黑彝; hēi Yí) and 'White Yi' (白彝; bái Yí) are castes of the Nuosu people, not dialects.^{[citation needed]}

Nuosu is one of several often mutually unintelligible varieties known as Yi, Lolo, Moso, or Noso; the six Yi languages recognized by the Chinese government hold only 25% to 50% of their vocabulary in common. They share a common traditional writing system, though this is used for shamanism rather than daily accounting.^{[citation needed]}

Dialects of Nuosu[]

Lama (2012)[]

Lama (2012) gives the following classification for Nuosu dialects.

• Nuosu
  • Qumusu (Tianba)
  • Nuosu proper
    • Nuosu
      • Muhisu
      • Nuosu (nɔ˧su˧)
        • Yinuo
        • Shengzha
    • Niesu (nie˧su˧)
      • Suondi
      • Adu

The Qumusu 曲木苏 (Tianba 田坝) dialect is the most divergent. The other dialects group as Niesu 聂苏 (Suondi and Adu) and as Nuosu proper (Muhisu 米西苏, Yinuo 义诺, and Shengzha 圣乍). Niesu has lost voiceless nasals and has developed diphthongs.^[3]

Adu 阿都话, characterized by its labial–velar consonants, is spoken in Butuo County 布拖县 and Ningnan County 宁南县 of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, and also in parts of Puge County 普格, Zhaojue County 昭觉, Dechang County 德昌, and Jinyang County 金阳 (Pan 2001).^[4]

Nyisu or Yellow Yi 黄彝 of Fumin County, Yunnan may either be a Suondi Yi (Nuosu) dialect or Nisu dialect.

Zhu & Zhang (2005)^[5] reports that the Shuitian people (水田人) reside mostly in the lowlands of the Anning River drainage basin, in Xichang, Xide, and Mianning counties of Liangshan Prefecture in Sichuan. 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 (圣乍次土语) of Northern Yi.

• Mianning County: Jionglong 迥龙, Lugu 泸沽, Hebian 河边; Manshuiwan 漫水湾^[6]
• Xichang: Lizhou 礼州, Yuehua 月华
• Xide County: Mianshan 冕山镇 (including Shitoushan Village 石头山村^[6]), Lake 拉克

Bradley (1997)[]

According to Bradley (1997),^[7] there are 3 main dialects of Nosu, of which the Southeastern one (Sondi) is most divergent.

• Northern
  • Tianba 田坝 AKA Northwestern
  • Yinuo 义诺 AKA 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 (no̠33 su33): 1,200,000 speakers primarily in Xide, Yuexi, Ganluo, Jinyang, Puge, Leibo, Xichang, Dechang, Mianning, Yanyuan, Yanbian, Muli, Shimian, Jiulong, and Luding; also in Huaping, Yongsheng, Ninglang, Lijiang, Jianchuan, Yongshan, and Qiaojia
    • Yino, Yìnuò 义诺 (no̠22 su22): 600,000 speakers primarily in Meigu, Mabian, Leibo, and Ebian, Ganluo; also in Yuexi, Zhaojue, and Jinyang
    • Lidim, Tiánbà 田坝 (no̠33 su33): 100,000 speakers primarily in Ganluo, Yuexi, and Ebian; also in Hanyuan
  • Sodi, Suǒdì 所地次方言 (no̠33 su33): 600,000 speakers primarily in Tuoxian, Huili, Huidong, Ningnan, Miyi, Dechang, and Puge

Writing system[]

Classic Yi is a syllabic logographic system of 8,000–10,000 glyphs. Although similar to Chinese characters in function, the glyphs are independent in form, with little to suggest a direct relation.

The Modern Yi script (ꆈꌠꁱꂷ nuosu bburma [nɔ̄sū bʙ̝̄mā] 'Nosu script') is a standardized syllabary derived from the classic script in 1974 by the local government of China. 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.

In 1958 the Chinese government had introduced a Roman-based alphabet based on the romanized script of Gladstone Porteous of Sayingpan.^[8] (This was later replaced by the Yi script.)

A signpost in a public park in Xichang, Sichuan, China, showing Modern Yi, Chinese and English text.

Phonology[]

The written equivalents of the phonemes listed here are "Yi Pinyin". For information about the actual script used see the section above entitled Writing System.

Consonants[]

Vowels[]

Nuosu has five pairs of phonemic vowels, contrasting in a feature 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. Loose vs. tight throat is the only distinction in the two pairs of syllabic consonants, but in the vocoids it is reinforced by a height difference.

The syllabic consonants y(r) u(r) are essentially the usual Sinological vowels ɿ ʮ, so ⟨y⟩ can be identified with the vowel of the Mandarin 四 sì "four", but they have diverse realizations. Y(r) completely assimilates to a preceding coronal except in voice, e.g. /ɕz̩˨˩/ [ɕʑ̩˨˩] ꑮ xyp "to marry", and are [m͡l̩] after a labial nasal, e.g. /m̥z̩˧sz̩˧/ [m̥m͡l̩˧sɹ̩˧] ꂪꌦ hmy sy "cloth". U(r) assimilates similarly after laterals, retaining its rounding, e.g. /l̥v̩ʷ˧/ [l̥l̩ʷ˧] ꆭ hlu "to stir-fry", and is [m̩ʷ] after a labial nasal, e.g. /m̥v̩ʷ˧/ [m̥m̩ʷ˧] ꂥ hmu "mushroom"; moreover it induces a labially trilled release of preceding labial or alveolar stops, e.g. /ⁿdv̩ʷ˨˩/ [ⁿd^ʙβ̩˨˩] ꅥ ndup "to hit".

The tight-throat phone [ɤ̝] occurs as the realization of /ɤ̝/ 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 ⟨-t⟩
• high-mid [˦] or mid falling [˧˨] – written ⟨-x⟩ (written with diacritic ̑ over symbol in the syllabary)
• mid [˧] – unmarked
• low falling [˨˩] – written ⟨-p⟩

The high-mid tone is only marginally contrastive. Its two main sources are from tone sandhi 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 ꊈ wo "bear" + ꃀ mop "mother" regularly forms ꊈꂾ wo mox "female bear", but ꃤ vi "jackal" + ꃀ mop "mother" forms ꃤꃀ vi mop "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 ꃅꏸꇐꄜꎷ mu jy lu ti shex "Mujy looks for Luti", but is absent in OSV clauses like ꃅꏸꇐꄜꎹ mu jy lu ti shep "Luti looks for Mujy". A few words, like ꑞ xix "what?", have underlying high-mid tone.

Vocabulary and grammar[]

Nuosu is an analytic language, the basic word order is Subject–object–verb. Vocabularies of Nuosu can be divided into content words and function words. 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 words are used.^[9]

Numbers[]

Classifiers are required when numbers are used for fixing nouns.

References[]

• Andy Eatough. 1997. Proceeding from Syllable Inventory to Phonemic Inventory in the Analysis of Liangshan Yi. Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota session, volume 41.
• Chen Kang [陈康] (2010), 彝语方言研究 [A study of Yi dialects], Beijing: Minzu University of China Press

Further reading[]

• Review of Bilingual education and minority language maintenance in China: The role of schools in saving the Yi language, by Lubei Zhang and Linda Tsung. Journal of Linguistics 56: 450—454 (2020).

External links[]

Nuosu language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator