The Hani language (Hani: or '; ; vi, Tiếng Hà Nhì) 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. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, and

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

by the

Hani people The Hani or Ho people ( Hani: ''Haqniq''; zh, c=哈尼族, p=Hānízú; vi, Người Hà Nhì / 𠊛何贰) are a Lolo-speaking ethnic group in Southern China and Northern Laos and Vietnam. They form one of the 56 officially recognized na ...

Distribution

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

Mekong The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's List of rivers by length, twelfth longest river and List of longest rivers of Asia, the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , ...

River in south-central

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

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

provinces of northwestern Vietnam and in

Phongsaly Province Phongsaly province ( Lao ຜົ້ງສາລີ), also spelled ''Phôngsali'', is a province of Laos in the extreme north of the country. The capital of the province is the city of Phôngsali. Phongsaly is between Yunnan (China), and Điệ ...

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 Muong may refer to: *Muong people, third largest of Vietnam's 53 minority groups ** Muong language, spoken by the Mường people of Vietnam *No Muong, king of the southern Laotian Kingdom of Champasak in 1811 * Mueang Mueang ( th, เมือง ...

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 syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

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 (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

. 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. Administrative divisions In the present, Lüchun County has 4 towns and 5 towns ...

dialect, is written using a Romanized script developed by the Chinese government during the 1950s. As with the Latin-based scripts of the Zhuang,

Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related to ...

and

Iu Mien language The Iu Mien language ( ium, Iu Mienh, ; zh, 勉語 or ; th, ภาษาอิวเมี่ยน) is the language spoken by the Iu Mien people in China (where they are considered a constituent group of the Yao peoples), Laos, Vietnam, Th ...

s, 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. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

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

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

, with two additional digraphs for

voiced fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

s in Hani. The

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners ...

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.

Sample text

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links

Hani language recordings
a
GlobalRecordings.net

with comparison with related languages {{Lolo-Burmese languages Southern Loloish languages Languages of China Languages of Laos Languages of Vietnam