Hmong is a language spoken by over four million ethnic Hmong in northern Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and parts of China. The Hmong people are an ethnic group native to southern China who settled in parts of Laos, northern Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma. The Hmong-Mien language family includes various Hmong languages and Yao languages. Hmong is a dialect continuum with two major dialects in the US, Green Mong and White Hmong. Hmong follows a subject-verb-object sentence structure and has no gender differences in personal pronouns. It is a stable language with language classes taught in most urban centers with large Hmong populations.
Hmong is a language that is part of the Hmong-Mien language family. It is spoken by more than four million ethnic Hmong living mainly in northern Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Burma (Myanmar), and parts of China.
The Hmong people are an ethnic group native to southern China. From the 18th century onwards they moved south and settled in parts of Laos, northern Thailand, Vietnam and Burma. Large numbers of Hmong refugees have made their way to the United States, Canada and other Western nations since the 1918s, after being singled out by the communist government of Laos for their role in the fight against the Pathet Lao.
The Hmong-Mien language family contains not only the various Hmong languages, but also the Yao languages of Iu Mien, Ba Pai and Kim Mun. The term Mien is somewhat controversial when discussing the wider community, as it is considered a pejorative term by most non-Chinese Hmong peoples. The term Hmong is preferred as a general category, with various sub-groups referred to by their Hmong names.
As a language, it is really more of a dialect continuum, similar to other Asian language groups. Some of these dialects are mutually intelligible, but generally as one moves further and further away from the region of a specific dialect, the chances of the new dialect being understood decreases.
There are two major Hmong dialects of emigrants who settled in the United States: Green Mong (also known as Mong Njua) and White Hmong (also known as Hmong Daw). The dialects are mutually intelligible, but have differences in pronunciation and vocabularies. Both Hmong Daw and Mong Njua are mainly spoken in China and Laos. Other important dialects include: Hmong Dong, Hmong Shua and Hmong Do from Vietnam, and Hmong Eastern Huishui, Hmong Chonganjiang, Hmong Central Huishui and Hmong Central Mashan from China.
Like English, Hmong follows a subject-verb-object sentence structure. Unlike in English, however, word order can be shifted without changing case. It contains no gender differences in personal pronouns like he/she, and the subjective and objective cases are the same, without differences like me/me in English. Hmong also does not include markers at the end of words to show tense, like English -ed, instead relying on context and auxiliary words to show what the sentence looks like. Furthermore, agreement between the parts of a sentence is not required in the way that English requires, for example, subject-object agreement in a sentence such as She is tired.
Hmong is a fairly stable language, with a strong community structure in both homelands and immigrant populations. Although many speakers who move to countries such as the United States learn English, it is often spoken at home and language classes are taught in most urban centers with large Hmong populations. As a result, the language has little or no risk of dying out, and it is relatively easy for an outsider to learn it, as there are a large number of resources to help with instruction.
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