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Gan Chinese

Gan, Gann[2] 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 Sinitic languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and Hakka is the closest Chinese variety to Gan in terms of phonetics.

"Gan language" redirects here. For the Gan language of Ghana, see Gã language. For the Gan language of Burkina, see Kaansa language.

Gan

China

central and northern Jiangxi, eastern Hunan, eastern Hubei, southern Anhui, northwest Fujian

Gan people

23 million (2021)[1]

Chinese character
Pha̍k-oa-chhi

gan

ganc1239

79-AAA-f

贛語

赣语

Gon ua

Gànyǔ

Gànyǔ

Gon ua

Kàm-ngî

gam yúh

gam3 jyu5

江西話

江西话

Kongsi ua

Jiāngxīhuà

Jiāngxīhuà

Kongsi ua

gōng sāi wá

gong1 sai1 waa2

There are different dialects of Gan; the Nanchang dialect is the prestige dialect.

Gan: the most common name. Also spelled Gann to reflect the falling tone of the name in Mandarin. Scholars in mainland China use Gan or Gan dialect.

Jiāngxīhuà ("Jiangxi language") is commonly used in Chinese, but since the borders of the language do not follow the borders of the province, this name is not geographically exact.

Xi ("right-river language"): an ancient name, now seldom used, arising from the fact that most Gan speakers live south of the , beyond the right-hand bank when traveling downstream.

Yangtze River

Subject–verb–object (typical sequence): The sentence in the typical sequence would be: ngo tsot dok ň. ("I hold you.")

Subject–lat–object–verb: Another sentence of roughly equivalent meaning is ngo lat ň tsot dok, with the slight connotation of "I take you and hold" or "I get to you and hold."

Object–den–subject–verb (the passive voice): Then, ň den ngo tsot dok means the same thing but in the passive voice, with the connotation of "You allow yourself to be held by me" or "You make yourself available for my holding."

In Gan, there are nine principal grammatical aspects or "tenses" – initial (起始), progressive (進行), experimental (嘗試), durative (持續), processive (經歷), continuative (繼續), repeating (重行), perfect (已然), and complete (完成).


The grammar of Gan is similar to southern Chinese varieties. The sequence subject–verb–object is most typical, but subject–object–verb or the passive voice (with the sequence object–subject–verb) is possible with particles. Take a simple sentence for example: "I hold you". The words involved are: ngo ("I" or "me"), tsot dok ("to hold"), ň ("you").

Writing system[edit]

Gan is written with Chinese characters, though it does not have a strong written tradition. There are also some romanization schemes, but none are widely used. When writing, Gan speakers usually use written vernacular Chinese, which is used by all Chinese speakers.[12]

Protection of the Varieties of Chinese

Classification of Gan Dialects

Archived 2018-12-29 at the Wayback Machine

Jiangxi Provincial Gazetteer: dialects 江西省志: 方言志