or Miao-Yao languages
Language family of southern China, northern Vietnam, Laos, and northern Thailand, with more than nine million speakers.
Hmong (Miao, Meo) has been divided into three dialect groups, Western, Central, and Northern. Beginning in the 18th century, groups of Western dialect speakers immigrated into northern Indochina. In the aftermath of the Indochina wars that ended in 1975, many Hmong fled from Laos to Thailand. Some were eventually resettled in the U.S., which now has perhaps 150,000 Western dialect speakers. Mien (Yao) has three major dialects; the largest of which, also called Mien, accounts for about 85% of Mien speakers. Though these languages are structurally similar to other languages of the area, most notably Chinese , no genetic relationship between Hmong-Mien and any other language family has been demonstrated.