Tags: Language.
The Bunu (Punu) are the Yao people who speak Hmongic languages. That is Bunu in the broad sense is a cultural rather than linguistic group. Strecker (1987) had classified Bunu proper (Bu-Nao) as a Western (Chuanqiandian) Hmongic language and the other Bunu (or Punuic) languages—Younuo Wunai (Hm Nai) and Jiongnai (Kiong Nai)—as distinct branches of Hmongic. Matisoff (2001) grouped all of these together in a Bunu branch of Hmongic (that is outside Western Hmongic).