The Bunu (Punu) 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
Bunu proper (Bu-Nao) as a Western (Chuanqiandian) Hmongic language, and the other Bunu (or ''Punuic'') languages—
Younuo,
Wunai (Hm Nai), and
Jiongnai (Kiong Nai)—as distinct branches of Hmongic.
[Strecker, David. 1987.]
The Hmong-Mien Languages
" In ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', 10 , no. 2: 1-11. Matisoff (2001) grouped all of these together in a ''Bunu'' branch of Hmongic (that is, outside Western Hmongic). Ratliff (2010) returned Bunu proper (Bu-Nao) to Western Hmongic, and moved Jiongnai to its own peripheral branch of Hmongic, but did not address Younuo or Wunai.
[Ratliff, Martha. 2010. ''Hmong–Mien language history''. Canberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics.] Mao Zongwu (1997) found that Younuo, Wunai, and
Pa-Hng form a
distinct branch of Hmongic.
The Bunu languages form a group in Chinese classification, but that is because Chinese classifications are not purely linguistic, but take into account ethnic identity.
Wang Fushi, cited in Strecker (1987b)
/ref>
References
Hmongic languages
Languages of China
{{HmongMien-lang-stub