Habei language

Habei is spoken in only one village, namely Habei village 哈备村,^[3] Zhemi Township 者米乡, Jinping Miao, Yao, and Dai Autonomous County, Yunnan (Jinping County Ethnic Gazetteer 2013:89, 101).^[4] The Habei people refer to their village as Kuang An (况安), meaning 'old village' (< kuang 'village' + an 'old').^[5]

The Habei still preserve traditional animist rituals.^[1]

The Habei language has been documented by Yan (1995) and He & Liu (2011).

Autonyms and exonyms for the Habei are as follows (Yan 1995:60).

• autonym: ma³³nɛ³³ (蛮尼)
• Yao exonym: ta⁵⁵ka³³ (单嘎)
• Lahu exonym: xa⁴²pe⁵⁵ (哈背)
• Miao exonym: xa³³pe⁵³ (哈备)
• Zhuang exonym: je³³u⁵⁵ (牙乌)
• Hani exonym: xa³³pi⁵⁵, xa³³bø⁵⁵ (哈备)

Habei has 32 onsets and 62 rimes (Yan 1995:67). The consonant inventory is similar to that of standard Hani of Lüchun County, but also has /f/ and /v/, which Lüchun Hani does not have. Final consonants are -p, -t, -k, -m, -n, and -ŋ.

There are 6 tones. In songs, only 4 tones are recognizable (Yan 1995:67).