Lashi language

Lashi
လရှီ / လချစ် Lacid
Native to	Myanmar, China
Native speakers	30,000 (2000)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Lolo–Burmese Burmish Maruic Lashi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lsi (incl. Chashan)
Glottolog	lash1243

Lashi (Burmese: လရှီ, endonym Lacid) is a Burmish language. Although the endonym Lashi is often used by Western researchers, the people refer to themselves and their language as Lacid. It is according to Nishi (1999: 70) in the Maruic branch, which preserves the preglottalized initials of Proto-Burmish in the most phonotactic environments.

Data on Lashi is available in the followining publications (A Literature Review on Segments in Lacid (Lashi) Noftz (2017),) (Luce 1985: Charts S, T, V; Huang et al. 1992; Wannemacher 1995-7, as cited in Mann 1998, and Yabu 1988).

Distribution

There are conflicting reports about the size of the Lashi population. Reports range from 30,000 to 60,000. In China, Lashi (Leqi) speakers are distributed in Mangshi City (formerly Luxi County), Ruili City, Longchuan County, and Yingjiang County of western Yunnan Province (Dai 2007:5). Mangshi has the most Lashi speakers, who are distributed in the following townships.

• Manghai (မန်ဟိုင်, 芒海镇)
• Zhongshan (ကျုင်းရှန်မြို့ , 中山乡)
• Dongshan (သုင်ရှန်မြို့ , 东山乡)
• Santai (ဆန်ထိုင်မြို့ , 三台乡, in Gonglin ကုင်လင် 拱岭寨 and Manggang မန်ကန်芒岗寨 villages)

Lashi (လရှီ) is also spoken in eastern Shan State, Burma. Lashi was originally spoken in the downstream area of the Ngochang Hka river valley, a tributary of the N’Mai Hka river, while Ngochang was originally spoken in the upstream area of the Ngochang Hka river valley.

The Chashan language, which is closely related to Lashi, is spoken in nearby Pianma Township (片马镇), Lushui County.

Further reading

• Dai, Qingxia 戴庆厦; Li, Jie 李洁 (2007). Lèqīyǔ yánjiū 勒期语研究 [Study of the Lashi language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe. ISBN 9787811083262.
• Hill, Nathan; Cooper, Douglas (2020). "A Machine Readable Collection of Lexical Data on the Burmish Languages" (Data set). Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3759030.
• Huang, Bufan 黃布凡, ed. (1992). Zàngmiǎnyǔzú yǔyán cíhuì 藏緬語族語言詞匯 [A Tibeto-Burman Lexicon] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe.
• Luce, G. H. (1985). Phases of Pre-Pagán Burma: Languages and History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Luk, Hkaw (2017). A Grammatical Sketch of Lacid (PDF) (MA thesis). Payap University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-06-12.
• Mann, Noel Walter (1998). A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto Northern Burmic (MA thesis). The University of Texas.
• Wannemacher, Mark W. (1995–1997), Notes on Achang, Atsi, Jinghpaw, Lashi, and Maru. (unpublished manuscript cited by Mann 1998).
• Wannemacher, Mark (2011), A Phonological Overview of the Lacid Language (PDF), Chiang Mai: Research Unit, Linguistics Institute, Payap University
• Yabu, Shirō 藪司郎 (1987). "The Lashi Language of Burma: A Brief Description". Burma and Japan: Basic Studies on Their Cultural and Social Structure. Tokyo: Toyota Foundation. pp. 47–53.
• Yabu, Shirō 藪司郎 (1988). "A Preliminary Report on the Study of the Maru, Lashi and Atsi Languages of Burma". In Ishizawa, Yoshiaki (ed.). Historical and Cultural Studies in Burma. Tokyo: Institute of Asian Studies, Sophia University. pp. 65–132.

External links

• Lacid language site