Min Nan
Southern Min (), Minnan ( Mandarin pronunciation: ) or Banlam (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Chinese languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian (especially the Minnan region), most of Taiwan (many citizens are descendants of settlers from Fujian), Eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and Southern Zhejiang. Southern Min dialects are also spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Southern Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Southern and Central Vietnam, as well as major cities in the United States, including in San Francisco, in Los Angeles and in New York City. Minnan is the most widely-spoken branch of Min, with approximately 34 million native speakers as of 2025. The most widely spoken Southern Min language is Hokkien, which includes Taiwanese. Other varieties of Southern Min have significant differences from Hokkien, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, in the Late Shang period. Chinese bronze inscriptions, Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including Four Books and Five Classics, classical works such as the ''Analects'', the ''Mencius (book), Mencius'', and the ''Zuo Zhuan''. These works served as models for Literary Chinese (or Classical Chinese), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese. Old Chinese was written with several early forms of Chinese characters, including Oracle bone script, oracle bone, Chinese bronze inscriptions, bronze, and seal scripts. Throughout t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere. Notable diasporic populations include the Jewish Diaspora formed after the Babylonian exile; Assyrian diaspora following the Sayfo, Assyrian genocide; Greeks that fled or were displaced following the fall of Constantinople and the later Greek genocide as well as the Istanbul pogroms; the emigration of Anglo-Saxons (primarily to the Byzantine Empire) after the Norman Conquest, Norman Conquest of England; the Chinese people, southern Chinese and South Asian diaspora, South Asians who left their homelands during the 19th and 20th centuries; the Irish diaspora after the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famine; the Scottish diaspora that developed on a large scale after the Highland Clearances, Highland and Lowland Clearances; Romani ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Overseas Chinese
Overseas Chinese people are Chinese people, people of Chinese origin who reside outside Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan). As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. As of 2023, there were 10.5 million people living outside mainland China who were born in mainland China. Overall, China has a low percent of population List of sovereign states by immigrant and emigrant population, living overseas. Terminology () refers to people of Chinese citizenship residing outside of either the China, PRC or Republic of China, ROC (Taiwan). The government of China realized that the overseas Chinese could be an asset, a source of foreign investment and a bridge to overseas knowledge; thus, it began to recognize the use of the term Huaqiao. Ching-Sue Kuik renders in English as "the Chinese wikt:sojourner, sojourner" and writes that the term is "used to disseminate, reinforce, and perpetuate a monolithic and essentialist Chinese identity" by both t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zhejiang
) , translit_lang1_type2 = , translit_lang1_info2 = ( Hangzhounese) ( Ningbonese) (Wenzhounese) , image_skyline = 玉甑峰全貌 - panoramio.jpg , image_caption = View of the Yandang Mountains , image_map = Zhejiang in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_caption = Location of Zhejiang in China , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = China , named_for = Old name of Qiantang River , seat_type = Capital and largest city , seat = Hangzhou , established_title = Annexation by the Qin dynasty , established_date = 222 BC , established_title2 = Jiangnandong Circuit , established_date2 = 626 , established_title3 = Liangzhe Circuit , established_date3 = 997 , established_title4 = Zhejiang Province formed , established_date4 = 1368 , established_title5 = Republican Period , established_date5 = 1 January 1912 , established_title6 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hainan
Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally means "South of the Sea". The province has a land area of , of which Hainan Island is and the rest is over 200 islands scattered across three archipelagos: Zhongsha Islands, Zhongsha, Xisha Islands, Xisha and Nansha Islands, Nansha. It was part of Guangdong from 1950 to 1988, after which it was made a province of its own and was designated as a special economic zones of China, special economic zone by Deng Xiaoping, as part of the Chinese economic reform program. The Han Han Chinese, Chinese population, who compose a majority of the population at 82%, speak a wide variety of languages including Standard Chinese, Hainanese, Hainam Min, Yue Chinese, Cantonese, Hakka Chinese, etc. Indigenous peoples such as the Hlai people, Hlai, a Kra–Dai l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Guangdong
) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty near modern Wuzhou, whose name is a reference to an order by Emperor Wu of Han to "widely bestow favors and sow trust". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called ''Liangguang, Loeng gwong'' ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t=兩廣, s=两广 , p=liǎng guǎng) During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as ''Guǎngnán Dōnglù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南東路, s=广南东路, l=East Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no) and ''Guǎngnán Xīlù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣南西路, s=广南西路, l=West Circuit (administrative division), Circuit in Southern Guang , labels=no), which became abbreviated as ''Guǎngdōng Lù'' ( zh, first=t, t=廣東路, s=广东路 , labels=no) and ''Guǎngxī Lù ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minnan Region
Minnan, Banlam or Minnan Golden Triangle (), refers to the coastal region in South Fujian Province, China, which includes the prefecture-level cities of Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. The region accounts for 40 percent of the GDP of Fujian Province. It is the native homeland of the Hokkien people who speak the Hokkien language or Minnan language, a variety of Southern Min.http://www.fjfao.gov.cn/english/foreignersinfujian/fujianintheeyesofforeigners/201112/t20111222_625021.htm Other terms used on the Minnan region include the one sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ... G. William Skinner used, which was the term Zhang-Quan () to describe the region in his guide to the physiographic macroregions of China. References Fujian Regions of China ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fujian
Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern 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 capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefecture city by population is Quanzhou, with other notable cities including the port city of Xiamen and Zhangzhou. Fujian is located on the west coast of the Taiwan Strait as the closest province geographically and culturally to Taiwan; as a result of the Chinese Civil War, a small portion of historical Fujian is administered by Taiwan, romanized as Fuchien Province, Republic of China, Fuchien. While the population predominantly identifies as Han Chinese, Han, it is one of China's most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces. The dialects of the language group Min Chinese are most commonly spoken within the province, including the Fuzhou dialect and Eastern Min of Northeastern Fujian province and various Southern Min and Hokkien dial ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Varieties Of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin, Wu Chinese, Wu, Min Chinese, Min, Xiang Chinese, Xiang, Gan Chinese, Gan, Jin Chinese, Jin, Hakka Chinese, Hakka and Yue Chinese, Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese. Chinese varieties have the greatest differences in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). It is designated as the official language of mainland China and a major language in the United Nations, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is largely based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. Hong Kong written Chinese, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the Cantonese reading of characters. Like other Sinitic languages, Standard Chinese is a tonal language with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object (SVO) word order. Compared with southern varieties, the language has fewer vowels, final consonants and tones, but more ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proto-Min
Proto-Min (pMǐn) is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of Chinese languages. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese. Jerry Norman reconstructed the sound system of Proto-Min from popular vocabulary in a range of Min varieties, including new data on varieties from inland Fujian. The system has a six-way manner contrast in stops and affricates, compared with the three-way contrast in Middle Chinese and modern Wu varieties and the two-way contrast in most modern Chinese varieties. A two-way contrast in sonorants is also reconstructed, compared with the single series of Middle Chinese and all modern varieties. Evidence from early lo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |