1 Fricativization of high vowels and glides in Ersu, Lizu, and related languages Katia Chirkova, CNRS-CRLAO, Paris Zev Handel, University of Washington, Seattle The 3 rd Workshop on the Tibeto-Burman languages of Sichuan Paris, September 2-4, 2013 1. Introduction This paper studies three closely related Tibeto-Burman languages, spoken in southwestern Sichuan Province (四ᐍ省) in the People’s Republic of China: (1) The Ersu language (/ HL ə˞-sv̩ xo/, 尔苏语 ěrsū yǔ), spoken by approximately 16,800 people in the counties of (i) Gānluò (甘洛县), (ii) Yuèxī (越西县) (both in Liángshān Yí Autonomous Prefecture 凉山彝族自治ᐎ), (iii) Shímián (石棉县), (iv) Hànyuán (汉源县) (in Yǎ’ān Municipality 雅安市), and (iv) Jiǔlóng (九龙县, WT brgyad zur) (in Gānzī 甘孜, WT dkar mdzes, Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture). (2) The Lizu language (/ EP li-zu hu/, 里汝语 lǐrú yǔ or 栗苏语 lìsū yǔ), spoken in the county of Mùlǐ 木里 (Mùlǐ Tibetan Autonomous County 木里藏族自治县, WT smi li rang skyong rdzong). It is a dialect of the Lüzu language (/ EP ly-zu hu/, 吕苏语 lǚsū yǔ), spoken by approximately 7,000 people along the banks of the Yǎlóng (雅砻) or Nyag chu River in the counties of (i) Mùlǐ, (ii) Jiǔlóng, and (iii) Miǎnníng (冕宁县). (3) The Duoxu language (/do⁴⁴ɕu⁴⁴ na³²/, 多续语 duōxù yǔ), a moribund language, spoken by a handful of individuals, mostly in their 70s and 80s, who live in Miǎnníng county. Map 1. Distribution of the Ersu, Lizu, and Duoxu languages (Map by Franz Huber) The three languages are currently viewed as dialects of the Ersu language (Sun 1982, 1983). Ersu is in turn classified as a member of the Qiangic subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family (Bradley 1997:36-37, Sun 2001, Chirkova 2012). In this conception, Ersu is the eastern dialect of the Ersu language, Duoxu is the central dialect, and Lüzu (or Lizu) language is its western dialect. A preliminary comparison of collected vocabulary (ca. 2,000 words), elicited sentences and texts reveals that the three languages are closely related. The assumption of relatedness rests on a high