ABSTRACT
Lisu has about a million speakers: over 650,000 in northwestern Yuannan and southwestern Sichuan provinces, China; nearly 300,000 in Northeastern Burma; 35,000 in northern Thailand, a thousand in Northeastern India, and a couple of hundred in Laos. The very closely related Lipho language is spoken by a further 200,000 in north central Yunnan in China; about a quarter of these are also officially classified as Lisu nationality, while the rest are included in the Yi nationality. In some of the literature the Lipho are referred to as Eastern Lisu. In some of the literature the Lipho are referred to as Eastern Lisu. Over 300,000 further members of the Yi nationality in the same area of north central Yunnan and into southeastern Sichuan call themselves Lolopho, and speak another language extremely similar to Lipho. Thus Lisu in a broader sense, including Lipho and Lolopho, has over 1.5 million speakers. Speakers suggest high intelligibility between Lipho and Lolopho, and considerable intelligibility between both and Lisu; but Lisu speakers cannot understand Lipho and Lolopho. Some other languages, such as Micha and Lamu, are also close to this complex.
