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List Of Chinese Dialects
The following is a list of Sinitic languages and their dialects. For a traditional dialectological overview, see also varieties of Chinese. Classification "Chinese" is a blanket term covering many different varieties spoken across China. Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect, and is used as a lingua franca across China. Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen dialect groups, depending on the classification. The conventionally accepted set of seven dialect groups first appeared in the second edition of the dialectology handbook edited by Yuan Jiahua (1961). In order of decreasing number of speakers, they are: # Mandarin (including Beijing and Nanjing variants) # Wu (including the Shanghainese and Suzhounese variants) # Yue (including the Cantonese and Taishanese variants) # Min (including the Hokkien and Fuzhounese variants) # Hakka (Keji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Map Of Sinitic Languages Full-en
A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on a transitory medium such as a computer screen. Some maps change interactively. Although maps are commonly used to depict geography, geographic elements, they may represent any space, real or fictional. The subject being mapped may be two-dimensional such as Earth's surface, three-dimensional such as Earth's interior, or from an abstract space of any dimension. Maps of geographic territory have a very long tradition and have existed from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the , wherein ''mappa'' meant 'napkin' or 'cloth' and ''mundi'' 'of the world'. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a flat representation of Earth's surface. History Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists thus describe the ''daughter languages'' within a language family as being ''genetically related''. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with different regional dialects of the proto-language undergoing different language changes and thus becoming distinct languages over time. One well-known example of a language family is the Romance languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and many others, all of which are descended from Vulgar Latin.Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.)''Ethnologue: Languages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinghua Chinese
Pinghua is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of Guangxi, with some speakers in Hunan. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Guangxi, spoken as a second language by speakers of Zhuang languages. Some speakers are officially classified as Zhuang, and many are genetically distinct from most other Han Chinese. The northern subgroup is centered on Guilin and the southern subgroup around Nanning. The Southern dialect has several notable features such as having four distinct checked tones, and using various loanwords from the Zhuang languages, such as the final particle '' wei'' for imperative sentences. History Historically, Pinghua is associated with the earliest Han Chinese migrants who entered Guangxi via Hunan in the 1st millennium AD. The name is said to derive from the Pingnan Jun (平南軍, "Pacify the South Army"), a Northern Song-era army led by Di Qing in the 11th century. Classification Language surveys in Guangxi during the 1950s recorded va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Atlas Of China
The ''Language Atlas of China'' ( zh, s=中国语言地图集, t=中國語言地圖集, p=Zhōngguó yǔyán dìtú jí), published by Hong Kong Longman Publishing Company in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and ethnic minority languages of China. The atlas was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published simultaneously in the original Chinese and in English translation. Endymion Wilkinson rated this joint venture "outstanding". A second edition was published by the Commercial Press in 2012. Classification of Chinese varieties The atlas organizes the varieties of Chinese in a hierarchy of groupings, following the work of Li Rong: * supergroups ( ): Mandarin and Min * groups ( ): Jin, Wu, Hui, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Yue, Pinghua and groups within Mandarin and Min * subgroups ( ) * clusters ( ) are only identified for some subgroups * local d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Li Rong (linguist)
Li Rong (4 February 1920 – 31 December 2002) was a Chinese linguist known for his work on Chinese dialectology. He was director of the Institute of Linguistics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 1982 to 1985, and editor of the ''Language Atlas of China'' and the '' Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects''. Li Rong was born in Wenling county, Zhejiang. In 1939 he was admitted to the Southwest Associated University in Kunming, studying Chinese literature. In 1943, he went on to postgraduate study at the Language Institute of Peking University, then based in Kunming. His master's thesis, a study of the system of '' fanqie'' pronunciation guides in the '' Qieyun'', a 7th-century rime dictionary, was published in 1952. In this work, he demonstrated that the mysterious "divisions" of the later rime tables reflected distributional patterns in the ''Qieyun''. Li Rong founded the Chinese dialectology journal ''Fangyan'' in 1979, and served as its editor. He led a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hakka Language
Hakka ( zh, c=, p=Kèjiāhuà; ''Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '', zh, c=, p=Kèjiāyǔ; ''Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: '') forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people in parts of Southern China, Taiwan, some diaspora areas of Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities around the world. Due to its primary usage in isolated regions where communication is limited to the local area, Hakka has developed numerous Variety (linguistics), varieties or dialects, spoken in different provinces, such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guizhou, as well as in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Hakka is not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible with Yue Chinese, Yue, Wu Chinese, Wu, Min Chinese, Min, Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintelligible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan Chinese, Gan and is sometimes classified as a variety of Gan, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuzhounese
The Fuzhou language ( zh, t=福州話, s=福州话, p=Fúzhōuhuà; Foochow Romanized, FR: ), also Foochow, Hokchew, Hok-chiu, or Fuzhounese, is the Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the Mindong region of Eastern Fujian, Fujian Province. As it is mutually unintelligible to neighbouring varieties (e.g. Hokkien) in the province, under a technical linguistic definition Fuzhou is a A language is a dialect with an army and navy, language and not a dialect (conferring the variety a 'dialect' status is more socio-politically motivated than linguistic). Thus, while Fuzhou may be commonly referred to as a 'dialect' by laypersons, this is colloquial usage and not recognised in academic linguistics. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes that carry lexical Tone (linguistics), tones, and has a mainly analytic language, analytic syntax. While the Eastern Min branch i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hokkien
Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred to as Quanzhang ( zh, c=泉漳, poj=Choân-chiang, links=no), from the first characters of the urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. Taiwanese Hokkien is one of the national languages in Taiwan. Hokkien is also widely spoken within the overseas Chinese diaspora in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, and elsewhere across the world. Mutual intelligibility between Hokkien dialects varies, but they are still held together by ethnolinguistic identity. In maritime Southeast Asia, Hokkien historically served as the lingua franca amongst overseas Chinese communities of Han Chinese subgroups, all dialects and subgroups, and it remains today as the most spoken Varieties of Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taishanese
Taishanese (), alternatively romanized in Cantonese as Toishanese or Toisanese, in local dialect as Hoisanese or Hoisanwa, is a Yue Chinese language native to Taishan, Guangdong. Even though they are related, Taishanese has little mutual intelligibility with Cantonese. It is not a dialect of Cantonese. Taishanese is also spoken throughout Sze Yup (or Siyi in the pinyin romanization of Standard Mandarin Chinese), located on the western fringe of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong, China. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, most of the Chinese emigration to North America originated from Sze Yup (which includes Taishan). Thus, up to the mid-20th century, Taishanese was the dominant variety of the Chinese language spoken in Chinatowns in Canada and the United States. It was formerly the lingua franca of the overseas Chinese residing in the United States. Names The earliest linguistic studies refer to the dialect of ''Llin-nen'' or ''Xinning'' (). Xinning w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While the term ''Cantonese'' specifically refers to the prestige variety, in linguistics it has often been used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but partially mutually intelligible varieties like Taishanese. Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the ''lingua franca'' of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. It is also the dominant and co-official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Furthermore, Cantonese is widely spoken among overseas Chinese in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzhounese
Suzhounese (Suzhounese: ; ), also known as the Suzhou Language, is the language belonging to the Sinitic Language Family traditionally spoken in the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu, China. Suzhounese is a dialect of Wu Chinese, and was traditionally considered the Wu Chinese prestige dialect. Suzhounese has a large vowel inventory and it is relatively conservative in initials by preserving voiced consonants from Middle Chinese. Distribution Suzhou dialect is spoken within the city itself and the surrounding area, including migrants living in nearby Shanghai. The Suzhou dialect is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken in its satellite cities such as Kunshan, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang, as well as those spoken in its former satellites Wuxi and Shanghai. It is also partially intelligible with dialects spoken in other areas of the Wu cultural sphere such as Hangzhou and Ningbo. However, it is ''not'' mutually intelligible with Cantonese or Standard Chinese; but, as all publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the city of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Shanghainese, like the rest of the Wu language group, is mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese, such as Mandarin. Shanghainese belongs to a separate group of the Taihu Wu subgroup. With nearly 14 million speakers, Shanghainese is also the largest single form of Wu Chinese. Since the late 19th century, it has served as the lingua franca of the entire Yangtze River Delta region, but in recent decades its status has declined relative to Mandarin, which most Shanghainese speakers can also speak. Like other Wu varieties, Shanghainese is rich in vowels and consonants, with around twenty unique vowel qualities, twelve of which are phonemic. Similarly, Shanghainese also has voiced obstruent initials, which is ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
