Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Grammar of the Katso Language in Yunnan, China

卡措语是一种濒危的少数民族语言，只在中国云南省的一个村庄里使用。这些人是13世纪忽必烈统治下征服该地区的蒙古军队的后裔。这种语言是从蒙古人和其他当地少数民族如白族和彝族的广泛接触中演变而来的，因此被认为是一种混合语言。今天，它被归类为官方认可的彝语（藏缅语）的变体，尽管两者相互无法理解。5000名说普通话的人承受着越来越大的压力，因为这是他们在村外接受教育或找到工作的唯一途径。因此，现在许多儿童将Katso作为第二语言来学习。因此，在Katso仍然充满活力和日常使用时记录它是至关重要的。该项目的目标是创建一个综合的Katso语料库，并编写该语言的详细语法。语料库将由数字音频和视频记录组成，并附有带有语言注释的转录。捕获的语言将包括各种各样的话语类型，如传统叙事、个人轶事、对话、仪式、习语、笑话和歌曲。语料库和由此产生的语法将被保存在使用者社区和专业语言档案中，为村民和学者等将来使用的语言创建一个永久的记录。该项目将大大扩展我们对这种独特语言的认识，并为未来对混合语言和语言接触、历史变化和语言分类等基本问题的学术研究奠定基础。该项目将使Katso社区受益。将提供诸如传统歌曲和故事录音等材料，并将对感兴趣的发言者进行培训和指导。此外，还将为云南民族大学感兴趣的学生提供语言文献研讨会。

Katso is an endangered minority language spoken in a single farming village in China's Yunnan Province. The speakers are descendants of Mongol troops who conquered the region in the 13th century under Kublai Khan. The language evolved from extensive contact between the Mongols and other local minorities such as the Bai and the Yi, and is thus considered a mixed language. Today it is classified as variant of the officially recognized Yi language (Tibeto-Burman) although the two are mutually unintelligible. The 5000 speakers are under increasing pressure to speak Mandarin since that is the only way to pursue an education or find employment outside the village. Consequently, many children now learn Katso as a second language. It is therefore crucial that Katso be documented while it is still vibrant and in daily use. The goals of the project are to create a comprehensive corpus of Katso and write a detailed grammar of the language. The corpus will consist of digital audio and video recordings accompanied by transcriptions with linguistic annotation. The language captured will include a wide variety of discourse types, such as traditional narratives, personal anecdotes, conversation, ceremonies, idioms, jokes and songs. Archived with both the speaker community and at a professional language archive, the corpus and the resulting grammar will create a permanent record of the language for future use by villagers and scholars alike. The project will considerably expand our knowledge of this unique language and provide the foundation for future scholarly investigations into fundamental questions on mixed languages and language contact, historical change, and language classification. The project will benefit the Katso community. Materials such as recordings of traditional songs and stories will be made available, and interested speakers will be trained and mentored. In addition, workshops on language documentation will be offered to interested students at the Yunnan University of Nationalities.