Fonds Katia Chirkova: LIZU

Lizu is one of three closely related Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in Sichuan Province in the People’s Republic of China: Ersu, Lizu, and Duoxu. The three languages are currently classified as dialects of one Ersu language (ISO-639 code ers). The Ersu language itself is classified as a member of the Qiangic subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family. The Lizu people refer to themselves as /lî-zû/ or /lŷ-zû/ ‘white people’. In Chinese, the group is variously known as Lǐrǔ 里汝, Lǚsū 吕苏, or Lìsū 傈苏; in English, as Lizu or Lyuzu. The total number of speakers is estimated at 7,000 people. Audio and video recordings in this collection include personal narratives, traditional stories, traditional songs, and translations from Mandarin Chinese. The majority of recordings are accompanied by annotations including the following layers of analysis: (1) phonetic transcription (IPA); (2) underlying morpheme sequence; (3) morpheme-by-morpheme gloss ; (4) free translation in Mandarin Chinese.