What kind of culture is the language of the Yao people?

The Yao language branch belongs to the Miao-Yao language group of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The people who use this branch of the language are mainly located in China's Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Jiangxi six provinces, autonomous regions, part of the mountainous areas of the Mian language and Hainan Province, the self-proclaimed "Golden Gate" of the Miao people's language. Overseas, they are found in the mountainous regions of Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar adjacent to China, as well as in some parts of Thailand, the United States, and France.

Basic introduction

Yao belongs to the Yao branch of the Yao language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Yao is the collective name of the languages spoken by the Yao people in South China, and is also known as Mian, which belongs to the Miao-Yao language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. In the Miao and Yao language family, the Yao branch of the language, commonly known as Mian language, the other languages used by the Yao people also include the Bunu and Ba Hum languages, which belong to the Miao branch of the Miao and Yao language family, and the Laja language, which belongs to the Dongshui branch of the Zhuang and Dong language family. As the Yao languages vary considerably from place to place, it is often necessary to switch to Chinese in order to communicate.

The Yao language is generally divided into three dialects: Mianjin dialect. It is the most important dialect of the Mien language. The Mianjin dialect is further divided into the following three dialects: Youmian dialect. Also known as the Highland Yao language, Pan Yao. Biao Man dialect. Jinmen dialect. Also known as Flatland Yao, Indigo Yao. Biaojiao Dialect. Also divided into two dialects, Biao Min and Jiaogong Mian. Algorithmic Dialect. Also known as Patpai Yao and Zaomin. There are about 1.4 million people who speak the Mien language, of which 700,000 are in China, 500,000 are in Vietnam, and the rest are mainly in Laos, Thailand, and the United States. Of all the speakers of Mien, about 900,000 use the Youmian dialect and 400,000 use the Kinmen dialect.The Yao script, which was standardized in 1984, is the phonetic script for the Youmian dialect. The Bunu and Ba Hum languages, which were originally categorized as a branch of the Yao language, are more recently classified as a branch of the Hmong language.

Language features

The main features of the Yao branch of the Yao people's language: Generally speaking, there is a tendency to gradually simplify consonants, rhymes and tones. The clear and clear fricative sounds are opposed to the turbid ones, and the turbid ones correspond to the nasal and fricative sounds of the Miao and Bunu languages of the Miao branch. Aerialized consonants are basically found in Chinese loanwords. Vowels are generally contrasting in length. There are 6 consonant endings -p, -t, -k, -m, -n, -, etc. There are usually 8 tones, which are closely related to the clearness and turbidity of ancient consonants. There is a certain connection between prosody and word formation. Vocabulary and word order are the main means of expressing grammatical meaning.

Nouns, demonstrative pronouns, gerunds, and quantitative phrases are used as determiners before the central word, and adjectives are usually used as determiners after the central word. There are two sets of number words, the inherent word for those within "ten" and the borrowed word for those above "ten". The subject is in front of the predicate, and the object and complement are after the predicate of the verb. The roots of the words are basically monosyllabic, and there are not many words with additional constituents, some of which have gradually fallen off. There are more Chinese loanwords.

Language Classification

Yao StyleThe Yao people have their own national language, Yao. According to the language genealogy, the language of the Yao people belongs to the Yao branch of the Miao-Yao language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and also belongs to the Miao branch and the Dongshui branch of the Zhuang-Dong language family and the Chinese language. Therefore, the languages of the Yao people are roughly divided into 4 kinds. The Yao people of these 4 languages cannot communicate with each other in Yao, but use Chinese as a medium.

The Yao who call themselves "Mian", their language is called "Mian";

The Yao who call themselves "Bunu", their language is called "Bunu";

The Yao who call themselves "Bunu", their language is called "Bunu". The language of the Yao people who call themselves "Bunu" is called "Laja";

The language of the Yao people who call themselves "Laja";

The language of the Yao people who call themselves "Bingdoyu" is called "Laja";

The language of the Yao people who call themselves " The language of the Yao people who call themselves "Bingdoyu" is "Bingdoyu".

The Mian language has the widest distribution, and is spoken by the Yao in more than 90 counties in China's Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Jiangxi provinces (autonomous regions), with a population of about 700,000 (1982).

The Bunu language, mainly spoken in Du'an, Bama and Dahua Yao Autonomous County in Guangxi, is closer to the Miao and belongs to the Miao branch.

The Laja language, mainly distributed in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County in Guangxi, is closer to the Dongshui branch of the Zhuang-Dong language and belongs to the Dongshui branch. The Bingdoyu language, mainly distributed in Fuzhou, Guangxi and Jianghua County, Hunan Province, is closer to the Chinese language, but different from the local Chinese language. Among them, Mian, Bunu, and Bingduoyu each have dialectal differences.

The use of the Yao language is characterized by a core language and a fringe language. The core language, which includes everyday spoken language, oral literature and religious language. These three are different. Marginal language, refers to the languages other than Yao language, in addition to Yao language, in the local also will use Chinese or other national languages respectively for communication. The modern Yao language has three main features: first, the voice still exists in some ancient sound phenomenon; second, the synthesized words have two modifying components; third, the sentence formation is the same as the Chinese base.