Ersuic languages

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The Ersuic languages (, Ersu; also called Duoxu or Erhsu) are a Qiangic language cluster of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Ersu languages are spoken by about 20,000 people in China as reported by . Muya (alternatively Menia or Menya) is reported to be related, but it is not known how it fits in. Ersuic speakers live in the western part of China's Sichuan province (several counties within the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and the prefecture-level city of Ya'an). Most of them are classified by the Chinese government as members of the Tibetan ethnic group, although some also are registered as Han Chinese. Older adults mostly use Ersu, but younger people also use Chinese or Yi. The Ersu Shaba script of the shābā religious books is a pictographic system of proto-writing. The system, in which the color of the characters has an effect on the meaning, was inspired by Chinese writing and was created in the 11th century.

Languages

There are three Ersuic languages. classifies Ersu languages as follows, with defining innovations given in parentheses.

Grammar

Ersu is a subject–object–verb language. It has three tones.

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