Lisu is a Sino-Tibetan tonal language spoken in Yunnan (southwestern China), northern Burma, and Thailand and a small part of India. It is the language of the Lisu minority. Lisu has three dialects: Hua Lisu, Pai Lisu, and Lu Shi Lisu. Although they are mutually intelligible, some have many more loan words from Chinese than others. Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... Sino-Tibetan languages in red. ... Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, in number of speakers worldwide second only to Indo-European. ... The Tibeto-Burman linguistic subfamily of the proposed Sino-Tibetan language family is spoken in various central and south Asian countries: Myanmar (Burmese language), Tibet (Tibetan language), northern Thailand (Mong language), Nepal, Bhutan, India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and the Ladakh region of... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Fraser alphabet is an artificial script invented around 1915 by the missionary James O. Fraser to write the Lisu language. ... Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture (simplified Chinese: 怒江傈僳族自治州; pinyin: Nùjiāng Lìsùzú Zìzhìzhōu) is an autonomous prefecture of Yunnan. ... “PRC” redirects here. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Sino-Tibetan languages in red. ...   (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; literally south of the clouds) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... It has been suggested that Lisu Church be merged into this article or section. ...

The Lisu language is closely related to the Lahu and Akha languages and is also related to Burmese, Kachin, and Yi languages. The Lahu language is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Lahu people of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. ... An Akha village, with the traditional thatched roofs, in northern Thailand. ... Yi (also Moso, Lolo, Noso, ) is a family of closely related Tibeto-Burman languages spoken by the Yi people. ...

Orthography

Main article: Fraser alphabet

Around 1915, James O. Fraser, a christian missionary with the China Inland Mission developed a Lisu alphabet. Many Lisu Christians have since 1915 used this script so that they could read the Bible in there own language. A new alphabet based on pinyin was created for them 1957. Most Lisu still used there old alphabet though, and in 1992 it was officially recognized by the Chinese government. Since then they have encouraged Lisu people to use it. The Fraser alphabet is an artificial script invented around 1915 by the missionary James O. Fraser to write the Lisu language. ... James Ostram Fraser was a Christian missionary to the Lisu people of western China in the early part of the 20th Century. ... The China Inland Mission was a missionary society, set up by English missionary Hudson Taylor on 25 June 1865 in Brighton during a home leave. ... Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ), commonly called Pinyin, is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ...

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ...

External links

• Ethnologue Entry for Lisu Language
• Fraser Alphabet at Omniglot
• Lengua Lisu
• 1 Proto-Lolo-Burmese velar clusters and the origin of Lisu palatal ...