| Proto-Loloish | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | Loloish languages |
Reconstructed ancestor | |
Proto-Loloish is the reconstructed ancestor of the Loloish languages. Reconstructions include those of David Bradley (1979), James Matisoff (2003), and Ziwo Lama (2012).
In later publications, in place of Loloish, David Bradley instead uses the term Ngwi based on a conservative autonym in the Sanie language. [1]
Li Yongsui (2011) reconstructs Proto-Lolo-Burmese (Proto-Mian-Yi 缅彝) based on 30 languages.
Lama (2012) reconstructs 37 consonants for Proto-Loloish (which he calls Proto-Nisoic), 7 of which (marked in green) can occur as syllable finals. The glides /w/ and /j/ occur medially.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Alveolo-palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | Voiceless | p | t | ts | tɕ | k | ʔ | ||||||
| Voiceless aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tsʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | h | |||||||
| Voiced | b | d | dz | dʑ | ɡ | ||||||||
| Prenasalized | mb | nd | ndz | ndʑ | ŋɡ | ||||||||
| Fricatives | Voiceless | s | x | ||||||||||
| Voiced | z | ʑ | ɣ | ||||||||||
| Nasals | Voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||
| Liquids and Semivowels | Voiced | -w- | l | r | -j- | ||||||||
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East and Southeast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates, Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||