| Naish | |
| Region: | Yunnan and Sichuan |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam3: | Loloish or Qiangic (?) |
| Fam4: | Naic |
| Child1: | Naxi |
| Child2: | Mosuo (Na) |
| Child3: | Laze |
| Glotto: | nais1236 |
| Glottorefname: | Naish |
The Naish languages are a low-level subgroup of Sino-Tibetan languages that include Naxi, Na (Mosuo), and Laze.
The Naish languages are:
In turn, Naish together with Namuyi and Shixing constitutes the Naic subgroup within Sino-Tibetan.
Arguments for relatedness include irregular morphotonology: tone patterns of numeral-plus-classifier phrases that constitute shared structural properties. Since these similarities are phonetically nontransparent, they cannot be due to borrowing.[1]
Note that in Mainland China, the term "Naxi" is commonly used for the entire language group, e.g. by the influential linguistic introduction by He and Jiang (2015).[2] [3] The terms "Naish" and "Naic" are derived from the endonym Na used by speakers of several of the languages. These concepts were initially proposed by Guillaume Jacques & Alexis Michaud (2011).[4] Phylogenetic issues are summarized in the entry about the Naic subgroup. For a review of the literature about Naish languages, see Li (2015).[5]
Jacques & Michaud (2011) list the following words as Naish lexical innovations.
| Gloss | Proto-Naish | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| to stumble | pe˧ | khɯ.piM |
| ||
| cloud | ki˩ | tɕi˧ | tɕi˩sɯ˥ |
| |
| village | hi˧mbe˧ | fv̩.biL | ɖɯ˧bie˧ |
| |
| Bai people | le˧bv̩˧ | ɬi.bv̩M |
| ||
| noble | sɯ.phiM | sɯ˩phie˩ |
| ||
| medicine (2nd syllable) | ʈʂhɚ˧ɯ˧ | ʈʂhæ.ɯH | tshɯ˧fi˧ |
|
Proto-Naish, the proto-language ancestral to the Naish languages, has been reconstructed by Jacques & Michaud (2011).