Nuosu language


Nuosu or Nosu, 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 and as such is the only one taught in schools in both oral and written forms. It is spoken by two million people and is increasing ; 60% were monolingual.
Nuosu is the native Nuosu name for their own language and is not used in Mandarin Chinese, though it may sometimes be translated as Nuòsūyǔ.
The occasional terms 'Black Yi' and 'White Yi' are castes of the Nuosu people, not dialects.
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 have only 25% to 50% of their vocabulary in common. They share a common traditional writing system, but that is used for shamanism, rather than daily accounting.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it is one of the eight Tibeto-Burman languages with over 1,000,000 speakers.

Distribution

Nuosu is mainly spoken in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan.
There are other parts of Sichuan where Yi is spoken, including Panzhihua and Leshan.
In Yunnan, Northern Yi is spoken in the north.

Dialects

Lama (2012)

Lama gives the following classification for Nuosu dialects.
  • Nuosu
  • *Qumusu
  • *Nuosu proper
  • **Nuosu
  • ***Muhisu
  • ***Nuosu
  • ****Yinuo
  • ****Shengzha
  • **Niesu
  • ***Suondi
  • ***Adu
The Qumusu dialect is the most divergent one. The other dialects group as Niesu and as Nuosu proper. Niesu has both lost voiceless nasals and developed diphthongs.
Adu, characterized by its labial–velar consonants, is spoken in the Butuo and Ningnan counties of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, and also in parts of Puge, Zhaojue, Dechang, and Jinyang counties.
Nyisu or Yellow Yi of Fumin County, Yunnan may either be a Soundi Yi dialect or Nisu dialect.
Zhu and Zhang reports that the Shuitian people 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 by the neighboring Yi highland people. Shuitian is spoken in the following locations. Shuitian belongs to the Shengzha dialect of Northern Yi.
  • Mianning County: Jionglong 迥龙, Lugu 泸沽, Hebian 河边; Manshuiwan 漫水湾
  • Xichang: Lizhou 礼州, Yuehua 月华
  • Xide County: Mianshan 冕山镇, Lake 拉克

    Bradley (1997)

According to Bradley, there are three main dialects of Nosu, of which the Southeastern one is most divergent.
  • Northern
  • *Tianba 田坝 Northwestern
  • *Yinuo 义诺 a.k.a. Northeastern
  • Central
  • Southeastern
  • *Sondi
  • *Adur

    Chen (2010)

Chen lists the following dialects of Nosu. Also listed are the counties where each respective dialect is spoken.

Consonants

and use the Sinological symbol to transcribe the alveolo-palatal nasal.
's chart and transcriptions slightly differ from the later sources:
  • The retroflex fricatives and affricates are notated as plain postalveolar
  • The alveolo-palatal series is notated as palatalized alveolar
  • The alveolo-palatal nasal includes a voiceless pairing in concordance with the alveolar nasals
and transcribe the voiceless lateral as an approximant, while transcribe it as a fricative. See for descriptions of syllabic realizations of the laterals.
segments the bilabial trill as an allophone of the following set of consonants before the vowel phonemes, while and segment it as a syllabic realization of the same vowels :
  • as an allophone of
  • as an allophone of
  • and as allophones of
  • as an allophone of

    Vowels

Eatough (1997)

Gerner (2013)

Edmondson, Esling & Ziwo (2017)

Phonation

Nuosu has five pairs of phonemic vowels, contrasting in a feature calls loose throat vs. tight throat, while call it lax vs. tense; simply describes the contrast as with and without laryngealization. Underlining is used as an ad hoc transcription for tight/tense phonation, used both phonemically and phonetically by, and phonemically by. treats the contrast both phonetically and with the transcription of creaky voice, while treat it phonetically as laryngeal register and with the transcription of retracted tongue root. According to, vowel quality is a byproduct of loose vs. tight throat, working as a reinforcement; the phonation type is the primary phonemic distinction, rather than the quality. 's analysis shows this reinforcement likewise extends to the fricativized vowels. According to and, a syllable-final is added in the Nuosu Pinyin orthography to indicate vowels with tense/tight/creaky phonation.

Quality

notes as sounding slightly closer than their cardinal values. 's analysis found this to be true for, while they found to be much closer and analyze them instead as more similar to, and found to be slightly more open than its cardinal value, the opposite of 's conjecture.
According to, the tight throat vowel occurs as a phonetic realization of the phonemically loose throat in the high tone, due to raising of the larynx to produce high pitch; it only occurs in this tone. The loose throat never occurs in this tone, and as such there is no three way contrast known to exist in any tone between.
According to, vowels are often nasalized after nasal consonants. The tense vowels often have a schwa offglide.

Fricativized vowels

The fricativized vowels in Nuosu are the close vowel phonemes:
  • unrounded or
  • rounded or
The initial fricative elements of the fricativized vowels may be voiceless or voiced bilabial trills after bilabial and alveolar plosives; both the lax and tense variants may be either type of voicing, depending on the context. suggests that the realization is more lenis after bilabial plosives, and more fortis after alveolar plosives. The vowel elements may be a range of, being fronted especially after more forward consonants. The fricative elements may occasionally be reduced to offglides, or entirely neutralized. transcribes this process instead as bilabially trilled onglides while the fricativized vowel retains its form.
The fricativized vowels are described by as 'voiced alveolar fricative syllabic continuants', which are apical and approximated, and with the tongue position between and ; they are more accurately transcribed as, or with the Sinological symbol. They may also be fronted to or become fully rhotic after alveolo-palatal consonants. The retroflex pair are described as retroflex equivalents of this articulation; they are more accurately transcribed as, or with the Sinological symbol, and are shown to be allophones of after retroflex consonants. In addition to the assimilated forms described below, suggests complementary distribution of and equivalent for the tight form, based on place of articulation of consonant onsets, which is roughly corroborated by in further detail.

Assimilation

The fricativized vowels show systematic assimilation to preceding lateral continuants and bilabial nasals, resulting in the formation of syllabic lateral and nasal consonants.
According to, the fricativized vowels may assimilate with the laterals to form syllabic lateral-median approximants, which they transcribe as to indicate quality between and ; the voicing type is determined by the voicing of the laterals, not by vowel tenseness, and the combined forms in the case of the voiceless laterals indicates lengthened with changing voicing. The initial voiceless onsets may be reduced to, resulting in the forms. shows almost the same process, but treats them as simple laterals. provides a similar but narrower analysis, stating only unrounded central assimilates with to form syllabic. Both and show both lax and tense forms of the syllabic laterals, while does not.
In a similar case as the laterals, all authors show some degree of fricativized vowel assimilation with the bilabial nasals. treats this identically to the laterals; only unrounded central assimilates to form syllabic. also treats this closely to the laterals, where are labialized, and the voiceless variants are lengthened with changing voicing. However, rather than forming simple nasals, reports them as forming co-articulated nasals and laterals ; this results in the forms. do not include labialized forms, but do note the same quality of changing voicing, and still show as assimilating under the process just as do; this results in the forms. Just as with the laterals, both and show both lax and tense forms of the syllabic nasals, while does not.
Nuosu syllable structure is V.

Tones

According to and, the Nuosu Pinyin orthography indicates tones with the following letters at the end of syllables:
  • high / – written
  • high-mid / or mid falling / – written
  • mid / – unmarked
  • low falling / – written
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 "bear" + ꃀ "mother" regularly forms ꊈꂾ "female bear", but ꃤ "jackal" + ꃀ "mother" forms ꃤꃀ "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 "Mujy looks for Luti", but is absent in OSV clauses like ꃅꏸꇐꄜꎹ "Luti looks for Mujy". A few words, like ꑞ "what?", have underlying high-mid tone.