Shao–Jiang or Shaojiang Min () is a

Min Chinese Min (; BUC: ''Mìng-ngṳ̄'') is a broad group of Sinitic languages spoken by about 30 million people in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min speaking colonists on Leizhou peninsula and Hainan, or assimilated natives of Chaoshan ...

language centered on Western

Nanping Nanping (), historically known as Yanping (), is a third-tier prefecture-level city in northwestern Fujian Province, People's Republic of China. It borders Ningde to the east, Sanming to the south, and the provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangxi to th ...

in Northwest

Fujian Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...

, specifically in the Nanping counties of

Guangze () is a county in northwestern Fujian province, People's Republic of China, bordering Jiangxi to the north and west. During the Republican period, Guangze County formed a part of Kiangsi (Jiangxi) which nominally ''de jure'' remains part of that ...

Shaowu Shaowu () is a county-level city in northwestern Fujian province, People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the Wuyi Mountains and bordering Jiangxi province to the west. It has more than 100,000 inhabitants. The local dialect co ...

, and Western

Shunchang Shunchang County (; Northern Min: ) is a county under the administration of Nanping City, in the northwest of Fujian province, People's Republic of China. The county's name was established in 933, during the Tang Dynasty. It has a total populat ...

and the Northern

Sanming Sanming (, Foochow Romanized: Săng-mìng), also known as Minzhong (), is a prefecture-level city in western Fujian province, China. It borders Nanping City to the north, Fuzhou City to the east, Quanzhou City to the southeast, Longyan City to ...

county of Jiangle. Shao-Jiang developed from Northern Min (Min Bei), and was deeply influenced by

Gan Chinese Gan, Gann or Kan is a group of Sinitic languages spoken natively by many people in the Jiangxi province of China, as well as significant populations in surrounding regions such as Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, and Fujian. Gan is a member of the Siniti ...

and

Hakka Chinese Hakka (, , ) forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people throughout Southern China and Taiwan and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities around th ...

. The classification of Shao-Jiang is disputed. It is frequently classified as a dialect of Northern Min, but sometimes it is excluded from Min and classified as Gan Chinese instead. But it is

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

with neither other Northern Min nor other Gan. Actually it is a collection of dialects which have limited mutual intelligibility instead of a language. Some Chinese scholars call it Min-Gan dialects (), Min-Gan transition dialects () or Min-Hakka-Gan transition dialects ().

References

Min Shaojiang dialect classification
at ''Glossika'' {{Chinese language Northern Min Nanping Fujian