Bunu language

Not to be confused with Bunu language (Nigeria).

Bunu is a Hmongic language of southern China. Bunu speakers are classified ethnically as Yao by the People's Republic of China.

Bunu
Pu Nu
Buod Nuox
Native to	China
Region	Guangxi and bordering regions
Ethnicity	Yao
Native speakers	359,474 (2001)[1]
Language family	Hmong–Mien Hmongic West Hmongic Bu–Nao Bunu
Dialects	Dongnu Nunu Bunuo
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	buna1273

Varieties

Meng (2001) lists the following language varieties for Bunu.^[1]

• Bunu (Chinese: 布努) (Pu Nu) - 359,474 speakers; representative dialect: Nongjing, Qibainong Township, Dahua County (大化七百弄乡弄京)
  • Dongnu (Chinese: 东努) (Tung Nu, autonyms: no22, tuŋ11 no22) - 293,489 speakers in Funing County, Yunnan (in Longshao 龙绍, etc.) and northern Guangxi: Du'an (in Meizhu 梅珠, etc.), Dahua, Bama, Pingguo, Tiandong, Mashan, Debao, Long'an, Baise, Tianyang, Donglan, Hechi, Shanglin, Xincheng, Yishan, Laibin. In Funing County, they are known as Buzha (布咋) (their autonym) or the Mountain Yao (山瑶).
  • Nunu (Chinese: 努努) (Nu Nu, autonyms: no22 no22, po33 no22) - 53,870 speakers in northwestern Guangxi: Lingyun (in Taohua 陶化, etc.), Fengshan, Donglan, Bama (in Xishan 西山, etc.), Tianlin, Leye
  • Bunuo (Chinese: 布诺) (Pu No, autonym: pu33 no22) - 12,115 speakers in Du'an (in Sanzhiyang 三只羊; Longma (龙麻) of Xia'ao (下坳乡),^[2] etc.), Guangxi

The Shaoyang Prefecture Gazetteer (1997:533) reports that the Miao of Xinning County, Hunan, speak a Bunu-branch language.

The Yunnan Province Gazetteer (1989) reports that a Bunu dialect known as pu55 ʐa11 (布咋) is spoken by about 7,000 people in Guichao (归朝乡) and Dongbo (洞波瑶族乡) (including in Dadongzhai 大洞寨, Saxiangdong Village 三湘洞村^[3]) townships of Funing County, Yunnan.

Others

The following may be alternative names for speakers of Bunu languages.^[4]

• Beidalao (北大老): 15,000 (1990) in Rong'an County and Rongshui County, Guangxi; probably Bunu, though divergent^[5]
• Changpao (长袍): 5,000 (1999) in southern Guizhou; undetermined linguistic affiliation, but could possibly be Bunu.^[6] Identified as Dongmeng by Bradley (2007).^[7]
• Youmai (优迈): 2,000 (1999) in southwestern Guizhou; possibly a Bunu variety;^[8] classified as Pingtang Miao by Li Yunbing (2000)^[9]

Phonology

This section presents the phonology of the Dongnu variety of Qibainong (七百弄) Township, Dahua Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi as representative.^[10]

Consonants

		Labial		Dental/Alveolar			Retroflex	(Alveolo-) palatal	Velar			Glottal
		plain	pal.	plain	sib.	lat.			plain	lab.	pal.
Nasal	voiceless	m̥	m̥ʲ	n̥				ɲ̟̊	ŋ̊	ŋ̊ʷ
	voiced	m	mʲ	n				ɲ̟	ŋ	ŋʷ
Stop	voiceless	p	pʲ	t			ʈ		k	kʷ	kʲ
	aspirated	pʰ	pʲʰ	tʰ			ʈʰ		kʰ	kʷʰ	kʲʰ
	prenasal	ᵐp	ᵐpʲ	ⁿt			ᶯʈ		ᵑk	ᵑkʷ	ᵑkʲ
	prenasal asp.	ᵐpʰ	ᵐpʲʰ	ⁿtʰ			ᶯʈʰ		ᵑkʰ	ᵑkʷʰ
Affricate	voiceless					tɬ		tɕ
	aspirated					tɬʰ		tɕʰ
	prenasal			ⁿtθ	ⁿts	ⁿtɬ		ᶮtɕ
	prenasal asp.			ⁿtθʰ	ⁿtsʰ	ⁿtɬʰ		ᶮtɕʰ
Fricative	voiceless	f		θ	s	ɬ	ʂ	ɕ				h
	aspirated			θʰ	sʰ
	voiced	v					ʐ	ʑ	ɣ			ɦ
Approximant						l

Sounds /tɬ, tɬʰ, ⁿtɬ, ⁿtɬʰ/ may be pronounced as [pl, plʰ, ᵐpl, ᵐplʰ] in some areas.^[11]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		ɯ	u
Close-mid	e	ə	o
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open		a

Examples of vowels

Vowel	Example word
i	pi43 'fruit'
ɯ	tɯ13 'speak'
u	ɬu41 'iron'
e	he33 'open (a door)'
ə	shə43 'on top'
o	no13 'person'
ɛ	hɛ33 'fast'
ɔ	tɔ41 'kill'
a	ka33 'chicken'

Diphthongs and Other Rimes

Qibainong Dongnu has seven diphthongs: /ei/, /ai/, /au/, /ou/, /ɔi/, /iu/, and /eu/.^[12] Of these, /ɔi/, /iu/, and /eu/ only appear in recent loans from Chinese and Zhuang.^[13] Examples of words with diphthongs appear in the table below; yellow background is for those diphthongs that appear only in recent borrowings.

Examples of diphthongs

Diphthong	Example word
/ei/	tei35 'team'
/ai/	mpai41 'pig'
/au/	sau41 'satiated'
/ou/
/ɔi/	sɔi221 'crime'
/iu/	ʐiu221 'cotton tree'
/eu/

Several vowels in Qibainong Dongnu permit a nasal consonant following, either /n/ or /ŋ/; most vowels permit one or the other, but not both.^[12] Qibainong also permits the rime /iaŋ/, despite not having a diphthong /ia/; /iaŋ/ is used only in recent loans.^[14] The possible combinations of vowel with final nasal, organized by the position of the vowel, appear in the table below.

Vowel + nasal sequences

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iŋ			uŋ
Close-mid	en	ən, əŋ
Open-mid			ɔn, ɔŋ
Open		an, aŋ

Examples of rimes with nasals

Rime	Example
iŋ	iŋ33 'bitter'
uŋ	muŋ33 'sick'
en	pen13 'flower'
ən
əŋ	nəŋ33 'snake'
ɔn
ɔŋ	nɔŋ13 'eat'
an	man43 'village'
aŋ	aŋ33 'water'
iaŋ

Tone

Qibainong Dongnu has eight tones, with four having an alternate realization, giving a total of 12 tone values.^[15]

Tones

Tone number	Tone class	Tone value	Example word
1	A1	33	tɔ33 'deep'
1′	A1′	55	ven55 'winnowing basket'
2	A2	13	tɔ13 'come'
2′	A2′	35	ven35 'garden'
3	B1	43	tɔ43 'hit'
3′	B1′	54	pe54 'bowl'
4	B2	232	tɔ232 'read'
4′	B2′	454	pe454 'handle'
5	C1	41	tɔ41 'kill'
6	C2	221	tɔ221 'die'
7	D1	32	tɔ32 'affix (a seal)'
8	D2	21	tɔ21 'bite'

Alphabet

Bunu is written in a Latin script similar to other minority languages of China, such as Hmong-Mien languages, like Hmong or Tai-Kadai languages, like Kam or Sui. It uses Digraphs or combinations of letters instead of diacritics to represent additional sounds. The Bunu alphabet is^[16] :

Letter
a	b	by	c	ch	d	dl	e	ee	f	g	gw	gy	h	hl	hm	hmy	hn	hng	hngw	hny	hs	i	j	k	kw	ky	l	m	mb	mby	mc	mch	md	mdl	mg
IPA
a	p	pʲ	sʰ	ʈʰ	t	tɬ	ə	e/ɛ	f	k	kʷ	kʲ	h/ɦ	ɬ	m̥	m̥ʲ	n̥	ŋ̥	ŋ̥ʷ	ɲ̥	θʰ	i	tɕ	kʰ	kʷʰ	kʲ	l	m	mp	mpʲ	ntsʰ	ɳʈʰ	nt	ntɬ	ŋk
Letter
mgw	mgy	mhs	mj	mk	mkw	mp	mpy	mq	ms	mt	mtl	mz	mzh	n	ng	ngw	ny	o	p	py	q	r	s	sh	t	tl	u	uo	v	w	x	y	z	zh
IPA
ŋkʷ	ŋkʲ	ntθʰ	ntɕ	ŋkʰ	ŋkʷʰ	mpʰ	mpʰʲ	ntɕʰ	ntθ	ntʰ	ntɬʰ	nts	ɳʈ	n	ŋ	ŋʷ	ɲ	ɔ	pʰ	pʰʲ	tɕʰ	ʐ	θ	ʂ	tʰ	tɬʰ	u	o	ɣ	v/ɯ	ɕ	ʑ	s	ʈ

Tones

Tones are marked with a consonant letter written at the end of a syllable.

Tone
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Value
33	13	43	232	41	221	32	21
Orthography
b	x	d	l	t	s	k	f

Grammar

Word Classes

According to Meng (2001), Bunu has 12 parts of speech, namely, nouns, pronouns, numerals, classifiers, adjectives, verbs, intensifiers (状词), adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, and interjections.^[17]

Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Bunu exhibit a three-way distinction in both person and number, yielding nine contrasting terms:^[18]

Personal pronouns in Qibainong Dongnu

	Singular	Dual	Plural
First Person	tɕuŋ43	a33	pe33
Second Person	kau13	me33	me13
Third Person	ni232	mo33	mo13

Bunu also has pronouns for 'oneself' and 'everyone', as well as a set of interrogative expressions:^[19]

Interrogative expressions in Qibainong Dongnu

Pronoun	Meaning
po33si54	'what'
ɦau221tau221	'how'
po43tau221	'who, which'
ɦa232tau221	'where'
pan33tau221	'when'

Demonstratives

According to Meng (2001), demonstratives fall within the word class of pronouns. Five demonstratives are attested in Qibainong: nɔŋ^43/54 'this (visible)', kau^13/35 'that (medial, visible)', uŋ^33/55 'that (distal, visible)', no⁴³ 'that (unknown)', and i⁴³ 'that (known, not visible)'.^[20]

Numerals

Cardinal numerals include the following:^[21]

Cardinal numerals in Qibainong Dongnu

Numeral	Meaning	Note
len13	'zero'
tɕau221	'one'	used only in combination with classifiers
i55	'one'	general use
au33	'two'
pe33	'three'
tɬa33	'four'
pjo33	'five'
ʈu41	'six'
sɔŋ221	'seven'
ʑo21	'eight'
tɕu13	'nine'
tɕu21	'ten'
pai41	'hundred'
sen33	'thousand'
van221	'ten thousand'