The Yunnan Nationalities Recognition Study

The identification of ethnic groups in Yunnan has led to the understanding of different ethnic minorities, and solution of historical ethnic issues, and the realization of equality of legal status among ethnic groups, which in its turn has played an important role in maintaining border social stability and ethnic unity.Identification of ethnic groups in Yunnan is a milestone in the history of China's ethnic work, and an important academic event in the establishment of ethnography. Based on the former researches, this paper, through literature review and field research, systematically describes the25ethnic groups in accordance with their language families. The whole paper consists of eight parts, addressing the issues from the following perspectives:First is the identification and classification of ethnic groups throughout the historical periods in China. Since Sima Qian first created the genre of ethnography, there has been a special part devoted to minority ethnic groups in the Twenty-Four Dynasties Record. Due to different scopes of ethnographies, there are detailed or summary descriptions or classifications. Thanks to the discriminations from rulers and ethnographers of the dynasties, they have failed to objectively identify or classify the complicated ethnic groups in Yunnan; instead the information is veiled in subjective discriminations. When the People's Republic of China was first established, the central government sent delegates to the ethnic areas in Yunnan and established working teams to identify ethnic groups. On the basis of investigations, the discriminative or depreciative appellations, place names, inscriptions and steles have been removed, and a total of21ethnic groups have been identified in Yunnan. The second is the identification of the Yi ethnic subbranch of the Tibetan-Burmese branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. The ethnic groups belonging to this sub-branch include Yi, Naxi, Hani, Lisu, Lahu, Dulong, Nu, and Jinuo. These ethnic groups are closely associated with each other due to historical reasons and due to proximity of their living areas and customs. They share similarities in ethnic characteristics. In identification process, the origins of these ethnic groups have been traced before their ethnicity and group name are determined. The depreciative names of the Yi people, such as Luoluo, Pula have been all revoked in an effort to enhance the sense of ethnic equality and ethnic identification.The third is the identification of people in the other language branches of Sino-Tibetan language family. Besides the Yi language sub-branch, people in the Tibetan-Burmese branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family include still the Tibetan, Jingpo, Burmese-speaking Achang and the Bai people, whose linguistic situation is complex. These ethnic groups are linguistically close to the Yi, sharing a certain number of paronyms, which are basic vocabulary consisting mainly of monosyllables and compound words made of monosyllables. In terms of the ethnic origin, the folklores are very similar, indicating very close linguistic and ethnic kindred.The fourth is the identification of Zhuang-Dong language branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. Those people of Zhuang-Dong language branch that are scattered in Yunnan are Dai, Zhuang, Buyi, Shui, Gelao, all of whom are the descendants of Baiyue people. Baiyue branched into different ethnic groups, who live in the same area, sharing the same economic and cultural life as well as similar grammatical structures and paronyms. In the identification process of ethnic groups, Buyi and Shui and Gelao had been classified into Zhuang until1983, when they were identified as individual ethnic minority groups. Gelao population was only700then, therefore Gelao was not included into the25ethnic minorities in Yunnan. The fifth is the identification of Miao-Yao language branch belonging to. Sino-Tibetan language family. People of Miao and Yao language branch living in Yunnan include Miao and Yao ethnic groups, which in history are of the same origin. Under the special geographical conditions of Yunnan, they are widely scattered, with multiple branches and names and customs, varying from each other in language, customs, costumes and social development degree. Despite the objective representations of different subgroups, their sense of self-identification is the essential characteristic.The sixth is the identification of Cambodian language branch in the South Asian Language family. The subgroups of the Cambodian people that inhabit in Yunnan include only Wa, De'ang, and Bulang, which originated from the ancient Baipu people, which were native to Yunnan. Although the Wa, De'ang, and Bulang languages belong to Cambodian family, assuming general characteristics of South Asian language, they are different from and independent of each other. During the identification process, the wishes of the ethnic groups in terms of its name were respected. For example, Benglong has been replaced with De'ang; and the depreciative "Ka" meaning slaves has been taken from the name Kawa, so that the ethnic group has been named officially Wa.The seventh is the identification of other ethnic groups. There does not exist the issue of identifying Han group in Yunnan though, there are special cases, such as the Sugarcane Plantation people which migrated from Guangxi into Funing of Yunnan, an example of integration of Han into the ethnic minority groups. The Manchu, Mongolian and Hui groups that came into Yunnan due to war and political reasons have been exposed to influences from minority groups, but they are at the same time assimilated into and independent of other ethnic groups, forming an indispensable part of the Chinese Nation.