The Hmong people are an indigenous group in East Asia and Southeast Asia. In China, the Hmong people are classified as a sub-group of the Miao people. The modern Hmong reside mainly in Southwestern China and Mainland Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. There are also diaspora communities in the United States, Australia, and South America.
The term Kra–Dai peoples or Kra–Dai-speaking peoples refers collectively to the ethnic groups of southern China and Southeast Asia, stretching from Hainan to Northeast India and from southern Sichuan to Laos, Thailand and parts of Vietnam, who not only speak languages belonging to the Kra–Dai language family, but also share similar traditions, culture and ancestry.
The languages of East Asia belong to several distinct language families, with many common features attributed to interaction. In the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, Chinese varieties and languages of southeast Asia share many areal features, tending to be analytic languages with similar syllable and tone structure. In the 1st millennium AD, Chinese culture came to dominate East Asia, and Classical Chinese was adopted by scholars and ruling classes in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. As a consequence, there was a massive influx of loanwords from Chinese vocabulary into these and other neighboring Asian languages. The Chinese script was also adapted to write Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese, though in the first two the use of Chinese characters is now restricted to university learning, linguistic or historical study, artistic or decorative works and newspapers, rather than daily usage.
The Yao people or Dao is a classification for various ethnic minorities in China and Vietnam. Their majority branch is also known as Mien. They are one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China and reside in the mountainous southwest and south of the country. They also form one of the 54 ethnic groups officially recognized by Vietnam. They numbered 2,796,003 in the 2010 Chinese census and 891,151 in the 2019 Vietnamese census. An estimated 60,000 Yao of the Iu Mien branch reside in the United States, mostly in the Western coastal states.
The Hmong–Mien languages are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast Asia. They are spoken in mountainous areas of southern China, including Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guangdong and Hubei provinces; the speakers of these languages are predominantly "hill people", in contrast to the neighboring Han Chinese, who have settled the more fertile river valleys.
Hill tribe is a term used in Thailand for all of the various ethnic groups who mostly inhabit the high mountainous northern and western regions of Thailand, including both sides of the border areas between northern Thailand, Laos and Burma, the Phi Pan Nam Range, the Thanon Range, the latter a southern prolongation of the Shan Hills, as well as the Tenasserim Hills in Western Thailand. These areas exhibit mountainous terrain which is in some areas covered by thick forests, while in others it has been heavily affected by deforestation.
The Hmu language, also known as Qiandong Miao, Central Miao (中部苗语), East Hmongic, or Black Miao, is a dialect cluster of Hmongic languages of China. The best studied dialect is that of Yǎnghāo (养蒿) village, Taijiang County, Guizhou Province.
Iu Mien Americans are primarily former refugees of the Secret War in Laos and the Vietnam War. While some Iu Mien families were granted political asylum and the opportunity to resettle in the United States prior to 1980, the great majority of Iu Mien immigrants to the U.S. arrived following the Refugee Act of 1980. Between the late 1970s to the early 1990s, thousands of Mien immigrants resettled mainly on the West Coast of the U.S. Today, the Iu Mien American population is estimated to be at 50,000 - 70,000.
The Man, commonly known as the Nanman or Southern Man, were ancient indigenous peoples who lived in inland South and Southwest China, mainly around the Yangtze River valley. In ancient Chinese sources, the term Nanman was used to collectively describe multiple ethnic groups, probably the predecessors of the modern Miao, Zhuang, and Dai peoples, and non-Chinese Sino-Tibetan groups such as the Jingpo and Yi peoples. It was an umbrella term that included any groups south of the expanding Huaxia civilization, and there was never a single polity that united these people, although the state of Chu ruled over much of the Yangtze region during the Zhou dynasty and was partly influenced by the Man culture.
The Kam or Gam language, also known as Dong, is a Kam–Sui language spoken by the Dong people. Ethnologue distinguishes three Kam varieties as separate but closely related languages.
The Kam–Sui peoples are a group of related ethnic groups in China and neighboring portions of Northern Laos and Vietnam. They are defined as speakers of Kam–Sui languages, which belong linguistically to the Kra–Dai languages.
The Rau people, also known as Lao, were an ethnic group of ancient China. Their descendants are the Zhuang, Buyei, Tày–Nùng and other Kra–Dai-speaking peoples.
The Kam–Sui languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai languages spoken by the Kam–Sui peoples. They are spoken mainly in eastern Guizhou, western Hunan, and northern Guangxi in southern China. Small pockets of Kam–Sui speakers are also found in northern Vietnam and Laos.
The Miao rebellions in the Ming dynasty were a series of rebellions of the indigenous tribes of southern China against the Ming dynasty, from the 14th to the 15th centuries. The Ming defeated the rebels with overwhelming force. Later, during the Qing dynasty, another series of Miao rebellions broke out.
The Hmongic languages, also known as Miao languages, include the various languages spoken by the Miao people. Hmongic languages also include various languages spoken by non-Mienic-speaking Yao people, such as Pa-Hng, Bunu, Jiongnai, Younuo, and others, while She is spoken by ethnic She people.
Proto-Hmong–Mien (PHM), also known as Proto-Miao–Yao, is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hmong–Mien languages. Lower-level reconstructions include Proto-Hmongic and Proto-Mienic.
Pa-Hng is a divergent Hmongic (Miao) language spoken in Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hunan in southern China as well as northern Vietnam.
The Bu–Nao or Bunu languages are a Hmongic (Miao) language branch spoken in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou in China. Its speakers are officially classified as ethnic Yao but speak Hmongic languages. The branch consists of three languages, which are Bunu, Baonao, and Numao. The term Bu–Nao is a portmanteau of Bunu and Nao Klao.
The Iu Mien Iu Mien people are a subgroup of the Pan Yao branch of the Yao nationality, which is the largest of the three major Yao groups according to the Nationalities Affairs Commission of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China. The Iu Mien language is categorized as belonging to the Hmong–Mien language family. Iu Mien populations can be found in Southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, the United States, France, and other Western nations.
There are many traditional festivals of the Miao people, including the New Year of the Miao, 8 April, the Dragon Boat Festival, the New Year's Eating Festival, and the Autumn Festival: among these, the Miao New Year is the most solemn one. The Miao Year is equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han nationality, which is usually held after autumn.
Young ethnic Miao boy in Guizhou
Traditional Miao Boat used to travel down rapids for trading goods.
Traditional Miao irrigation system made entirely of wood planks (Yunnan Province)
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