Chinese isn’t the only language spoken in China—not by a long shot. In fact, China ranks as the fifth-most linguistically diverse country on the planet, boasting more than 300 languages within its borders. What we know as “Chinese” isn’t even a language but rather a subfamily of related languages, of which Mandarin is the largest member. But the country also hosts hundreds of non-Chinese minority languages, some spoken by several million people. Bouyei is one such example.
Bouyei is spoken as a native language by more than 2.7 million people, so it’s one of the biggest non-Sinitic minority languages in China. Though the language’s six tones may make it sound similar to Chinese to the uninitiated listener, in fact, Bouyei comes from an entirely different language family, bearing no relation to the several Chinese languages spoken throughout China. Rather, Bouyei is related to Thai and Lao, hailing from the Kra–Dai family. It’s also similar to the Zhuang languages, a cluster of related Kra–Dai tongues spoken by more than 16 million people in China. But even though Bouyei stands as one of China’s most important minority languages, it receives hardly any recognition in the international arena—a situation we’d like to help reverse with our Bouyei translation team.
Anyone looking for Bouyei translation services should reach out to us today for a free quote!
Here’s a bit more info on Bouyei.
Bouyei is native to southern China, where several Tai languages are spoken natively—in fact, it’s believed that southern China is the linguistic homeland of the Kra–Dai languages, with the ancestors of the Thai and Lao peoples later migrating southward. The vast majority of Bouyei speakers—an estimated 98%—live in China, specifically the provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan, but the Giay people of Vietnam and the Yang people of Laos also speak Bouyei. Communities of native Bouyei speakers can also be found in France and the United States.
Having evolved in China, Bouyei was historically written in the Sawndip script, a writing system derived from Chinese characters and adapted to fit Bouyei and the Zhuang languages, but today, Bouyei is written in a standardized Latin orthography. In terms of grammar, Bouyei is similar to the Zhuang languages, relying mostly on word order and particles rather than inflectional morphology to express grammatical connections. Don’t let the grammatical simplicity fool you, though—the lack of inflection can, conversely, result in more ambiguity and demand more finesse in translation.
A team you can trust for high-quality Bouyei translations
It’s not that easy to find Bouyei translation services, but we’re not aiming to be just any Bouyei translation team—we want to deliver you the best Bouyei translations we can. That’s why we’ve sourced our Bouyei translators from all across Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Vietnam, Laos, and even the US and France—we want to cover as many Bouyei variants as possible. Our Bouyei translators are not only experienced in translation but are also enthusiastic about their native language, with their passion driving them to strive for new heights of quality in every translation.
There are plenty of reasons you may need Bouyei translation services. Perhaps you’re a native Bouyei speaker running a local business that you’d love to expand to other countries, but for that you need reliable translations of your business and marketing documents form Bouyei to English. Maybe you’re a researcher traveling to southern China to study the Bouyei people and their culture, and you need survey materials in Bouyei to communicate with locals. Perhaps you’re looking to translate historical documents and old stories in Bouyei so the rest of the world can appreciate them—or maybe you want to translate your contemporary creative works into Bouyei to carve out a new audience in China’s ethnolinguistically diverse south. Whatever your reason for pursuing Bouyei translation services, we’d love to help.
To get started with your Bouyei translation project, we need the details of your vision. Contact us today to let us know what you want!