Lahu people

The Lahu (also called Ladhulsi or Kawzhawd ;拉祜族Chinese, Pinyin Lāhùzú ) are one of the 55 officially recognized minorities of the People's Republic of China. Many also live in Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam and speak the language Lahu named after them. According to the last census in 2010, they include 485 966 ​​people. The Chinese Lahu live mainly in Yunnan, some migrated to Vietnam, where they are counted among the hill tribes.

Society and Culture

For personal use, they rely primarily on upland rice, next to opium as a sales product. To their traditional beliefs include a large number of ghosts, for which they must organize Geisteraustreibungsrituale. Their successful implementation is checked by means of an egg oracle.

Language and writing

The language of the Lahu language belongs to the Yi, originally from Tibet. The language group is according to the origin, a Tibeto - Burmese group, which in turn belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are three different dialects which are spoken among others by the Lahu who live as minorities in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Since these three dialects of the Lahu language differ in their pronunciation strong understanding of the Lahu one another is often difficult. The Lahu have maintained for a long time with the tribes of the Han and the Dai trade relations and thus still speak many Lahu language of the Dai and Chinese.

The font of the Lahu based on the Latin alphabet. The Lahu learned this alphabet by Christian missionaries who were in China even before the start of the Second World War. In 1957, then a uniform script was introduced for all Lahu, which is written to this day. The font has a slight resemblance to the characters used in Korea, but the number of vowels and consonants is significantly different.

Since the Lahu still live in mountain villages at an altitude of over 1000 meters, many other mountain villages, especially in China, the language and to some extent the writing of the Lahu have taken over.