Lama language (Bai)

Lama is a Bai language spoken along the Lancang River (upper Mekong) in Lanping County and Weixi County, in western Yunnan, China.^[1][2]

Lama
Native to	China
Region	Southwestern China
Ethnicity	Lama Bai
Native speakers	80,000 (2017)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic? Macro-Bai? Bai Northern Bai Lama
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lay
Glottolog	(insufficiently attested or not a distinct language) lama1289
ELP	Lama (shared)

Up to the 16th edition of Ethnologue (2009), the code lay was assigned to "Lama (Myanmar)", listed in the index of languages by C. F. Voegelin and F. M. Voegelin (1977) as a Nungish language of Myanmar having 3,000 speakers. In 2013 the reference name for the code was changed to "Bai, Lama", identifying one of two Northern Bai languages, the other being Panyi Bai.^[2]

References

1. Lama at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Johnson, Eric (2013). "Change Request Documentation: 2013-007". ISO 639-3 Registration Authority.