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 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.
Biao Mon is a Mienic language of Guangxi province, China. It is spoken in Lipu, Mengshan, Pingle, and Zhaoping counties in Guangxi, China.
The Iu Mien language is the language spoken by the Iu Mien people in China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and, more recently, the United States in diaspora. Like other Mien languages, it is tonal and monosyllabic.
Quanzhou County is a county in the northeast of Guangxi, China, bordering Hunan province to the north and east. It is under the administration of Guilin City. Quanzhou is the biggest county in Guilin both in size and in population. The dialect here belongs to the Xiang Chinese.
Guanyang County is a county in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, bordering Hunan province to the east. It is under the administration of Guilin city.
Jinxiu is a county of eastern Guangxi, China, located in an area of relatively high concentrations of the Yao people. It is administered as the Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County of Laibin City. Established in 1952, with the name of Dayaoshan Autonomous Zone, in 1966, it was renamed as Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County. It has an area of 2,517 square kilometres (972 sq mi), much of it mountainous, and a population in 2004 of approximately 150,000.
The Lakkia language, also spelled Lakkja after its IPA transcription, is a Kra–Dai language spoken in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Laibin, East-Central Guangxi, China.
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.
Kiong Nai is a divergent Hmongic (Miao) language spoken in Jinxiu County, Guangxi, China. The speakers' autonym is pronounced or ; means 'mountain', while means 'people'. Mao & Li (2002) believe it to be most closely related to She.
Younuo is a divergent Hmongic language spoken in Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County, Guangxi, China. Mao (2007:129) reports a total of approximately 4,000 speakers.
Lalo is a Loloish language cluster spoken in western Yunnan, China by 300,000 speakers. Speakers are officially part of the Yi nationality, and Chinese linguists refer to it as "Western Yi" due to its distribution in western Yunnan. Lalo speakers are mostly located in southern Dali Prefecture, especially Weishan County, considered the traditional homeland of the Lalo. Historically, this area is the home of the Meng clan, who ruled the Nanzhao Kingdom (737–902 CE). Many speakers of Core Lalo dialects claim to be descendants of the Meng clan.
Biao Min, or Biao-Jiao Mien, is a Hmong–Mien language of China. The two varieties, Biao Min and Jiaogong Mian, are evidently not mutually intelligible.
Dzao Min is a Hmong–Mien language of China. Mao (2004:306) reports a total of more than 60,000 speakers in Liannan County and Yangshan County of Guangdong, and in Yizhang County of Hunan. The speakers from Bapai, Guangdong are also called Bapai Yao (八排瑶族).
Bunu is a Hmongic language of southern China. Bunu speakers are classified as Yao by the People's Republic of China.
Bumang is a tonal Austroasiatic language of Yunnan, China. It is spoken by about 200 people in Manzhang (曼仗), Mengla District (勐拉地区), Jinping County, Honghe Prefecture. The existence of Bumang was only recently documented by Chinese linguist Dao Jie in the mid-2000s. It is closely related to Kháng.
The Hani languages are a group of closely related but distinct languages of the Loloish (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic group. They are also referred to as the Hanoid languages by Lama (2012) and as the Akoid languages by Bradley (2007).
Numao is a Hmongic language of China.
Proto-Mienic or Proto-Yao is the reconstructed ancestor of the Mienic languages.
