Tangut people
The Tangut people (Tangut: , "mjɨ nja̱" or , "mji dzjwo"; Chinese: 党項, dǎngxiàng) were a Tibeto-Burman tribal union that inhabited Western Xia. The group lived under Tuyuhun authority and moved to Northwest China sometime before the 10th century to found the Western Xia or Tangut Empire (1038–1227). They spoke the Tangut language, which was previously believed to be one of the Qiangic languages or Yi languages that belong to the Tibeto-Burman family. Recent phylogenetic and historical linguistic accounts, however, reveal that Tangut belonged to the Gyalrongic languages.