Lhao Vo | |
---|---|
Maru | |
Native to | Myanmar, China |
Native speakers | (100,000 cited 1997)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
Latin | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | mhx |
Glottolog | maru1249 |
Lhao Vo (Burmese: လော်ဝေါ်), also known as Maru (မရူ) and Langsu (Chinese: 浪速), is a Burmish language spoken in Burma and by a few thousand speakers in China.
Dai Qingxia (2005:3) reports 5,600 Langsu speakers in China. Many thousands more are dispersed across the eastern edge of Kachin State, Myanmar.
The Langsu people call themselves lɔ̃³¹vɔ³¹ (Chinese: Lang'e 浪峨)[2][3]
The standard Lhaovo dialect is that of the Dago’ (tăkoʔ) hill area, on the east side of N'Mai River valley in Kachin State.[4]
Sawada (2017) lists the following patois (subvarieties) of Lhaovo.[4]
The Langsong (浪宋) are found in Zaoyang (早阳)[5] in Yunlong County (in the Chinese province of Yunnan) as well as in Baocun (表村),[6] Laomo (老末), and Sancha (三岔).[7][8] They reportedly speak a highly endangered language that may be possibly related to Langsu.
Lhao Vo has the following consonant sounds:[9]
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | pal. | plain | pal. | ||||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | k | kʲ | (ʔ) | ||
aspirated | pʰ | pʰʲ | tʰ | kʰ | kʰʲ | ||||
Affricate | voiceless | t͡s̪ | t͡ʃ | ||||||
aspirated | t͡s̪ʰ | t͡ʃʰ | |||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s̪ | ʃ | x | ||||
voiced | v | ɣ | ɦ | ||||||
Nasal | m | mʲ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
Tap | ɾ | ||||||||
Approximant | l | j |
There is a distinction among creaky vowel sounds:[9]
Front | Central | Back | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | creaky | plain | creaky | plain | creaky | |||
Close | i | ḭ | u | ṵ | ||||
Mid | e | ø | ḛ | ø̰ | o | o̰ | ||
Open | a | a̰ | ||||||
Diphthong | au | a̰ṵ |
When preceding a final glide /-j/, each vowel has the following allophones:
Phoneme | Allophones |
---|---|
/aj/ | [aɪ̆], [ɛ] |
/auj/ | [auɪ̆], [ɔɪ̆] |
/uj/ | [uɪ̆], [ʉ], [ʉɪ̆] |
/ej/ | [əɪ̆] |
Lhao Vo has three lexical tones: high, low and falling. Low tone may be a different analysis of creaky vowels. In Latin script, falling tone is unmarked, e.g. ⟨lo⟩ etc.; low tone is ⟨lo꞉⟩ etc., and high tone is ⟨loˮ⟩ etc. (or ⟨lobʼ⟩ etc. with a final b, d, g). Final glottal stop is written ⟨lo,⟩ etc. in falling tone, ⟨lo;⟩ etc. in low tone, and ⟨loʼ⟩ in high tone.[10]