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Language Information by Source

Source 1
Personal communication on Lizu

Chirkova, Katia. 2015. Personal communication on Lizu (November 12).

Endangered
100 percent certain, based on the evidence available
About Vitality Level
~4000
Native Speakers Worldwide
Speaker Number Trends

Speaker Number Trend 3

Only about half of community members speak the language. Speaker numbers are decreasing steadily, but not at an accelerated pace.

3
Domains of Use

Domain Of Use 4

Used mainly only in the home and/or with family, and may not be the primary language even in these domains for many community members.

4
Transmission

Transmission 2

Most adults in the community are speakers, but children generally are not.

2
View Language Info
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Speakers
Native or fluent speakers:
No results found.
Second-language speakers and learners
No results found.
Semi-speakers or rememberers
No results found.
Children:
No results found.
Young adults
No results found.
Older adults
No results found.
Elders
No results found.
Ethnic or community population
7000
Year information was gathered
No results found.
Comments on speakers
"Mandarin (Southwest Mandarin), Tibetan (Kham Tibetan), Pumi (Prinmi, 普米), Namuzi (納木兹), Nuosu (Ngwi or Yi 彞). Older speakers (typically over the age of sixty) are mostly trilingual (Lizu, Mandarin, Pumi). Occasionally, some even have a good command of the local variety of (Kham) Tibetan. Over the last three decades, most Lizu speakers have been bilingual using (Southwest) Mandarin in daily life. The current trend for the school-going generation is to become practically monolingual in Mandarin."

Location and Context
Countries
China
Location Description

Lizu reside along the banks of the Yalong (雅礱) or Nyag chu River in three counties in Sichuan Province (四川省) in the People’s Republic of China: (1) Muli Tibetan Autonomous County 木里藏族自治縣 (WT, smi li rang skyong rdzong), (2) Jiulong county (九龍縣 brgyad zur), (iii) Mianning county (冕寧縣).

Government Support
no
Institutional Support
no
Speakers' Attitude
negative to neutral
Other Languages Used By The Community
Southwest Mandarin; Kham Tibetan; Pumi; Namuzi; Nuosu
Number of Other Language Speakers:
all
Domains of Other Languages:
Mandarin in official domains and in daily life

Writing Systems
Standard orthography:
No results found.
Writing system:
IPA
Other writing systems used:
No results text.
Comments on writing systems:
No results found.

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