West Hmongic languages
Items marked ‡ have been split into individual languages (and not kept together) by either Matisoff or Strecker; all of these are branches of Miao listed with subbranches in Chinese sources.The various varieties of Pingtang, new branches of Guiyang and Mashan, and Matisoff's Raojia and Pa Na are not listed in Ethnologue 16 and have no ISO codes.David Mortensen argues for the following classification of Western Hmongic based on shared tonal innovations, including tone sandhi.Martha Ratliff includes three languages specifically:[11] The last contradicts Matisoff (2001), who had posited a Bunu branch of Hmongic with Bu–Nao in it, but recapitulates Strecker (1987).Andy Castro and Gu Chawen divide the Hmong dialects of Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan, into four subdivisions, listed from east to west.[18] Wu and Yang (2010) report attempts at writing Mashan in 1985 and an improvement by them; they recommend that standards should be developed for each of the six other primary varieties of West Hmongic.