Language
An estimated 1,240,000 (as of 2003) of the Bai speak the Bai language in all its varieties. The tongue is either a member of the Sinitic branch or the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family or possibly part of an independent branch of this family. The Bai call themselves Baizi, Baini, or Baihuo. They have 60 other names, including the Han term Minjia (for the Bai in Dali). The Bai are the most assimilated ethnic group in China. In the Tang and Song Dynasty, the Bai created the ancient language Bowen. The word-formation is similar to the Japanese language. The language was reformed into Latin characters in 1957 and was revised in 1993.
Read more about this topic: Bai People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“There is ... in every child a painstaking teacher, so skilful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)