Pingtang Miao language

Pingtang Miao, named after Pingtang County (平塘 Píngtáng) in which it is spoken, is a group of Miao language varieties of China.

Classification

The four varieties of Pingtang were listed as unclassified branches of Chuanqiandian Miao (Western Hmongic) in Wang (1983). Li (2000) classified them together as one of eight branches of Western Hmongic, a position maintained in Wu and Yang (2010).

Varieties

According to Li, there are four varieties of Pingtang (2000):

• North (Strecker's Pingtang Miao), 11,000 speakers
• East (Strecker's Dushan Miao), 4,000 speakers
• South (Strecker's Luodian Pingyan Miao), 6,000 speakers
• West (Strecker's Wangmo–Luodian Miao Mhang), 3,000 speakers

These are at approximately the distance of the varieties of the other branches of West Hmongic, which Ethnologue assigned separate ISO codes.

Demographics

Below is a list of Miao dialects and their respective speaker populations and distributions from Li (2018), along with representative datapoints from Wang (1985).

References