The Gyami (, " Han Chinese") were a Han people of Sichuan at the foot of the Tibetan Plateau who were reported by

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals from the Himal ...

in 1874. According to Hodgson, who thought the Gyami descended from a Chinese military outpost, the Chinese considered the Gyami to be Qiangic speakers, suggesting that they did not recognize them as Han Chinese and that they did not use

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji ...

Victor H. Mair Victor Henry Mair (; born March 25, 1943) is an American sinologist. He is a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania. Among other accomplishments, Mair has edited the standard ''Columbia History of Chinese Literature'' and the ''Col ...

notes that what little is recorded of their speech indicates a degree of assimilation to local languages, but that it is clearly a variety of Mandarin.

References

Mandarin Chinese Ethnic groups in China {{China-stub