She language
The She language (Mandarin: 畲語, "Shēyǔ", Hakka 山客話, "san ha ue", ), autonym Ho Ne, or Ho Nte, is an endangered Hmong–Mien language spoken by the She people. Most of the over 709,000 She people today speak "Shehua" (probably a variety of Hakka Chinese). Those who speak Sheyu—approximately 1,200 individuals in Guangdong Province—call themselves "Ho Ne", "mountain people" (). She is nearly extinct today. Dialects. There are two main dialects of She, both of which are highly endangered. They are spoken in two small pockets to the west and east of Huizhou City, Guangdong. External relationships. She  has been difficult to classify due to the heavy influence of Chinese on the language. Matisoff (2001), for example, left it unclassified within the Hmongic languages, and some have considered that much to be doubtful, leaving it unclassified within (and potentially a third branch of) the Hmong–Mien languages. She has monosyllabic roots, but has mainly compound words. However, due to the similar components of She, Mao & Li (2002) and Ratliff (2010) consider She to be most closely related to Jiongnai. Not to be confused with Shēyǔ (畲语) is "Shēhuà" (, meaning 'She dialect' or 'She speech'), an unclassified Sinitic language  spoken by the She people of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. Shehua and Sheyu speakers have separate histories and identities, although both are officially classified by the Chinese government as She people. The Dongjia of Majiang County, Guizhou are also officially classified as She people, but speak a Western Hmongic language closely related to Chong'anjiang Miao (重安江苗语). Phonology. Consonants. Glottal stop is not distinct from zero (a vowel-initial syllable). There are consonant mutation effects. For instance, "pǐ + kiáu" becomes "pi̋’iáu", and "kóu + tȁi" becomes "kóulȁi". Vowels. The vowels of She are . It has the finals , with only in  Hakka loans, though is never followed by a final, and the only stops which follow the front vowels are . Tones. She has six tones, reduced to two (high and low) in checked syllables (Hakka loans only). There is quite a lot of dialectical variability; two of the reported inventories (not necessarily in corresponding order) are: Vocabulary. Old Chinese loanwords. As with the Southern Chinese languages, She has various loanwords from Old Chinese.