The Hmong people are a minority ethnic group in several countries, believed by some researchers to be from the Yellow Basin area in China. The Hmong are known in China as the Miao, a designation that embraces several different ethnic groups. There is debate about usage of this term, especially amongst Hmong living in the West, as it is believed by some to be derogatory, although Hmong living in China still call themselves by this name. Chinese scholars have recorded contact with the Miao as early as the 3rd Century BCE, and wrote of them that they were a proud and independent people. However, after the Han Chinese attempted to impose several new taxation systems and continued expansion of their empire, the Hmong are reported to have rebelled. Many wars were fought, and eventually many Hmong were pushed from China into Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The history of the Hmong people is difficult to trace; they have an oral tradition, but there are no written records except where other people have encountered them. Hmong history has been passed down through legends and ritual ceremonies from one generation to another.
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Hmong people have their own terms for their subcultural divisions, "White Hmong" (Hmong Der) and "Green" or "Blue Mong" (Mong Leng) being the terms for two of the largest groups. In the Romanized Popular Alphabet, developed in the 1950s in Laos, these terms are written Hmoob Dawb (White Hmong) and Moob Leeg (Green Mong). The doubled vowels indicate nasalization, and the final consonants indicate with which of the eight lexical tones the word is pronounced. White Hmong and Green Mong people speak mutually intelligible dialects of the Hmong language with some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. One of the most obvious differences is the use of the aspirated /m/ in White Hmong (indicated by the letter "h") not found in the Green Mong dialect. Other groups of Hmong/Mong people include the Black Hmong (Hmoob Dub),
When Western authors came in contact with Hmong and Mong people, beginning in the eighteenth-century, they referred to them in writing by ethnonyms assigned by the Chinese (i.e. Miao, or variants). This practice continued into the twentieth century. Even ethnographers studying the Hmong/Mong people in Southeast Asia often referred to them as Meo, a corruption of Miao applied by Thai and Lao people to the Hmong/Mong. Although "Meo" was an official term, it was often used as an insult against Hmong/Mong people and it is considered to be highly derogatory. In the middle of the twentieth century, a concerted effort was made to refer to Hmong/Mong by their own ethnonyms in scholarly literature. By the 1970s, it became standard to refer to the entire ethnic group as "Hmong." This was reinforced during the influx of Hmong/Mong
Some non-Chinese Hmong advocate that the term Hmong or Mong be used not only for designating their dialect group, but also for the other Miao groups living in China. They generally claim that the word "Miao" is a derogatory term, with connotations of barbarism, that probably should not be used at all. The term was later adapted by Tai-speaking groups in Southeast Asia where it took on especially insulting associations for Hmong people despite its official status. In modern China, the term "Miao" does not carry these negative associations and people of the various sub-groups that constitute this officially recognized nationality freely identify themselves as Miao or Chinese, typically reserving more specific ethnonyms for intra-ethnic communication.
Hmong (RPA: Hmoob) or Mong (RPA: Moob) is the common name for a group of dialects of the West Hmongic (Chuanqiandian) branch of the Hmong-Mien/Miao-Yao language family spoken by the Hmong people of Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, northern Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos. The total number of speakers worldwide has been estimated to be more than 4 million, including over 200,000 Hmong Americans. Some dialects are mutually intelligible while others are so distinct as to be considered separate languages.
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Hmong
