The three branches are as follows,[1] as named by Purnell (in English and Chinese), Ratliff, and scholars in China, as well as the descriptive names based on the patterns and colors of traditional dress: The Hunan Province Gazetteer (1997) gives the following autonyms for various peoples in Hunan classified by the Chinese government as Miao.

Mo Piu, first documented in 2009, was reported by Geneviève Caelen-Haumont (2011) to be a divergent Hmongic language, and was later determined to be a dialect of Guiyang Miao.

Similarly, Ná-Meo is not addressed in the classifications below, but is believed by Nguyen (2007) to be closest to Hmu (Qiandong Miao).

[4] In addition, the 'everything else' would include nine distinct but unclassified branches, which were not addressed by either Matisoff or Ratliff (see West Hmongic#Strecker).

[7] Ratliff (2010) notes that Pa-Hng, Jiongnai, and Xong (North Hmongic) are phonologically conservative, as they retain many Proto-Hmongic features that have been lost in most other daughter languages.

[8][9] Hsiu's (2015, 2018)[10][11] computational phylogenetic study classifies the Hmongic languages as follows, based primarily on lexical data from Chen (2013).

[12] The Hmongic languages have been written with at least a dozen different scripts,[15] none of which has been universally accepted among Hmong people as standard.

Attempts at revival were made by the creation of a script in the Qing Dynasty, but this was also brutally suppressed and no remnant literature has been found.

In the 1950s, pinyin-based Latin alphabets were devised by the Chinese government for three varieties of Miao: Xong, Hmu, and Chuangqiandian (Hmong), as well as a Latin alphabet for A-Hmao to replace the Pollard script (now known as "Old Miao"), though Pollard remains popular.

[19] Wu and Yang (2010) believe that standards should be developed for each of the six other primary varieties of Chuangqiandian as well, although the position of romanization in the scope of Hmong language preservation remains a debate.