Chinese Language - Varieties of Chinese

Varieties of Chinese

A map below depicts the linguistic subdivisions ("languages" or "dialect groups") within China itself. The traditionally recognized seven main groups, in order of population size are:

Name Abbreviation Pinyin Local Romanization Simp. Trad. Total
Speakers
Mandarin
Notes: includes Standard Chinese
Guan; 官 Guānhuà
Běifānghuà
Pinyin: Guānhuà
Pinyin: Běifānghuà
官话
北方话
官話
北方話
c. 1.365 billion
Wu
Notes: includes Shanghainese
Wu; 吴/吳 Wúyǔ Long-short: Ng Nyiu or Ghu Nyiu 吴语 吳語 c. 90 million
Yue
Notes: includes Cantonese & Taishanese
Yue; 粤/粵 Yuèyǔ Yale: Yuht Yúh
Jyutping: Jyut6 Jyu5
粤语 粵語 c. 70 million
Min
Notes: includes Hokkien, Taiwanese & Teochew
Min; 闽/閩 Mǐnyǔ POJ: Bân Gú;
BUC: Mìng Ngṳ̄
闽语 閩語 c. 50 million
Xiang
also known as Hunanese/Sionglish
Xiang; 湘 Xiāngyǔ Romanization: Shiāen'ỳ 湘语 湘語 c. 36 million
Hakka Kejia; 客家
Ke; 客
Kèjiāhuà
Kèhuà
Hakka Pinyin: Hak-kâ-fa or Hak-kâ-va
Hakka Pinyin: Hak-fa or Hak-va
客家话
客话
客家話
客話
c. 35 million
Gan
also known as Jiangxinese
Gan; 贛 Gànyǔ Romanization: Gon Ua 赣语 贛語 c. 31 million

Disputed classifications by some Chinese linguists:

Name Abbreviation Pinyin Local Romanization Simp. Trad. Total
Speakers
Jin
Notes: from Mandarin
Jin; 晋/晉 Jìnyǔ None 晋语 晉語 45 million
Huizhou
Notes: from Wu
Hui; 徽 Huīhuà
Huīzhōuhuà
None 徽话
徽州话
徽話
徽州話
~3.2 million
Pinghua
Notes: from Yue
Ping; 平 Pínghuà
Guǎngxī Pínghuà
None 平话
广西平话
平話
廣西平話
~5 million

There are groups that are not yet classified, such as: Danzhou dialect (儋州话/儋州話), spoken in Danzhou, on Hainan Island; Xianghua (乡话/鄉話), not to be confused with Xiang (湘), spoken in western Hunan; and Shaozhou Tuhua (韶州土话/韶州土話), spoken in northern Guangdong. The Dungan language, spoken in Central Asia, is very closely related to Mandarin. However, it is politically not generally considered "Chinese" since it is written in Cyrillic and spoken by Dungan people outside China who are not considered ethnic Chinese.

In general, the above language-dialect groups do not have sharp boundaries, though Mandarin is the predominant Sinitic language in the North and the Southwest, and the rest are mostly spoken in Central or Southeastern China. Frequently, as in the case of the Guangdong province, native speakers of major variants overlap. As with many areas that were linguistically diverse for a long time, it is not always clear how the speeches of various parts of China should be classified. The Ethnologue lists a total of 14, but the number varies between seven and 17 depending on the classification scheme followed. For instance, the Min variety is often divided into Northern Min (Minbei, Fuchow) and Southern Min (Minnan, Amoy-Swatow); linguists have not determined whether their mutual intelligibility is small enough to sort them as separate languages.

Generally, mountainous South China displays more linguistic diversity than the flat North China. In parts of South China, a major city's dialect may only be marginally intelligible to close neighbours. For instance, Wuzhou is about 120 miles upstream from Guangzhou, but its dialect is more like that of Guangzhou than is that of Taishan, 60 miles southwest of Guangzhou and separated by several rivers from it (Ramsey, 1987).

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