56 Groups
Zhuang (壮族)
Geography and Language of Zhuang (壮族)
The largest minority group in China, the Zhuang ethnic group has a population almost equalling that of Australia. Most live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with others in Hunan, Guangdong, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. Their language belongs to the Chinese-Tibetan family; the Zhuang script, characters which appeared in the Southern Song dynasty, were never popularised, so the Han script was used until 1955, when a new written system was created, based on the Latin alphabet.
Yugur (裕固族)
Geography and Language of Yugur (裕固族)
Most Yugur people live in the Sunan Yugur Autonomous County; the remaining ten per cent are in western Gansu province. They have three languages: Raohul, a Turkic language; Engle, a Mongolian language (both Altaic); and Chinese. They speak different languages depending on where they live. The Yugur people communicate using Chinese.
Yi (彝族)
Geography and Language of Yi (彝族)
Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and the Guangxi Autonomous Region are home to the Yi ethnic minority group. Over a million live in Sichuan and the same number in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, China’s largest Yi community.
Their language belongs to the Tibetan-Burmese family and has six dialects. Many Yi people speak Mandarin and they formerly had a syllabic written script, created in the thirteenth century. Old Yi had an estimated 10,000 words and a thousand are still in use. Many works of literature, history and medicine as well as stone steles with carved script remain in the Yi script. It was reformed after 1949 for newspaper and book use.