Katso language
Katso, also known as Kazhuo or Khatso, is a Loloish language of Xingmeng Township, Tonghai County, Yunnan, China. The speakers are officially classified as ethnic Mongols, although they speak a Loloish language. Over 99% of the residents township speak Katso, and Katso is used as a means of daily communication, though it is fading amongst younger speakers.
Katso speakers call themselves ' or ' .
Phonology
Katso is young, being no older than 750 years old. Lama lists the following sound changes from Proto-Loloish as Kazhuoish innovations.- *x- > s-
- *mr- > z-
Consonants
The consonants for Katso according to Donlay are as follows:Consonants may not appear as clusters, and there are no coda consonants in Katso. The consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can serve as syllable nuclei. Some authors like Mu and Dai describe an additional phoneme //.
Vowels
Katso does not exhibit certain vowel qualities common in other Loloish languages like nasal vowels or the laryngeally-constricted vowels found in Nuosu.The two fricated vowels, /z̩/ and /v̩/ are described by Donlay as being a high central apical vowel and a high central fricative vowel respectively. The two both exhibit high degrees of turbulence and frication. The phoneme /z̩/ may only occur after /s, z, ts, tsʰ/, and contrasts with /i/ ". The high central fricative /v̩/, compared to its fricative counterpart /v/, is pronounced with the articulators more open forming a more resonant quality. In some instances it may lose sufficient frication to be similar to or .
Donlay identifies 8 diphthongs, /iɛ ia io ɛi uo ua ui au/ and two triphthongs /iau uɛi uai/, out of which /io/, /ia/, and /uai/ mainly occur in loanwords from Chinese.