The Hani language (Hani: or '; ; ) is a language of the Loloish (Yi) branch of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic group spoken in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

, and

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

by the

Hani people The Hani or Ho people (Hani language, Hani: ''Haqniq''; zh, c=哈尼族, p=Hānízú; / 𠊛何贰) are a Loloish languages, Lolo-speaking ethnic group in Southern China, Northern Laos, and Vietnam. They form one of the 56 List of ethnic g ...

Distribution

In China, Hani is spoken mostly in areas to the east of the

Mekong The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth-longest river and the third-longest in Asia with an estimated length of and a drainage area of , discharging of wat ...

River in south-central

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

province, mostly in Pu'er and Honghe prefectures, as well as in parts of other surrounding prefectures. Hani is also spoken in

Lai Châu Lai Châu () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital city of Lai Châu Province. The city borders Phong Thổ District, Sìn Hồ District và Tam Đường District. History Lai Châu, or Muang Lay (Vietnamese: M� ...

and

Lào Cai Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwe ...

provinces of northwestern Vietnam and in Phongsaly Province of Laos along the border with Yunnan. Edmondson (2002) reports that the Hani of Vietnam are distributed in two provinces of northwestern Vietnam where two distinct dialects are found, one east of Muong Te and the other to the west. The Hani of Vietnam claim to be able to communicate in the Hani language with ethnic Hani from different areas of Vietnam despite significant geographical barriers. Edmondson (2002) reports that the different Hani speech varieties in Vietnam differ mostly in lexicon.

Phonology

Hani has three main tones and two types of short

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

Consonants

Vowels

Vowel length in Hani is also distinctive.

Orthography

Oral tradition tells of an ancient written script for Hani but says it was lost when the Hani migrated from

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

. In China, Standard Hani, which is based on the

Lüchun County Lüchun County () is located in Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, in the south of Yunnan province, China, bordering Vietnam's Lai Châu Province to the south. Geography Lüchun is located in southwestern Honghe Prefecture in southeastern ...

dialect, is written using a Latin-based script developed by the Chinese government during the 1950s. As with the Latin-based scripts of the Zhuang, Hmong and Iu Mien languages, it uses final

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

letters to represent tone. Consonants in Hani orthography are pronounced the same as in

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

, with two additional digraphs for voiced fricatives in Hani. The IPA equivalents for letters in Hani orthography are provided below. The vowels in Hani orthography are as follows. After vowels, -v is used to mark tense vowels. There are four tones, which are marked by letters at the ends of words, or not at all for the mid-level 3 Numerical Chao tones are provided below. The letter v at the end of a syllable indicates buzzing vowels (represented with a minus sign below ◌̠ in IPA), and it can be followed by a tone letter.

Sample text

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links

Hani language recordings
a
GlobalRecordings.net

with comparison with related languages * Hani language dictionary {{Lolo-Burmese languages Southern Loloish languages Languages of Yunnan Languages of Laos Languages of Vietnam