| Summary: | The writer recently (Benedict 1987) called attention to an early source of loans to Miao-Yao for numerals ("four" through "ten") and a few other items, notably "sun" and "moon". His (unstated) view at the time was that this 'donor' language (DMY: Donor to Miao Yao), from Tibeto-Burman (TB) to Austro-Tai (AT), was one of a kind, without later replication if one excludes isolated loanwords, e.g., Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) * s - t on "1,000"; cf. (Kadai family) Laqua t e xj. Lati (comp.) turf "id.". He had overlooked, however, the fact that the Duoluo branch of Gelao has clearly borrowed its numerals for "six" through "ten" as well as its basic mineral terms from Burmese-Yipho (BY), apparently from more than one 'donor' (DGI: Donor to Gelao) source. The following table cites the available forms (tone marks omitted) from a Duoluo dialect recorded in North Vietnam by Bonifacy in 1905 (cited in Benedict 1975 as 'S. Gl.') and three recently recorded dialects from Chinese sources: Huangniu (Moji) (HN), Dingyinshao (DYS) and Liuzhi (LZ), along with representative BY forms from Lisu (Fraser).
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