official script of the Yi languages in 1980. There are 756 basic glyphs based on the Liangshan dialect, plus 63 for syllables only found in Chinese borrowings. The government requires the use of the script for signs in some designated public places. Phonology The written equivalents of the phonemes listed here are "Yi Pinyin". For information about the actual script used see the section entitled "Writing System". Consonants Vowels Nuosu has five pairs of phonemic vowels, contrasting in a feature Andy Eatough calls loose throat vs. tight throat. Underlining is used as an ad-hoc symbol for tight throat; phonetically, these vowels are laryngealized and/or show a retracted tongue root. Loose vs. tight throat is the only distinction in the two pairs of syllabic consonants, but in the vocoids it is reinforced by a height difference. The syllabic consonants are essentially the usual Sinological vowels , so can be identified with the vowel of the Mandarin "four", but they have diverse realizations. completely assimilates to a preceding coronal except in voice, e.g. "to marry", and are after a labial nasal, e.g. "cloth". assimilates similarly after laterals, retaining its rounding, e.g. "to stir-fry", and is after a labial nasal, e.g. "mushroom"; moreover it induces a labially trilled release of preceding labial or alveolar stops, e.g. "to hit". The tight-throat phone occurs as the realization of in the high tone. That it is phonemically loose-throat is shown by its behaviour in tightness harmony in compound words. Nuosu syllable structure is (C)V. Tones high / – written high-mid / or mid falling / – written (written with diacritic ̑ over symbol in the syllabary) mid / – unmarked low falling / – written The high-mid tone is only marginally contrastive. Its two main sources are from tone sandhi rules, as the outcome of a mid tone before another mid tone, and the outcome of a low-falling tone after a mid tone. However, these changes do not occur in all compounds where they might: for instance "bear" + "mother" regularly forms "female bear", but "jackal" + "mother" forms "female jackal" without sandhi. The syntax creates other contrasts: tone sandhi applies across the boundary between object and verb, so is present in SOV clauses like "Mujy looks for Luti", but is absent in OSV clauses like "Luti looks for Mujy". A few words, like "what?", have underlying high-mid tone. Vocabulary and grammar Nuosu is an analytic