Abstract: Preservation and inheritance of languages of the minority ethnic groups are an important guarantee for development of language diversity, harmony construction of cultural and ecological environment, and production of sustainable cultural realm. Under the background of diversity, the disappearance of an ethnic language, invariably followed by that of the corresponding culture laden with rich unique characteristics of the people in question, means that the ecological environment of the culture of a country and even that of the whole world is breached, resulting in cultural fracture of mankind and inflicting great loss to cultural diversity. As the common tongue of the Bai people of Heqing County, Yunnan Province, the Heqing Bai is the vehicle of the history of national evolution of the local Bai people that passes down their culture generation after generation. Due to rapid social and economic development and spreading of mandarin Chinese, use of the Bai language is on the decline as the language is increasingly insufficient functionally for daily communication. In front of the possible disappearance of the ethnic languages and cultures, we need to have the attitude to preserve them and assume the responsibility to inherit them.

Key words: cultural diversity, Heqing County, the Bai language, cultural ecology, preservation, inheritance