Nuosu language
the prestige language of the Yi people
Nuosu or Nosu (ꆈꌠꉙ or written in traditional script, transcribed as Nuo su hxop), also known as Northern Yi, Liangshan Yi, and Sichuan Yi, is the prestige language of the Yi people; it has been chosen by the Chinese government as the standard Yi language (Chinese: 彝语) and as such is the only one taught in schools in both oral and written forms. It is spoken by two million people and is increasing (as of PRC census); 60% were monolingual (1994 estimate).
Nuosu is the native Nuosu name for their own language and is not used in Mandarin Chinese, though it may sometimes be translated as Nuòsūyǔ (simplified Chinese: 诺苏语; traditional Chinese: 諾蘇語).
The occasional terms 'Black Yi' (黑彝; hēi Yí) and 'White Yi' (白彝; bái Yí) are castes of the Nuosu people, not dialects.
Nuosu is one of several often mutually unintelligible varieties known as Yi, Lolo, Moso, or Noso. The six Yi languages recognized by the Chinese government have only 25% to 50% of their vocabulary in common. They share a common traditional writing system, but that is used for shamanism, rather than daily accounting.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it is one of the eight Tibeto-Burman languages with over 1,000,000 speakers (others being Burmese, Tibetan, Meitei, Bai, Karen, Hani, Jingpo).
Distribution
Nuosu is mainly spoken in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan.
There are other parts of Sichuan where Yi is spoken, including Panzhihua and Leshan.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34235. Authority coordinates are 27.900, 102.300. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nuosu language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.