Documentation of Zauzou, an endangered language in China

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.

The major goal of this project is to document the language of Zauzou — a Lolo-Burmese language spoken in Southwestern China. Zauzou is an endangered language (Bradley, 2007) spoken by approximately 2100 members of the Nu nationality. Among those speakers, 1800 live on the banks of Lancang River, Lanping Country,Yunnan province in mainland of China. Most Zauzou speakers are older bilingual adults who also speak Mandarin, Bai, Lisu, etc. There are two major dialects — Guoli and Jiangmo Dialect. About 70 percent of Zauzou speakers speak the second dialect. This project documents a variety of recordings, including conversations, narratives and expository texts. Primary investigator: Yu Li

Project Details


Location: China, China, Mexico, China, Central America, Eastern Asia, Asia, Americas Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): State University of New York at Buffalo Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £36,664.00 Commencement Date: 01/2013 Project Status: Active
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