Language Policy and Language Maintenance: Yi in China 1

China is a multiethnic country with 55 national minorities and the Han Chinese majority; the minorities are about nine per cent of the total population. China’s nationalities policy follows that of the former Soviet Union: small tribes and groups are amalgamated into larger nationalities. This process took place during the early 1950s, with one addition in the late 1970s. There is an ongoing process of amalgamating small ‘unclassified’ minority groups into existing nationalities.