Zhuang people
The Zhuang (/ˈdʒwæŋ, ˈdʒwɒŋ/;[2] Chinese: 壮族; pinyin: Zhuàngzú; Zhuang: Bouxcuengh [poːu˦˨ ɕeŋ˧]; Sawndip: 佈獞) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. With the Bouyei, Nùng, Tày, and other Northern Tai speakers, they are sometimes known as the Rau or Rao people. Their population, estimated at 18 million people, makes them the largest minority in China.
Etymology[edit]
The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times. Their autonym, "Cuengh" in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the graphic pejorative Zhuàng, 獞 (or tóng, referring to a variety of wild dog).[3] Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radical and a phonetic element. John DeFrancis recorded Zhuàng was previously Tóng, 獞, with "dog radical" 犭 and tóng, 童 phonetic, a slur, but also describes how the People's Republic of China eventually removed it.[4] In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the logograph 獞 was officially replaced with a different graphic pejorative, 僮 (Zhuàng or tóng, meaning "child; boy servant"), with the "human radical" 亻with the same phonetic. Later 僮 was changed to a different character Zhuàng, 壮 (meaning "strong; robust").
Genetics[edit]
Genetic evidence points out Zhuang possesses a very high frequency of Haplogroup O2 with most of them being subclade O2a making it the most dominant marker, one that they share with Austro-Asiatic. The other portion of O2 belongs to subclade O2a1. Zhuangs have prevalent frequencies of O1 which links them with Austronesian, but O1 is at much lower rate compared to O2a and only slightly higher than O2a1. Haplogroup O2 in Taiwan aborigines is almost completely non-existent, but they exhibit very high frequencies of O1. This suggests that in the event that the Austro-Tai hypothesis is correct, Tai-Kadai speakers would have assimilated mostly Austro-Asiatic people into their population after the separation of Tai and Austronesian.[116]