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Pholo language

Pholo (autonym: pʰo55 lo55) is an unclassified Loloish language of Yunnan, China. Although culturally associated with the Phula languages, Pelkey (2011) does not consider it to be linguistically related to the Phula languages.

Pholo speakers are also referred to as Black Phula and Flowery Phula.[2]

Classification

Pelkey (2011:353) specifically excludes Pholo, noting that it does not share the defining features of Southeastern Loloish. However, Lama (2012) classifies Pholo as a Southeastern Loloish language, and considers it to be most closely related to Zokhuo

Distribution

Pholo speakers are most densely concentrated in:[2]

Other Pholo speakers are found in:[2]

Vocabulary

The following Pholo lexical items along with their Proto-Ngwi (Proto-Loloish) reconstructed proto-forms are from Pelkey (2011:390).

Most, but not all, of the Pholo words above do not share the following innovations that define Southeastern Ngwi.[3]

  1. Proto-Ngwi *ʔ-k and *ʔ-ɡl > Proto-Southeastern Ngwi *tɬ (modern reflexes: tɬ, kɬ, k, t, ɬ, etc.)
  2. Proto-Ngwi *pl/j and *ʔ-kl > Proto-Southeastern Ngwi *tɬʰ (modern reflexes: tɬʰ, kɬʰ, kʰ, tʰ, ɬ, etc.)
  3. Proto-Ngwi *bl/j and *ɡl > Proto-Southeastern Ngwi *dɮ (modern reflexes: dɮ, ɡɮ, ɡ, d, etc.)
  4. Proto-Ngwi *m-pl/j and *m-bl/j > Proto-Southeastern Ngwi *ndɮ (modern reflexes: ndɮ, ŋɡɮ, nd, etc.)

Other Pholo words from Pelkey (2011:301):

More Pholo words are documented in YYFC (1983), part of which are quoted in Lama (2012).

Notes

  1. ^ Pholo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c Pelkey (2011), p. 176.
  3. ^ Pelkey (2011), p. 365.

References