Mantsi
mã53 tsi53
Native toChina, Vietnam
EthnicityLo Lo, ethnic population: 4,800 (2019)[1]
Native speakers
1,100 (2002)[1]
Dialects
  • Mantsi (Vietnam and China)
  • Mondzi (Ma21 Ndʑi21, China)
  • Munji (China)
Yi script
Language codes
ISO 639-3
nty – All dialects
Glottologmant1265  Mantsi

Mantsi (autonym: mã53 tsi53; also called Lô Lô, Flowery Lolo, White Lolo or Black Lolo, is a Lolo-Burmese language. Speakers are mostly located in Hà Giang Province, Vietnam. In China, speakers are classified as a subgroup of the Yi people. In Vietnam they are called Lô Lô and is classified as one of the official 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam.

Classification

Mantsi may be related to the Kathu (Kasu, Gasu) and Mo'ang (mɯaŋ˥˩) languages of Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan, China (Edmondson 2003). Lama (2012) concludes that Mantsi (Mondzi) and Maang constitute the most divergent branch of the Lolo-Burmese languages.

Distribution

Monji or Mondzi is reportedly spoken in some villages of Muyang Township, Funing County, Yunnan, China.

Munji is reportedly spoken by the Flowery Yi (Lolo) of Donggan (董干) Town, Malipo County, Yunnan. It is closely related to the Mandzi or Mantsi language of the Flowery Lolo and Black Lolo people of Vietnam and of the White Lolo people of Funing Country. The Red Lolo and Flowery Lolo live across the border in Đồng Văn district, Hà Giang province of Vietnam. Both speak similar languages. The language spoken by the Red Lolo was investigated by Jerold A. Edmondson in the late 1990s.

In Vietnam

The Lô Lô ethnic group of northern Vietnam consists of 3,134 people in Hà Giang and Cao Bằng, also including some in Mường Khương District of Lào Cai Province. They are also known as Mùn Di, Di, Màn Di, La La, Qua La, Ô Man, and Lu Lộc Màn.[2]

Flowery Lolo
Red Lolo
Black Lolo

Phonology

Phonology of Mondzi:[4]

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Retroflex Alveolo-
palatal 		Velar
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Plosive/
Affricate 		prenasalized ᵐb ⁿd ⁿʣ ⁿdʐ ⁿʥ ᵑg
voiced b d ʣ dʐ ʥ g
voiceless p t ʦ tʂ ʨ k
aspirated pʰ tʰ ʦʰ tʂʰ ʨʰ kʰ
Fricative voiceless f s ʂ ɕ x
voiced v z ʐ ʑ ɣ
Lateral l

[ŋ] can appear only as a coda.

Mondzi also has three consonant clusters: [lg], [lk], [lkʰ].

Vowels

Monophthongs

Front Non-front
unrounded rounded
Syllabic

Consonant

loose ɿ
tight ɿ̠
Close i u
Close-mid e ø o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a ɑ

Diphthongs

a e e̠ ɛ ɛ̠ o ɔ u i ɑ
i ia ie ie̠ iɛ iɛ̠ io iɔ iu
y yi
u ue ui uɑ
e ei

Tones

IPA Tone value
˥ 55
˦ 44
˧ 33
˥˧ 53
˨˩ 21
˩˧ 13

References

  1. ^ a b All dialects at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Người Lô Lô". Trang tin điện tử của Ủy ban Dân tộc (in Vietnamese). 14 July 2006. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2012-10-22.
  3. ^ a b Iwasa, Kazue (2003). "A Wordlist of the Ma Ndzi Language". Descriptive and Theoretical Studies in Minority Languages of East and Southeast Asia. ELPR Publications A3-016. Osaka: ELPR. pp. 69–76.
  4. ^ Lama (2012)

Further reading

  • YYFC (1983) [handwritten manuscript], cited in Lama (2012)
  • Edmondson, Jerold A. (2003). Three Tibeto-Burman Languages of Vietnam[permanent dead link]. m.s.
  • Hsiu, Andrew (2014). "Mondzish: A New Subgroup of Lolo-Burmese" (PDF). Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14). Taipei: Academia Sinica. pp. 62–81.
  • Quốc Khánh Vũ (2011). Người Lô Lô ở Việt Nam [The Lo Lo in Vietnam] (in Vietnamese). Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản Thông tấn.
  • Lama, Ziwo Qiu-Fuyuan (2012). Subgrouping of Nisoic (Yi) Languages: A Study from the Perspectives of Shared Innovation and Phylogenetic Estimation (Ph.D. thesis). University of Texas at Arlington. hdl:10106/11161.
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