Katso language

Katso, also known as Kazhuo or Khatso (autonyms: ', '; ), is a Loloish language of Xingmeng Township (兴蒙乡), Tonghai County, Yunnan, China. The speakers are officially classified as ethnic Mongols, although they speak a Loloish language. Over 99% of the residents township speak Katso, and Katso is used as a means of daily communication, though it is fading amongst younger speakers.

Katso speakers call themselves ' (卡卓) or ' (嘎卓) (Kazhuoyu Yanjiu).

Phonology
Katso is young, being no older than 750 years old. Lama (2012) lists the following sound changes from Proto-Loloish as Kazhuoish innovations.
 * *x- > s-
 * *mr- > z-

Consonants
The consonants for Katso according to Donlay (2019) are as follows: Consonants may not appear as clusters, and there are no coda consonants in Katso. The consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can serve as syllable nuclei. Some authors like Mu (2002) and Dai (2008) describe an additional phoneme //.

Vowels
Katso does not exhibit certain vowel qualities common in other Loloish languages like nasal vowels or the laryngeally-constricted vowels found in Nuosu. The two fricated vowels, /z̩/ (transcribed as /ɿ/ in Sinologist convention) and /v̩/ are described by Donlay (2019) as being a high central apical vowel and a high central fricative vowel respectively. The two both exhibit high degrees of turbulence and frication. The phoneme /z̩/ may only occur after /s, z, ts, tsʰ/, and contrasts with /i/ (see tsz̩⁵³ "basket" / tsi⁵³ "to cut (with scissors)". The high central fricative /v̩/, compared to its fricative counterpart /v/, is pronounced with the articulators more open forming a more resonant quality. In some instances it may lose sufficient frication to be similar to [] or [].

Donlay identifies 8 diphthongs, /iɛ ia io ɛi uo ua ui au/ and two triphthongs /iau uɛi uai/, out of which /io/, /ia/, and /uai/ mainly occur in loanwords from Chinese.

Tonemes
Katso has eight tones, three level tonemes (55, 44, 33), two rising tones (35, 24), two falling tones (53, 31) and a "peaking" low-falling-rising tone. The 44 toneme only occurs in a scant few words, mostly of Mandarin Chinese origin.