Classifying Lalo languages: subgrouping, phonetic distance, and intelligibility
Lalo is a Central Ngwi (Loloish) language cluster spoken in western Yunnan, China by fewer than 300,000 speakers. Previously, most Lalo varieties were undocumented, and Lalo was thought to have only two dialects. This paper presents the first rigorous classification of Lalo languages, based on...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177644 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Lalo is a Central Ngwi (Loloish) language cluster spoken in western
Yunnan, China by fewer than 300,000 speakers. Previously, most Lalo varieties
were undocumented, and Lalo was thought to have only two dialects. This paper
presents the first rigorous classification of Lalo languages, based on a
dialectological study conducted in eighteen Lalo villages, which included the
recording of 1,001-item vocabularies, comprehension tests, and sociolinguistic
interviews. Synthesizing results from diachronic subgrouping, intelligibility, and
phonetic distance measured by Levenshtein distance, this paper argues that the Lalo
cluster actually comprises at least seven closely related languages. Phonetic distance
correlates strongly with comprehension, and the NeighborNet network based on
phonetic distance concurs with the diachronic subgrouping at shallow time depths,
providing further validation of the dialectometric techniques. This paper suggests
that such techniques are useful in the classification of lesser-known, endangered,
indigenous languages, which often have an urgent need for language maintenance
efforts. |
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