Laghuu language

Laghuu
Native to	Vietnam
Native speakers	300 (2002)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Lolo-Burmese Loloish Southeastern Highland Phula Muji Laghuu
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lgh
Glottolog	lagh1245[2]

Laghuu (Vietnamese: Xá Phó, Phù Lá Lão) is a Loloish language spoken in northwestern Vietnam.^[3] In Nậm Sài, Sa Pa District, the speakers' autonym is la˨˩ɣɯ˦, while in Sơn La Province it is la˨˩ɔ˦ (Edmondson 1999). The people are also called the Phù Lá Lão by the Vietnamese.

Edmondson considers Laghuu to be related to but not part of the Yi language complex of China. Jamin Pelkey (2011) considers Laghuu to be a Southeastern Loloish language.

Distribution

Laghuu is spoken in the following locations by a total of about 1,000 people (Edmondson 1999 & 2002).

• Lào Cai Province
  • Văn Bàn District
  • Bảo Thắng District
  • Bát Xát District
    • A Lù
  • Sa Pa District
    • Nậm Sài
  • Cam Đường (near Lào Cai city)

• Yên Bái Province
  • Văn Yên

• Sơn La Province
  • Thuần Giáo

The Vietnam, Laghuu speakers are officially classified as part of the Phù Lá ethnic group. Some Laghuu are known as "Black Phu La," and others as "Flowery Phu La."

Phonology

Consonants

Laghuu has the following consonants.^[4]

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Velar		Glottal
			central	lateral		central	lateral
Plosive and affricate	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		tʃʰ	kʰ	kʟ̝̊ʰ (kʰ)
	tenuis	p	t		tʃ	k	kʟ̝̊ (k)	ʔ
	voiced	b	d			ɡ	ɡʟ̝
	prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd			ᵑɡ	ᵑɡʟ̝
Fricative	voiceless	f	s		ʃ	x		h
	voiced	v	z		ʒ	ɣ
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Approximant				l

Vowels

Laghuu has the following vowels.^[4]

	front	central	back unrounded	back rounded
High	i	ɚ	ɯ	u
Hi-mid		ə		ɯ
Lo-mid	ɛ			ɔ
Low			ɡ

Tones

Laghu has five tones: high /˥/, high-mid /˦/, low-mid /˧/, low-rising /˨˦/, and low-falling /˨˩/.^[4]

Notes

1. Laghuu at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Laghuu". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. Raymond G. Gordon, Jr, ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
4. Edmondson & Ziwo 1999.

References

• Edmondson, J. A., & Ziwo, L. (1999). "Laghuu or Xá Phó, A New Language of the Yi Group," Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 22/1:1-10.
• Edmondson, Jerold A. (2002). "The Central and Southern Loloish Languages of Vietnam". Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Tibeto-Burman and Southeast Asian Linguistics (2002), pp. 1–13.
• Nguyễn Văn Huy (1975). "Bước đầu tim hiểu mới quan hệ tộc người giữa hai nhóm Phù Lá và Xá Phó". In, Ủy ban khoa học xã hội Việt Nam: Viện dân tộc học. Về vấn đề xác định thánh phần các dân tộc thiểu số ở miền bắc Việt Nam, 415-428. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản khoa học xã hội.
• http://ling.uta.edu/jerry/vietTB1.pdf
• http://ling.uta.edu/~jerry/tbv.pdf