Na Meo
Audio recordings: Andrew Hsiu. (2017). Na Meo audio word list. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1122620
Na Meo of Tuyen Quang
• Location: Khuân Hẻ, Kim Quan commune, Tuyên Quang province, Việt Nam
• 80 households in the village, all Na Meo
• Autonym: na⁵⁵mjau³⁵ɬa⁵³ = na⁵⁵ ‘human being’; mjau ‘Miao’; ɬa⁵³ ‘black’
• Informant: Sầm Thị Niềm (female; born 1972)
• Date of data collection: January 28, 2014
• WAV audio recordings made of approximately 300 lexical items (available upon request)
Kim Quan commune is highly ethnically diverse and has Flowery Hmong, White Hmong, Nung, Dao, and Black Hmong (“Na Meo”) residents. Flowery Hmong and White are mutually intelligible dialects belonging to the Chuanqiandian subgroup of West Hmongic, while Nùng (also called “Tày Nùng”) is Central Tai, corresponding to “Zhuang” in southern Guangxi and southern Yunnan. The local Dao (Yao), also known as the “Dao Kóc Mùn”, speak a Mienic language.
The Na Meo are known locally by other ethnic groups as the “Mông Đen”, or “Black Hmong”. In Tuyên Quang province, it is spoken only in the single village of Khuân Hẻ, Kim Quan commune, Yên Sơn district, which is nearly 50 kilometers to the east of Tuyên Quang city.
My informant Sầm Thị Niềm, a 41-year-old woman born in Khuân Hẻ, was multilingual in Na Meo, “Tày Nùng” (Central Tai), and Vietnamese.
The locals are aware of the existence of other Na Meo speakers in Cao Minh commune, Lang Son province, and report that Na Meo of Cao Minh is mutually intelligible with Na Meo of Khuân Hẻ. Nguyen (2007) does not mention the village name of Khuân Hẻ; this village was tracked down by me during a visit to Kim Quan commune in January 2014.
The only other Na Meo data that I am aware of are Jerold Edmondson (n.d.), Nguyễn Văn Thắng (2007), and Nguyễn Anh Ngọc (1975). Jerold Edmondson had done some field work on Na Meo in Vietnam, but his work remains unpublished. Nguyen (2007), an ethnography book, includes an appendix of 67 Na Meo words written in a non-IPA orthography.
Interestingly, Dong (Kam), a Kra-Dai language belonging to the Kam-Sui branch, is spoken in Đồng Mộc village in Trung Sơn commune, which is located just to the north of Kim Quan commune. Edmondson & Gregerson (2001) report that Kam is spoken by only several individuals in Đồng Mộc. Small pockets of Sui speakers are also found in Yên Sơn District, Tuyên Quang Province (Edmondson & Gregerson 2001). The Dong, Sui, and Na Meo had all migrated to Yên Sơn from southeastern Guizhou during the 1800’s.
References
Hsiu, Andrew. 2015. The classification of Na Meo, a Hmong-Mien language of Vietnam. Presented at SEALS 25, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Chen, Qiguang [陈其光] (2013). Miao and Yao language [苗瑶语文]. Beijing: China Minzu University Press.
Edmondson, Jerold (n.d.). Na Meo field notes. m.s.
Edmondson, J.A. and Gregerson, K.J. (2001). "Four Languages of the Vietnam-China Borderlands". In Papers from the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, ed. K.L. Adams and T.J. Hudak, Tempe, Arizona, pp. 101-133. Arizona State University, Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
Guangxi Minority Languages Orthography Committee (2008). Vocabularies of Guangxi ethnic languages [广西民族语言方音词汇]. Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House [民族出版社].
Hsiu, Andrew. 2014. Na Meo field notes. m.s.
Li Yunbing [李云兵] (2000). Remaining issues on Miao dialect classification [苗语方言划分遗留问题研究]. Beijing: Minzu University Press.
Nguyễn Anh Ngọc (1975). "Vài nét về nhóm Na Miểu". In, Ủy ban khoa học xã hội Việt Nam: Viện dân tộc học. Về vấn đề xác định thánh phần các dân tộc thiểu số ở miền bắc Việt Nam, 377-388. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản khoa học xã hội.
Nguyễn Văn Thắng (2007). Ambiguity of Identity: The Mieu in North Vietnam. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
Ratliff, Martha (2010). Hmong–Mien-language history. Canberra, Australia: Pacific Linguistics.
Wu Zhengxu [吴正彪] (2009). Qiandong Miao dialect classification revisited [黔东方言苗语土语划分问题的再探讨]. Jishou University Journal, Social Sciences [吉首大学学报社会科学版], no. 30, 117-121. Jishou, Hunan: Jishou University.