The Maonan language () is a KamâÂÂSui language spoken mainly in China by the Maonan people, specifically in northern Guangxi and southern Guizhou. Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Hechi, northern Guangxi, holds a concentrated number of speakers.
Approximately half of all Maonan people are capable of speaking Maonan. In addition to this, many Maonan also speak Chinese or a Zhuang language. About 1/3 of all people who self-identify as Maonan are concentrated in the southern Guizhou province. They speak a mutually unintelligible dialect commonly called Yanghuang, which is more commonly known as the Then language in Western literature. The Maonan do not have a writing system.
Other than Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County in Guangxi, Maonan is also spoken in the following locations.
Maonan is a tonal language with 8 tones (Lu 2008:90âÂÂ91), featuring an SVO clause construction (Lu 2008:169). (See Proto-Tai language#Tones for an explanation of the tone numbers.) For example:
Maonan displays a head-first modification structure, i.e. the modifier occurring after the word being modified (Lu 2008:170). For example:
Occasionally, a head-final modification structure is also possible with the involvement of a possessive particle (P.P.) ti<sup>5</sup>. For example:
(cf. the more common bo<sup>4</sup> jaÃÂn<sup>1</sup> ndaÃÂu<sup>1</sup>) (Lu 2008:173-174).
The Maonan writing system was established in 2010. It is based on 26 Latin letters to facilitate standard keyboard input. The letters z, j, x, s, h are attached to the end of each syllable as tonal markers, representing tones 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 respectively. The first tone is not written. Syllables ending in -b, -d, -g, -p, -t, -k do not distinguish tone either. The writing system is being used among a limited number of Maonan intellectuals. For example: