Dehong Ethnic Minorities and Customs

Dai
The number of Dai people in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Region accounts for 30 percent of the Dai population in china and the prefecture is a major inhabitancy of Dai people. Dai ethnic group, scattered in the flatlands and valleys, can be divided into Daide and Daile branches. Daide, meaning dais in valley plains, mainly live in ruili city and zhefang town of luxi city. Daile, indicating dais in the mountainous area, are mainly distributed in Luxi city, Lianghe county and Mengmao town of Ruili City. The Dai language belongs to Daina dialect, Zhuang-dai branch, Zhuang-dong group of Chinese-Tibetan language family. They use “Daina writing”.

Jingpo

The number of Jingpo people in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Region, Yunnan province accounts for 95 percent of the Jingpo population in china. They are mainly distributed in subtropical mountainous area. The ethnic group has five branches. Jingpo language belongs to Tibetan-Myanmese family of the Chinese-Tibetan language system. From the beginning of the 12th century, they began to use an alphabetic system of writing based on Latin letters. In 1957, new Jingpo writing and Zaiwa writing were created

Achang

The number of Achang people living in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Region accounts for 85 percent of the Achang population in China. They are mainly scattered in Lianghe County, Longchuan County and Luxi City. There are three Achang townships in Dehong Prefecture. Achangs speak a language belonging to the Tibetan-Myanmese language family of the Chinese-Tibetan system. Usually, they can speak Dai and Chinese language either. The ethnic group has no writings, so they have to write in Chinese or Dai languages.

Lisu

The number of Lisu people living in Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous region accounts for 3.3 percent of the Lisu population in china. They mainly live in Sudian, northwest of Yingjiang county and ate scattered in the prefectures mountainous area. Lisus speak a language belonging to Yi branch, Tibeto-Burman group of Chinese-Tibetan language system. Previously, they used variant of Latin characters, but it was replaced by a new alphabetic script created in 1957.

Deang
The number of De’ang people in Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous region accounts for 75 percent of the De’ang population in china. They are scattered in mountainous areas, especially in Santaishan of Luxi City. After the people’s republic of china was founded in 1949, the Santaishan De’ang Township was subsequently established. The ethnic group has three main branches. De’ang language belongs to Va-Benglong branch, Mon-Khmer language of south Asia language system. Many De’longs are proficient in Dai, Chinese and Jingpo languages.