Hmong-Mien languages | Origins, Characteristics & Dialects (2024)

Hmong-Mien languages, family of languages spoken in southern China, northern Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Although some linguists have proposed high-level genetic relationships to several language families—including Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, Austronesian, and Austroasiatic—no genetic relationships between Hmong-Mien and other language families have been conclusively demonstrated.

Most Hmong-Mien speakers belong to the Miao and Yao nationalities, two minority ethnic groups in China, although not all Miao or Yao people speak a Hmong-Mien language. Hmong-Mien speakers in China primarily inhabit Guizhou, Hunan, and Yunnan provinces and the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, although smaller numbers live in Sichuan, Guangdong, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces and on the island of Hainan.

Under pressure from the dominant Han Chinese population, waves of Hmong and Mien speakers migrated to Southeast Asia during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Another wave of migration followed the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, when tens of thousands of Southeast Asian Hmong and Mien emigrated to the United States, France, French Guiana, and Australia. At the beginning of the 21st century, the total number of Hmong-Mien speakers worldwide was estimated to be approximately 10 million. However, as six out of seven speakers of Hmong-Mien languages live in China, and the Chinese government reports the number of people in the Miao and Yao ethnic groups (which may contain speakers of languages other than Hmong-Mien), the actual number may be somewhat smaller.

Classification

Most Chinese scholars have claimed that Hmong-Mien belongs to the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family, along with Chinese, Tibeto-Burman (which includes Tibetan, Burmese, Karen, and many smaller languages of southern and western Asia), and Tai-Kadai (which includes Thai, Lao, Shan, Zhuang, and many smaller languages of Southeast Asia). Although a genetic relationship between Chinese and Tibeto-Burman is generally accepted, the belief that this family also includes Hmong-Mien and Tai-Kadai is not widely shared by linguists outside China. Despite massive numbers of Chinese loanwords in Hmong-Mien languages, an examination of recurrent sound correspondences in basic vocabulary, the methodology upon which the determination of genetic affiliation has rested since the 19th century, does not support the theory that Chinese and Hmong-Mien are related. Furthermore, linguists outside China reject similarities in grammar, word structure, and phonological systems as evidence of genetic relationship; these similarities have been ascribed to the power of Chinese influence in the area and widespread bilingualism.

Other possible family connections have been proposed. In 1948 the English linguist R.A.D. Forrest accepted and elaborated on Henry R. Davies’s hypothesis (1909) of a link between Hmong-Mien and Mon-Khmer. In 1975 the American linguist Paul K. Benedict linked Hmong-Mien to Austronesian and Tai-Kadai as part of a family he had labeled “Austro-Tai” in earlier work. Although the Austric hypothesis, first proposed by the German linguist Wilhelm Schmidt, originally linked only Austroasiatic and Austronesian, Hmong-Mien has been mentioned as a possible member of this constellation as well. None of these proposals has gained general acceptance among scholars. Until a careful separation of layers of Chinese borrowings from native Hmong-Mien vocabulary has been completed, the question of wider family connections cannot be resolved. The most prudent position to take in the meantime is that Hmong-Mien constitutes an independent family of languages.

Within the family two main branches have been identified: the Hmongic and the Mienic. The Hmongic (Miao) subfamily is an internally diverse group that includes mutually unintelligible languages such as Hmu (spoken in Guizhou and Guangxi), Hmong (spoken in Guizhou and Yunnan and in Southeast Asia), Qo Xiong (spoken in Hunan), Bunu (spoken in Guangxi), and Ho Ne (also known as She; spoken in Guangdong). The Mienic (Yao) subfamily is smaller and less diverse but is scattered over the entire geographical area. It includes the languages Iu Mien, Mun, and Biao Min, among others. Further research on lesser-known members of the family may lead to the refinement of this simple family tree.

The designation Miao-Yao, the name of these ethnic groups and an alternate name for the language family, is of Chinese origin. It represents the concept of “nationality,” which is not a purely linguistic classification but also takes into account culture, politics, and self-identification. For example, speakers of Mien together with speakers of Bunu, a Hmongic language, and Lakkia, a Tai-Kadai language, are classified in China as members of the Yao nationality. Conversely, for cultural reasons, speakers of the Mun language on Hainan Island are classified in China as members of the Miao nationality despite the fact that their language is Mienic. To avoid this confusion of ethnic and linguistic categories, many Western scholars have adopted the name Hmong-Mien to refer to this language family.

Phonology

Most words in Hmong-Mien languages are monosyllabic. For the vast majority of words, therefore, word structure is the same as syllable structure: CV(C)—i.e., an initial consonant or consonant cluster followed by a vowel, in some cases closed by a final consonant. Each word also bears a distinctive tone, which contributes as much to the identification of the word as do the consonants and vowels.

All Hmong-Mien languages are tonal languages, some with large and complex inventories of tones. For example, five of the eight Shidongkou Hmu (“Black Miao”) tones are level tones that are spoken at different pitches, a world-record number of pitch level distinctions. Longmo Bunu and Zongdi Hmong each have 12 tonal contrasts including both level and contour tones (tones which change pitch), in comparison with the four tones of Mandarin Chinese. Tones in some Hmong-Mien languages are characterized by voice quality distinctions as well as pitch contrasts: it is not unusual for certain tones to be “breathy” or “whispered” in quality, and occasionally a tone may be characterized by a “creaky” voice quality (which can be approximated by lowering the pitch of one’s voice until it begins to break).

Words in Hmongic languages have a wide variety of initial consonants. Consonants are articulated at several different places in the mouth, including familiar sounds made at the front of the mouth with the lips (labial consonants), with the tongue touching or near the teeth (dental/alveolar consonants), and with the back of the tongue touching the soft palate (velar consonants). These three types of consonants also contrast in English /p/, /t/, and /k/. However, Hmongic languages also have consonant articulations that are not found in English, including a retroflex series, in which the tip of the tongue curls backward to contact the gum ridge behind the upper teeth, and a uvular series, in which the back of the body of the tongue raises to contact the soft palate at a point behind the contact point for a /k/. Additionally, stop consonants characterized by a complete blockage of the airflow from the lungs come in different varieties. At each place of articulation, a stop consonant may be produced with or without voicing (vocal fold vibration), as in the voiceless /p/ in English pea versus the voiced /b/ in English bee, although voiced stops are less common than voiceless stops across the family. Stops may also be produced with or without distinctive aspiration (a puff of air), as in the aspirated /p^h/ in English pot versus the unaspirated /p/ in English spot. Stops may be prenasalized as well. This yields a possible four-way contrast at each place of articulation: for example, /p/, /b/, /p^h/, and /mp/. There may also be a three-way distinction at each place of articulation for sounds that allow a small amount of air to escape, such as the fricatives /s/, /z/, and /s^h/. Nasal consonants and /l/ often occur in pairs governed by the presence or absence of vocal fold vibration, such as /m/ and /m̥/ or /l/ and /l̥/. Finally, clusters of consonants with /l/ and /j/ are common—for example, /pl/, /mpl/, /mp^hl/, /pj/, /mpj/, and /mp^hj/.

When syllables in Hmongic languages end in a consonant, they end in either /n/ or /ŋ/. Syllables in Mienic languages, on the other hand, can end in any one of six consonants: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/, or /ʔ/. The high number of possible consonants in final position seems to correspond to fewer options for initial consonants. Vowel systems in both Hmongic and Mienic languages include both simple vowels and diphthongs; Mienic languages may have a contrast between short and long vowels as well, as in the Mien pair /dât/ ‘to weave (cloth)’ and /dâat/ ‘wing.’