Nuoxi Yao (), or Nuoxihua 𦰡溪话, is a
Kam–Sui language of Nuoxi Township ,
Dongkou County
Dongkou County () is a county in the Province of Hunan, China, it is under the administration of Shaoyang City. Located in west-central Hunan, the county is bordered to the northeast by Longhui County, to the northwest by Xupu County and Hongji ...
, Hunan Province, China. Even though they are classified as ethnic
Yao people
The Yao people (its majority branch is also known as Mien; ; vi, người Dao) is a government classification for various minorities in China and Vietnam. They are one of the 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities in China and reside in t ...
by the Chinese government, the Nuoxi Yao speak a
Kam–Sui language closely related to
Dong. Shi (2015:132) considers Nuoxi Yao to have split off from Dong about 600 years.
Names
The Nuoxi Yao call themselves the '1
[See Proto-Tai_language#Tones for an explanation of the tone codes.] (Shi 2015:107) or '2 '1 (Shi 2015:125), and refer to their own language as '1 (Shi 2015:107). The town of Nuoxi (the first syllable is pronounced ''nuó'' in Mandarin (Shi 2015:107)) is referred to in the local Hunanese dialect as '2 '1.
Demographics
Shi (2015:107) estimates a total of 2,500 speakers and 5,000 ethnic Yao in Nuoxi Township. According to the ''Shaoyang Prefecture Gazetteer'' (1997), language varieties closely related to Southern Kam are spoken in Nuoxi ,
Dongkou County
Dongkou County () is a county in the Province of Hunan, China, it is under the administration of Shaoyang City. Located in west-central Hunan, the county is bordered to the northeast by Longhui County, to the northwest by Xupu County and Hongji ...
(which had 4,280 ethnic Yao in 1982 (Chen 2013:39)) and Lianmin ,
Suining County.
The ''Suining County Gazetteer''
宁县志(1997) documents the variety of Lianmin Yao as spoken in Xiaohuang , Tianluoxuan Village , Lianmin Ethnic Miao and Yao Township ,
Suining County , Hunan Province, China. It is closely related to Nuoxi Yao.
History
Chen Qiguang (2013:39)
[Chen, Qiguang 其光(2013). ''Miao and Yao language'' 瑶语文 Beijing: China Minzu University Press.] reports that the ancestors of ''Nuoxihua'' speakers had migrated to their current location from
Tianzhu,
Liping, and
Yuping counties of southeastern Guizhou during the early 15th century. According to Shi Lin (2015:126), the Nuoxi Yao had migrated from Gaoyi Township ,
Huitong County
Huitong County () is a county of Hunan Province, China, it is under the administration of Huaihua Prefecturel-level City.
Located on the west central margin of the province, the county lies to the east of the border of Guizhou. It is bordered to ...
, Hunan Province in 1403.
See also
*
Hunan Kam-Sui languages comparative vocabulary list (contains lexical data of Nuoxi Yao and Lianmin Yao)
References
*Long Mingyao
明耀 1984. "The Nuoxi Yao language and its relationship to Dong"
溪瑶语与侗语的关系 In ''Guizhou Minzu Yanjiu''
州民族研究1984, no. 3, p. 243-253.
*Shi Lin
林 2015. ''Three language varieties of the Hunan-Guizhou-Guangxi border region''
黔桂边区的三个族群方言岛 Beijing: China Social Sciences Academy Press
国社会科学出版社
{{Tai-Kadai languages
Languages of China
Kam–Sui languages