Junjiahua, Junhua, Junsheng, or "military speech" in English, is any of a number of isolated dialects in

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 ...

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

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 mean ...

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 prefe ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

. Some believe that they are a

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

dialect group that assimilated to local Chinese variants in southern China. Junhua began as a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

in the army, being spoken between soldiers dispatched to various parts of China during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

. It was subsequently spread to areas around the camps where the army settled. It is now an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

. In

, it is still spoken by about 100,000 people. These speakers mainly live in

Sanya Sanya; Chinese postal romanization, also spelled Samah is the southernmost city on Hainan Island, and one of the four prefecture-level cities of Hainan, Hainan Province in Southeast China, South China. According to the Sixth National Populati ...

(in Yacheng 崖城 and other locationsLiu, Chuntao 劉春陶. 2021. ''Hainan Sanya Yacheng Junhua yuanliu yanjiu'' 海南三亞崖城軍話源流研究. Nankai University Press 南開大學出版社.),

Changjiang Li Autonomous County Changjiang Li Autonomous County (formerly known by its Cantonese romanization name Cheongkong) is an autonomous county in Hainan, China. It is one of the six counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 572700, and in 1999 its population was 225,131 pe ...

Danzhou Danzhou ( zh, t=儋州 , p=Dānzhōu) is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of the Chinese island province of Hainan. The administrative seat and urban center of Danzhou is Nada Town. Danzhou was upgraded from a county-level city into a ...

, Dongfang, and

Lingao Língāo County (formerly romanised as Limko or Limkao) is an administrative district in Hainan province, China. It is one of the 4 counties of Hainan. Its postal code is 571800, and in 1999, its population was 399,057 people, who mainly speak t ...

. Some also consider the Dapenghua spoken in

Dapeng Peninsula Dapeng Peninsula or Dapengbandao () is a peninsula in the east of Longgang district, that lies in the easternmost part of Shenzhen in the Guangdong Province in China. To the southwest of the peninsula is Mirs Bay and to the northeast is Daya B ...

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

to be a form of Junjiahua.

References

{{Languages of Taiwan Endangered languages of China Varieties of Chinese Languages of China Languages of Taiwan Military life Languages attested from the 2nd millennium Military history of the Ming dynasty Endangered Sino-Tibetan languages