The Iu Mien language is one of the main languages spoken by the Yao people in China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and more recently the USA. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Hmong-Mien languages are a language family of southern China and Southeast Asia. ... The Yao nationality (瑶族, Pinyin: Yáo zú; Vietnamese: người Dao) are an ethnic group. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Yao nationality (瑶族, Pinyin: Yáo zú; Vietnamese: người Dao) are an ethnic group. ...

There are about 900,000 speakers in total.

It is very distantly related to the Hmong language, and together they form the Hmong-Mien languages family. Hmong (Hmong: hmoob) is a Hmong-Mien language spoken by the Hmong people native to Sichuan, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. ... The Hmong-Mien languages are a language family of southern China and Southeast Asia. ...

The language is a tonal language and a "monosyllabic language", like the Vietnamese language or the Chinese language. Tone refers to the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. ... A monosyllabic language is a language in which words are predominantly monosyllabic. ... Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamite (see Annam) is the national and official language of Vietnam. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ...

Linguists in China consider the dialect spoken in Changdong, Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi to be the standard. However most Iu Mien people in the West are refugees from Laos, so people in the west focus on their dialect.[1] Guangxi (Zhuang: Gvangjsih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi), full name Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (Zhuang: Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigih; old orthography: ; Simplified Chinese: 广西壮族自治区; Traditional Chinese: 廣西壯族自治區; Hanyu pinyin: ) is a Zhuang autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

Iu Mien has 78% lexical similarity with Kim Mun (also known as Lanten), 70% with Biao-Jiao Mien, and 61% with Dzao Min.[2] In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. ...

Where it is spoken

There are about 400,000 speakers in China, 350,000 in Vietnam, 60,000 in Laos, 40,000 in Thailand, 20,000 in the USA and 2,000 in France.[3]

In China it is spoken in the Dayao Mountains, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Ruyuan county of Guangdong province, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces. And in the Rongjian, Congjian and Libo counties of Guizhou province.[4] Guangxi (Simplified Chinese: 广西; Traditional Chinese: 廣西; pinyin: Guǎngxī; Wade-Giles: Kuang-hsi; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangsi) is an autonomous region of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Guangdong (Simplified Chinese: 广东; Traditional Chinese: 廣東; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuang-tung; Postal System Pinyin: Kwangtung or Canton Province, Jyutping: gwong2 dung1), is a province on the south coast of the Peoples Republic of China. ... Yunnan (Simplified Chinese: 云南; Traditional Chinese: 雲南; Hanyu pinyin: ) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... Hunan (Chinese: 湖南; Hanyu Pinyin: ) is a province of China, located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting (hence the name Hunan, meaning south of the lake). Hunan is sometimes called 湘 (pinyin: Xiāng) for short, after the Xiang River which runs through the province. ... Guizhou (Simplified Chinese: 贵州; Traditional Chinese: è²´å·ž; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Kuei-chou; also spelled Kweichow) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the southwestern part of the country. ...

Alphabet

In the past, lack of an alphabet has caused low rates of literacy amongst the Iu Mien speakers. It has been written with Chinese characters in China, however this is extremely difficult for Iu Mien speakers from other coutries such as Laos. {otheruses}} An alphabet is a complete standardiaed set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ... World illiteracy rates by country The traditional definition of Literacy is the ability to read and write. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

In an effort to address this, in 1984 an Iu Mien Unified Script was created using the Latin alphabet.[5] Unlike the Vietnamese language, this alphabet does not use any diacritics to distinguish tones or different vowel sounds, and only uses the 26 letters of English. This orthography distinguishes 30 initials, 128 finals and eight tones. It is based on an earlier orthography developed in China. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamite (see Annam) is the national and official language of Vietnam. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

The alphabet is similar to the RPA alphabet used to write the Hmong language and to the Hanyu Pinyin transcription scheme used for Chinese. Hmong (Hmong: hmoob) is a Hmong-Mien language spoken by the Hmong people native to Sichuan, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. ... Pinyin (拼音, Pīnyīn) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to Hànyǔ Pīnyīn (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonetic notation and transliteration to roman script) for Standard Mandarin used in the...

Tones

Tones are marked with an extra consonant placed at the end of each word. This consonant should never be pronounced. Instead you need to say the whole word with the appropriate tone.

The tones are:

v: Very high pitched tone.

c: Very low pitched tone.

h: Emphasis or demanding tone.

x: Falling tone.

z: Lower, longer, falling tone.

No final consonant: Ordinary flat tone.

• mienh.net online lesson - Tones

Initial consonants

In Iu Mien a syllable can start with any of the following sounds:

• mienh.net online lesson - Initial Consonants
• Zhou 2003:259

Vowels

In Iu Mien vowels are represented using only combinations of the 5 letters a, e, i, o, and u, except for the combination or which is also considered a vowel.

There are several diphthongs: a, aa, ae, ai, aai, au, aau, e, ei, eu, o, oi, ou, or, i, ie, iu, u, ui, uo.

Many of the above vowel sounds can also have i or u before them. If you put an i before them, it is pronounced like the English "y". If you put a u before them, it is pronounced like the English "w".

• mienh.net online lesson - Vowels
• mienh.net online lesson - "OR" combination
• mienh.net online lesson - "U" and "I" before vowels

Final Consonants (before the tone)

Unlike the Hmong language, in Iu Mien there are final consonants, which are pronounced as consonants, which can go at the end of a syllable, but before the tone. Hmong (Hmong: hmoob) is a Hmong-Mien language spoken by the Hmong people native to Sichuan, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. ...

These consonants can be:

n, ng, m, p, t, q, or k.

If it is k then it can only have the v tone after it. If it is q then it can only have the v or c tone after it.

• mienh.net online lesson - Final Consonants

Grammar

Iu Mien grammar is similar to English, except that adjectives usually come after nouns (but not always). It is easier than English, because there are no cases, tenses or plurals, and words never change their endings. It is a lot like Vietnamese grammar. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

It uses Subject Verb Object order. Adjectives usually come after nouns and are separated from their noun by a hyphen. Question words like where come at the end of the sentence.

The word maiv (remember the v is silent and means very high tone) means "no", or "not". It should be placed before a verb to negate it. But it is often shortened to mv.

There are lots of contractions in Iu Mien. Sometimes words will begin with a contracted syllable followed by an apostrophe and then a normal second syllable. The first contracted syllable may just be "m".

• Iu Mien grammar
• [6]
• Iu Mien online dictionary

References

• Panh Smith [Koueifo Saephanh]: Modern English-Mienh and Mienh-English Dictionary (Trafford 2002), ISBN 1-55369-711-1.
• Máo Zōngwǔ 毛宗武，Méng Cháojí 蒙朝吉，Zhèng Zōngzé 郑宗泽 etc. (eds.): Yáoyǔ jiǎnzhì 瑶语简志 (Overview of the Yao language; Běijīng 北京, Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社 1982)
• Máo Zōngwǔ 毛宗武: Yáozú Miǎnyǔ fāngyán yánjiū 瑶族勉语方言研究 (Studies in Mien dialects of the Yao nationality; Běijīng 北京, Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社 2004).
• Minglang Zhou: Multilingualism in China. The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages, 1949-2002 (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter 2003); ISBN 3-11-017896-6.

Barker, Judith C., and Kaochoy Saechao. "A Household Survey of Older Iu-Mien Refugees in Rural California." Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 12.2 (1997): 121-143.

Barker, Judith C. & Saechao, Kaochoy. (2000). A demographic survey of Iu-Mien in West Coast States of the U.S., 1993. Journal of Immigrant Health, 2:1, 31-42.

External links

• iumien.com: Iu Mien online dictionary, grammar, language forum
• mienh.net: online lesson, Iu Mien music