was initially split by the linguists He Jiren and Jiang Zhuyi into two major clusters, Western Naxi and Eastern Naxi.

Western Naxi (???????) is fairly homogeneous. It is spoken mainly in Lijiang, Zhongdian (Shangri-La), Weixi and Yongsheng counties. Smaller populations of Western Naxi speakers are found in Heqing, Jianchuan, Lanping, Deqin, Gongshan, Ninglang (in Bapijiang village ????, Yongning Township ???) Muli (in Eya ??), Yanbian (Daoju ??) and Tibet (in Mangkang ??). There over 240,000 speakers total. Western