Bouyei
/ˈbuː.jeɪ/noun
A member of an ethnic group in southwestern China, especially Guizhou, or the Tai-Kadai language spoken by that group.
Did you know?Bouyei is an English rendering of the Chinese ethnonym 布依, while the people’s own name is commonly written Buxqyaix in their Latin-based orthography.
Etymological Timeline
Ancient period
Proto-Tai
*tai
“A reconstructed ancestral ethnonym associated with Tai-speaking peoples; the exact relationship to Bouyei is linguistic and historical, not a direct translation.”
Pre-modern period
Bouyei
Buxqyaix
“A native Bouyei self-designation, written in the modern Latin-based orthography.”
Pre-modern China
Chinese
布依
“A Chinese transcription of the ethnonym, commonly read in Mandarin as Bùyī.”
20th Century
Chinese
布依族
“The official Chinese designation for the Bouyei ethnic group; 族 means “ethnic group” or “clan.””
20th Century
English
Bouyei
“An English romanization adopted for the people and their language.”