Na language

Na (or Narua, Mosuo) is a language of the Naish subbranch of the Naic group of the Sino-Tibetan languages.

Varieties

Yongning Na, which is spoken in Yongning Township, Ninglang County, Lijiang, Yunnan, China, has been documented by Jacques and Michaud (2011). It has three tonal levels. A trilingual dictionary is available online.

Lataddi Narua is notable for having only two tonal levels.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveolo- palatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	(ɳ)		ɲ	(ŋ)
Stop	voiceless	p	t	(ʈ)			k	q	(ʔ)
aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	(ʈʰ)			kʰ	qʰ
voiced	b	d	(ɖ)			ɡ	ɢ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʂ	t͡ɕ
aspirated		t͡sʰ	t͡ʂʰ	t͡ɕʰ
voiced		d͡z	d͡ʐ	d͡ʑ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʂ	ɕ		(x)		h
voiced	(v)	z	ʐ	ʑ		ɣ	(ʁ)
Lateral	fricative		ɬ
glide		l	(ɭ)
Approximant	w				j

/t, tʰ, d, n, l/ can be heard as [ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ, ɳ, ɭ] when preceding vowel sounds /ɯ, u, v̩, ɤ, æ/.
/p, pʰ, b, m, w/ can be heard as [ʙ̥, ʙ̥ʰ, ʙ, ɱ, v] when preceding vowel sounds /ɯ, u, v̩/.
/ɣ/ can also be heard as uvular [ʁ] in word-initial position.
/w, h/ is also heard as voiceless [w̥, x] in free variation.
/n/ is heard as velar [ŋ] when before velar stops.
[ʔ] is heard in initial position before vowels.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		ɯ	u
Mid	ɛ	ə	ɤ	ɔ
Open	æ, æ̃		ɑ
Syllabic			v̩

/ɯ/ can be heard as [ɨ] in syllable-initial position and as retroflex [ɻ̩] when after retroflex consonants.

Grammar

Syntax

Narua's default word order is agent–object–verb, although expression of all verb arguments is not obligatory.

Narua marks sentence topics with jjo /dʑo˥/ after a topicalized clause or noun phrase.