Kathu

Kathu shows similarities to Tibeto-Burman languages in the Myanmar-China-India border triangle, such as Nungic, Tani, Karenic, Taraon, Nusu, Naic, Qiangic, and others. My hypothesis is that Kathu (or "pre-Kathu") had split off independently from Proto-Tibeto-Burman and was in contact with other eastern branches of Tibeto-Burman in its former range, which would have been located much further to the northwest of its current distribution.

Layers:

• 1. Independent Eastern Sino-Tibetan branch ("pre-Kathu")

  2. Mondzish superstratum

  3. Recent Chinese loanwords

Sources

Hsiu, Andrew. 2014. "Mondzish: a new subgroup of Lolo-Burmese". In Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14). Taipei: Academia Sinica.

Hsiu, Andrew. 2017. Kathu (Anwang) audio word list (2013). Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1123235

Hsiu, Andrew. 2017. Kathu (Balong) audio word list (2013). Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1123233

Hsiu, Andrew. 2017. Kathu (Balong) audio word list (2015). Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1123357

Wu Zili [武自立]. 1994. A preliminary study of the Gasu language of Guangnan County, Yunnan Province [云南省广南县嘎苏话初探]. Minzu Yuwen 2. http://wuxizazhi.cnki.net/Search/MZYW402.006.html

Wu Zili [武自立]. 2004. "Gasu language [嘎僳话]". In Studies on selected languages of Yunnan [云南特殊语言研究], 486-513. Kunming: Yunnan People's Press [云南民族出版社]. ISBN 7536730624