Sila language (Laos)

Sila
Native to	Laos, Vietnam
Ethnicity	Si La people
Native speakers	2,500 (1995 & 2009 censuses)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Lolo–Burmese Loloish Hanoish Hanoid Sila
Language codes
ISO 639-3	slt
Glottolog	sila1247[2]

Sila is a Loloish language spoken by 2,000 people in Laos and Vietnam (Bradley 1997). Sila speakers are an officially recognized group in Vietnam, where they are known as the Si La.

Distribution

According to Edmondson (2002), the Sila number about 700 people in Vietnam and live in the following 3 villages.

• Seo Hay, Can Hồ Commune, Lai Châu Province, Vietnam
• Xì Theo Chai, Can Hồ Commune, Lai Châu Province, Vietnam
• Nậm Sín, Mường Nhé Commune, Điện Biên Province, Vietnam

According to the elderly Sila, seven Sila families had emigrated from Mường U and Mường Lá of Phongsaly Province, Laos 175 years ago. They initially arrived at a location called Mường Tùng, and relocated several times before arriving at their present locations.

References

1. Sila at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Sila (Sino-Tibetan)". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

• 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.
• Ma Ngọc Dung. 2000. Văn hóa Si La. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất ban văn hóa dân tôc.