| Bunu | |
| Nativename: | Buod Nuox |
| Also Known As: | Pu Nu |
| States: | China |
| Region: | Guangxi and bordering regions |
| Ethnicity: | Yao |
| Speakers: | 359,474 |
| Date: | 2001 |
| Familycolor: | Hmong-Mien |
| Fam2: | Hmongic |
| Fam3: | West Hmongic |
| Fam4: | Bu–Nao |
| Dia1: | Dongnu |
| Dia2: | Nunu |
| Dia3: | Bunuo |
| Script: | Latin |
| Glotto: | buna1273 |
| Glottorefname: | Bunu |
Bunu is a Hmongic language of southern China. Bunu speakers are classified as Yao by the People's Republic of China.
Meng (2001) lists the following language varieties for Bunu.[1]
The Shaoyang Prefecture Gazetteer (1997:533) reports that the Miao of Xinning County, Hunan, speak a Bunu-branch language.
The Yunnan Province Gazetteer (1989) reports that a Bunu dialect known as pronounced as /pu55 ʐa11/ (布咋) is spoken by about 7,000 people in Guichao 归朝乡 and Dongbo 洞波瑶族乡 (including in Dadongzhai 大洞寨, Saxiangdong Village 三湘洞村[3]) townships of Funing County, Yunnan.
The following may be alternative names for speakers of Bunu languages.[4]
| Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | pal. | plain | sib. | lat. | plain | lab. | pal. | ||||||
| Nasal | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| prenasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||
| prenasal asp. | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||||
| prenasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||
| prenasal asp. | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| aspirated | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||||
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| Close-mid | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| Open-mid | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
According to Meng (2001), Bunu has 12 parts of speech, namely, nouns, pronouns, numerals, classifiers, adjectives, verbs, intensifiers (状词), adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliaries, and interjections.
Personal pronouns in Bunu exhibit a three-way distinction in both person and number, yielding nine contrasting terms.
Bunu also has pronouns for 'oneself' and 'everyone', as well as a set of interrogative pronouns.