Bu-Nao language
| Bu-Nao | |
|---|---|
| Bunu | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou |
| Ethnicity | Bunu |
|
Native speakers
|
390,000 (2001) |
|
Hmong–Mien
|
|
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | buna1273 |
Bu-Nao, or Bunu proper (Chinese: 布努语 bùnǔyǔ), is a Hmongic (Miao) dialect cluster spoken in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou in China. Its speakers are among the Bunu (Chinese: 布努): ethnic Yao (Mien) speakers of Miao languages.
The Bunu people are the Yao people who speak Hmongic languages. That is, Bunu in the broad sense is a cultural rather than linguistic group. Strecker (1987) had classified Bu-Nao (Bunu proper) as a Western (Chuanqiandian) Hmongic language, and the other Bunu languages—Younuo (Yuno), Wunai (Hm Nai), and Jiongnai (Kiong Nai)—as distinct branches of Hmongic. Matisoff (2001) grouped all of these together in a Bunu branch of Hmongic (that is, outside Western Hmongic). Ratliff (2010) returned Bu-Nao to Western Hmongic, and moved Jiongnai to its own peripheral branch of Hmongic, but did not address Younuo or Wunai. Chinese sources generally do not treat the languages as Hmongic because the speakers are not ethnic Miao, but Wang & Deng (2003) classify Bunao as a cousin of Western Hmongic, and Jiongnai and Younuo as independent branches.
Bu-Nao dialects include:
These add up to a total number of 390,000 speakers.
The Guizhou Province Gazetteer (2002) lists the following autonyms for these villages in Libo County, Guizhou.
The Yunnan Province Gazetteer (1989) reports that a Bunu dialect known as pu˥ʐa˩ (布咋) is spoken by about 7,000 people in Guichao 归朝乡 and Dongbo 洞波瑶族乡 (including in Dadongzhai 大洞寨, Saxiangdong Village 三湘洞村) townships of Funing County, Yunnan.
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