Dear colleagues, The message below has been received from Chinese colleagues through Christian Galinski. I forward it to the list for your information. I will now prepare a ballot based on the original submission and subsequent discussion and contributions. Best regards, Håvard ------------------------- Håvard Hjulstad mailto:[log in to unmask] Chairman ISO/TC37 (Terminology and other language resources) Chairman ISO/TC207/TCG (Environmental management - Terminology coordination group) Solfallsveien 31 NO-1430 Ås, Norway tel: +47 64963684 & +47 64944233 mob: +47 90145563 http://www.hjulstad.com/havard/ ------------------------- -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: chenmin [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Gesendet: Donnerstag, 05. September 2002 10:47 An: Christian Galinski Betreff: Dear Prof.Galinski I am so sorry for the delay of my reply.I missed to see your letter of 12,Aug. Here's my reply to your question: (1)There are 6,578,524 Yi people reporting as a national minority (1990 census). Of these: 520,000 are speakers of Central Yi 905,000 are speakers of Eastern Yi 1,485,000 are speakers of Sichuan Yi (the standard Yi, using the syllabary that express phone) ≠ Liangshan Yi ≠ Da Liangshan=North Dialect 655,000 are speakers of Southeastern Yi 603,000 are speakers of Western Yi 900,000 are speakers of South Yi ≠ Ningliang Yi ≠ Xiao Liangshan Those figures add up to 5,453,564, meaning that 1,5105,24 identify with the Yi nationality but do not report as speakers. (2) Is the syllabary the same in ALL Yi languages/dialects using this script??? or are there differences??? Sichuan Yi (the standard Yi) is used only in Liangshan, the other dialects use the old Yi (syllabary that express meaning). The Characters are different in different place. (3) Is "Sichuan Yi/Liangshan Yi" really the most (most widely) 'recognized' language/dialect of Yi??? Yi Nationality agrees that Sichuan Yi (the standard Yi) represents the language. North Dialect has the maximum speaker, though Yunan has the largest Yi population. (4) How is "Sichuan Yi/Liangshan Yi" called by its speakers themselves in their native language (in romanized form)??? nuosu in Romanization. (5) How many specialized/technical dictionaries exist in Yi languages??? About 10 dictionarys, most of them are Sichuan Yi (the standard Yi). Yours sincerely Chenmin