Lalo language


Lalo is a Loloish language cluster spoken in western Yunnan, China by 300,000 speakers. Speakers are officially part of the Yi nationality, and Chinese linguists refer to it as "Western Yi" due to its distribution in western Yunnan. Lalo speakers are mostly located in southern Dali Prefecture, especially Weishan County, considered the traditional homeland of the Lalo.Yang, Cathryn. 2009. Regional variation in Lalo: Beyond east and west. La Trobe Papers in Linguistics, 12. http://arrow.latrobe.edu.au:8080/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.9/146522. Historically, this area is the home of the Meng clan, who ruled the Nanzhao Kingdom. Many speakers of Core Lalo dialects claim to be descendants of the Meng clan.

Names

Many Lalo are referred to by the exonym Menghua, a name used during the Yuan Dynasty to refer to an area comprising modern-day Weishan County and Nanjian County. They are also referred to as Tujia people.
David Bradley refers to the Lalo language cluster, which includes the Samatu language of Zhenkang County and Yongde County, as Laloid.

Demographics

Cathryn Yang gives the following demographic information for various Lalo languages. Combined, speakers of Lalo languages number fewer than 300,000 people.
Wang & Zhao, citing Chen, et al., divide Western Yi into two dialects, namely Dongshan and Xishan. In Lincang Prefecture, Western Yi speakers number approximately 30,000 people and have the autonyms ' and '.
In Jianxing Township 建兴乡, Xinping County, Yunnan, Lalu 腊鲁 is spoken in the two administrative villages of Malutang 马鹿塘 and Mowei 磨味 by about 3,000 people.
Lalu 腊鲁 is also spoken in Sipsongpanna, including in Xiangmeng 象明乡, Yiwu 易武乡, Mengpeng 勐捧镇, and Jinghong 景洪市 townships.
Yunnan mentions the Datou 达头 of Pu'er and Simao as having traditions and festivals similar to those of the Yi people of Weishan County, who are mostly Lalo speakers.
The Aciga 阿次嘎 of Lancang County reside in Yakou Township 雅口乡 and Nanxian Township 南现乡. They numbered 50 as of 1960. 100 years ago, they had migrated from Niujian Mountain 牛肩山, Zhenyue County 镇越县, and had spoken a different language that is now extinct. They now speak Chinese and "Yi". Aciga is an exonym, as the Aciga do not have an autonym.

Subdivisions

Lama splits Laluba into three dialects.
;Laluba
*
A recent dialectological survey by Cathryn Yang shows that the Lalo cluster comprises at least 7 closely related languages. Three of these constitute the Core Lalo group and are located in the traditional Lalo homeland of southern Dali Prefecture. There are also four peripheral languages, Mangdi, Eka, Yangliu, and Xuzhang, whose ancestors migrated out of the Lalo homeland at different times.
All Lalo languages show a reflex of the Proto-Lalo autonym *la2lo̠Hpa̠L; i.e. the name that the Proto-Lalo called themselves are still preserved in the various modern Lalo languages. Eka speakers’ autonym is now ', but elderly speakers report that their more archaic autonym is '.
Yang's phylogenetic tree of Lalo is as follows.
Alu may also be a peripheral Lalo language, but this is uncertain due to limited data.