Yi language

Yi (also Moso, Lolo, Noso, etc.) is a family of closely related tonal Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Yi people. Although linguists still use the term Lolo or Loloish, the Yi people themselves regard it as pejorative. In fact, people supposedly belonging to the Yi nationality speak six different languages, all part of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic family, but which hold only 25 to 50 percent of words in common. One of these languages has been chosen as the standard "Yi" language and, as such, is the only one taught in school, both in its oral and written form.

Writing system

Main article: Yi script

Classic Yi is a syllabic logographic system of 8000–10,000 glyphs. Although similar to Chinese in function, the glyphs are independent in form, with little to suggest a direct relation.

The Modern Yi script (ꆈꌠꁱꂷ nuosu bburma [nɔ̄sū bʙ̝̄mā] 'Nosu script') is a standardized syllabary derived from the classic script in 1974 by the local Chinese government. It was made the official script of the Yi languages in 1980. There are 756 basic glyphs based on the Liangshan (Cool Mountain) dialect, plus 63 for syllables only found in Chinese borrowings.

In 1958 the Chinese government introduced a Roman-based alphabet for use in Yi.^[1]

Dialects

According to Chinese linguists the Yi language is divided into six major dialects:^[2]

1. Northern dialect
2. Western dialect
3. Central dialect
4. Southern dialect
5. South-Eastern dialect
6. Eastern dialect

Some of these dialects are mutually unintelligible. The Northern dialect is the largest one with some 1.6 million speakers.

References

Further reading

• Collective book, Ritual for Expelling Ghosts, A religious Classic of the Yi nationality in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan. The Taipei Ricci Institute (November 1998)

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