Buyi (Jichang) audio word list

On April 6, 2013, I interviewed He Weifu (born October 1939 in Dawan village 大湾村), a Buyi speaker who was born in and has lived all his life in Dawan, Jichang Township 鸡场苗族彝族布依族乡, Zhijin County, Guizhou, China. He says that ethnic Buyi clothing is now rarely worn in Dawan, and that the younger generations speak Buyi with Chinese accents or not at all. However, the older generations are completely fluent in Buyi, and He was proud of the fact that Dawan is one of the few villages in the township where Buyi is still widely spoken, at least by the elderly generation. The Buyi of Dawan had been officially classified as Shui until the 1980’s, when they were reclassified as Buyi. The neighboring villages just downhill still say that the residents of Dawan are ethnic “Shui” (水族), although the Dawan residents now say they are ethnic “Buyi” (布依族).

There were also ethnic White Miao in Wupu 乌普, which some residents in neighboring villages confuse as ethnic “Bai” (白族). No actual ethnic Bai have been found in Jichang Township 鸡场乡.