Since the 21st century, research in the field of ethnic minority linguistics has seen new developments in China. The contents and achieve-ments of this research have mainly been concentrated in the following areas:The first being descriptive research into the eth-nic minority languages, including comprehensive de-scriptive research of some specific ethnic minority languages, especially those newly discovered ethnic minority languages, and descriptive research into a particular aspect of ethnic minority languages, inclu-ding their grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. The second being synchronic comparative studies of ethnic minority languages, including comparative studies between Chinese and ethnic minority langua-ges, and comparative studies between ethnic minority languages. The third being diachronic comparative studies of ethnic minority languages. These include a discussion on the generic issues of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and the reconstruction of the com-mon ancestral words in Sino-Tibetan languages. The fourth being the research into the rescue of endan-gered minority languages. In 2000, China held a seminar on endangered languages for the first time, marking the point when academic circles in China started to realize the urgency of protecting endan-gered languages. The fifth being the research into bi-lingual education in ethnic minorities. Since the ad-vent of the 21st century, research into bilingual edu-cation in ethnic minorities has progressed in leaps and bounds, and a great many papers and scholarly works related to this field have been published. The sixth being the study of the translation of ethnic mi-nority languages. This has become an important field of ethnic minority language research in China. In the new century, research papers on the translation of ethnic minority languages are fewer in number than the actual works of translation, and their main con-tent includes discussions on translation between two specific languages, or the general theory and methods of translation. In summary, the research of ethnic minority languages in China has made great achievements in diverse areas, including descriptive studies, syn-chronic comparative studies, diachronic comparative studies, studies of endangered languages, bilingual education studies, and translation studies; however, there are still many areas which require further focus.