Iu Mien language

Iu Mien language
Iu Mien
Iu Mienh
Pronunciation [ju mjɛn][need tone]
Spoken in China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, USA, and France.
Region South East Asia
Native speakers 2,172,000  (date missing)
Language family
Hmong–Mien
Official status
Regulated by No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ium
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Iu Mien language (Thai: ภาษาอิวเมี่ยน) is one of the main languages spoken by the Yao people in China, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and more recently the United States, in diaspora. There are about 2,172,000 speakers in total, according to census data in 2000 from China, Vietnam, Thai, Laos, United States of America, and France. Like Vietnamese and Chinese, it is tonal and monosyllabic.

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 they primarily speak dialects common in Laos.[1]

Iu Mien has 78% lexical similarity with Kim Mun (Lanten), 70% with Biao-Jiao Mien, and 61% with Dzao Min.[1]

Contents

Geographic distribution

There are approximately 1,699,750 speakers in China, 350,000 in Vietnam, 25,000 in Laos, 40,000 in Thailand, 65,000 in the USA and 2,000 in France.[2]

In China, it is spoken in the Jinxiu County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Ruyuan County of Guangdong province, Yunnan, and Hunan provinces, and in the Rongjian, Congjian and Libo counties of Guizhou province.[3]

Dialects

There are several known dialects of Iu Mien. Dialects vary by clan and geographic location. Dialects include, but are not limited to, Cham, Deo Tien, Man Do, Quan Chet, and Quan Trang.

Phonology

Consonants

Initial consonants

In Iu Mien, a syllable can start with any of the following sounds:[4][5]

Mien IPA Mien IPA Mien IPA Mien IPA Mien IPA
Stops and
affricates		 Aspirated p /pʰ/ t /tʰ/ c /tsʰ/ q /tɕʰ/ k /kʰ/
Voiceless b /p/ d /t/ z /ts/ j /tɕ/ g /k/
Voiced mb /b/ nd /d/ nz /dz/ nj /dʑ/ nq /ɡ/
Nasals and
lateral		 Voiceless hm /m̥/ hn /n̥/ hl /l̥/ hny /ɲ̥/ hng /ŋ̊/
Voiced m /m/ n /n/ l /l/ ny /ɲ/ ng /ŋ/
Fricatives f /f/ s /s/ h /h/
Semivowels w /w/ y /j/

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 marking letters.

These consonants can be:

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

If it is a stop, p, t, or k then it can only have the c or v tone after it.

A q is used after a vowel to make the vowel short. (This is equivalent to a glottal stop.) Acting like other stops, it can only take the v or c tone after it.

Vowels

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, er, 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".

Tones

Iu Mien is a tonal language. Tones are not marked with diacritics; rather, a word's tone is indicated by a special marker placed at the end of the word. This letter is not pronounced but rather indicates how the word is to be pronounced. If a word lacks a marker, then it is to be pronounced with a middle tone.

Description Alphabetic representation Example English
Very high-pitched v maaiv no, not, disagreement
Mid, falling h maaih to have
Mid
Very low-pitched c maaic to sell
Low, rising x maaix to buy
Lower, longer, rise-fall z maaiz lopsided

Grammar

There are no cases, tenses, or plural marking, and words never change their endings. Adjectives usually come after nouns. The language follows a SVO word order. 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".

Writing system

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 countries such as Laos and groups such as the Chao Clan.

In an effort to address this, in 1984 an Iu Mien Unified Script was created using the Latin script, based on an earlier orthography developed in China.[6] 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 the basic Latin alphabet. This orthography distinguishes 30 initials, 128 finals and eight tones. Hyphens are used to link adjectives with the nouns they modify.

The alphabet is similar to the RPA used to write the Hmong language and to the Hanyu Pinyin transcription scheme used for Chinese.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Ethnologue report for language code:ium
  2. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ium]
  3. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ium
  4. ^ mienh.net online lesson - Initial Consonants
  5. ^ Zhou 2003:259
  6. ^ [1]

References

  • Smith Panh [Kweifo Panh/贵富盘]: Modern English-Mienh and Mienh-English Dictionary (Trafford 2002), ISBN 1-55369-711-1.
  • Tony Waters. "Adaptation and Migration among the Mien People of Southeast Asia." Ethnic Groups vol. 8, pages 127-141 (1990).
  • 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.

http://www.omf.org/omf/us/peoples_and_places/people_groups/mien_of_thailand

Further reading

  • Kim, Katherine Cowy. Quietly Torn: A Literary Journal by Young Lu Mien American Women Living in Richmond, California. San Francisco, CA: Pacific News Service, 1999.

Films

  • 2003 - Death of a Shaman. Directed by Richard Hall; produced by Fahm Fong Saeyang.
  • 2010 - "Siang-Caaux Mienh". A story of a very irresponsible family man, alcoholic, and drug addict. He likes his bad friends but he doesn’t love his family. But as he starts paying his mistakes, has become a turning point in his life. A short movie directed by Alejandro Cardeinte
  • 2011 - "Mborqv Jaax Ciangv". A Short movie directed by Alejandro Cardeinte

External links


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