The Minjiang dialect (, ; ) is a branch of

Sichuanese Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese may refer to something of, from, or related to the Chinese province and region of Sichuan (Szechwan/Szechuan) (historically and culturally including Chongqing), especially: * Sichuanese people, a subgroup of th ...

, spoken mainly in the Min River (''Mínjiāng'') valley or along the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

in the southern and western parts of the

Sichuan Basin The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributar ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. There is also a

language island A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens, Paul Ker ...

of the Minjiang dialect located in the center of the Sichuan Basin covering several counties, including all of Xichong, Yanting, and Shehong Counties, and part of

Jiange Jiange County () is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of Guangyuan city. The history of Jiange County as a county division goes back around 1700 years. The county has historically been a junction between the nort ...

, Cangxi, Nanbu,

Langzhong Langzhong (formerly known as Paoning) is a county-level city in northeastern Sichuan province, China, located on the middle reaches of the Jialing River. It is administered as part of the prefecture-level city of Nanchong. Langzhong has a total ...

and

Bazhong Bazhong () is a prefecture-level city in north-eastern Sichuan province, China. Its population was 2,712,894 at the 2020 census whom 1,064,766 lived in Bazhou and Enyang urban districts. History Bazhong became a prefecture-level city in 1993. Its ...

. The Minjiang dialect is also referred to as the Nanlu dialect by some scholars. The primary characteristic of the Minjiang dialect is that the

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), li ...

s for checked-tone syllables in

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

have developed into tense vowels to create a phonemic contrast, and in several cities and counties the tense vowels retain a following

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

. It also keeps many characteristics of

Ba-Shu Chinese Ba-Shu Chinese (; Sichuanese Pinyin: Ba¹su²yu³; ), or Old Sichuanese (or Old Szechwanese; ), is an extinct Sinitic language formerly spoken in what is now Sichuan and Chongqing, China. This language is first attested in '' Fangyan'' during ...

phonology and vocabulary. Due to these characteristics, the status of the Minjiang dialect is disputed among linguists, with some classifying it as

Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese language spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the nort ...

, and others setting it apart as a continuation of

, the native language of Sichuan before the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

References

{{Chinese language