Lahu language

Lahu
Ladhof
Native to Yunnan, China; Thailand; Laos; Myanmar
Ethnicity Lahu
Native speakers
 600,000 (2007–2012)[1]
Latin script
Official status
Official language in
 Lancang Lahu Autonomous County, Yunnan
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Variously:
lhu – Lahu
lhi – Lahu Shi
lkc – Kucong
Glottolog laho1234[2]

Lahu (autonym: Ladhof [lɑ˥˧xo˩]) is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Lahu people of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. It is widely used in China, both by Lahu people, and by other ethnic minorities in Yunnan, who use it as a lingua franca.[3] However, the language is not widely used nor taught in any schools in Thailand, where many Lahu are in fact refugees and illegal immigrants, having crossed into Thailand from Myanmar.[4]

Dialects

A few dialects are noted, which are each known by a variety of names:[5]

Phạm Huy (2013:13) lists the following 3 branches.

Traditionally Lahu folk taxonomy splits the Lahu people into the two groups of Black Lahu and Yellow Lahu; Red Lahu and White Lahu are new dialect clusters originating in messianic movements within the past few centuries.[8] Black Lahu is the standard dialect in China,[3] as well as the lingua franca among different groups of Lahu in Thailand.[4] However, it is intelligible to speakers of Yellow Lahu only with some difficulty.[3]

Based on the numbers of shared lexical items, Bradley (1979) classifies the Lahu dialects as follows:[9]

Common Lahu

Lama (2012) gives the following tentative classification for what he calls Lahoid.

Lahoid

Lama (2012) lists the following sound changes from Proto-Loloish as Lahu innovations.

Notes

  1. ↑ Lahu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Lahu Shi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Kucong at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Lahoid". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. 1 2 3 Gordon 2005, Lahu
  4. 1 2 Reh 2005
  5. ↑ Matisoff 2006, p. xiii
  6. ↑ Lahuyu Jianzhi 拉祜语简志 (1986)
  7. ↑ http://www.ynszxc.gov.cn/villagePage/vIndex.aspx?departmentid=111373
  8. ↑ Bradley 1979, p. 41
  9. ↑ Bradley 1979, p. 159

Sources

Further reading

See also

External links

Lahu test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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