Mondzish: a new subgroup of Lolo-Burmese

Taipei: Academia Sinica. The 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14), 2014. — 62 - 81 p.The Mondzish languages were recently identified by Ziwo Lama (2012) as a coherent subgroup of Lolo-Burmese, and its most divergent branch as well. They are spoken primarily in Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan Province, southwestern China. However, Lama (2012) only identified two lects, Maang and Mondzi, as Mondzish languages, and did not classify many other nearby lects that I am convinced are also Mondzish. Here, I will demonstrate that these other lects display the lexical and phonological innovations that Lama (2012) had given for the Mondzish branch, such as the deaffrication of Proto-Lolo-Burmese (PLB) *ts- > s-. I will propose a preliminary internal classification scheme for Mondzish, and also briefly consider the position of Mondzish within Lolo-Burmese.