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Varieties of Chinese

There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties[b] forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and 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.

For the varieties of Han Chinese people, see Han Chinese subgroups.

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 have phonemic tones, with northern varieties tending to have fewer distinctions than southern ones. Many have tone sandhi, with the most complex patterns in the coastal area from Zhejiang to eastern Guangdong.


Standard Chinese takes its phonology from the Beijing dialect, with vocabulary from the Mandarin group and grammar based on literature in the modern written vernacular. It is one of the official languages of China and one of the four official languages of Singapore. It has become a pluricentric language, with differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between the three forms. It is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Most non-Min varieties have a /f/, which developed from Middle Chinese bilabial stops in certain environments.[94]

labiodental fricative

The voiced initials of Middle Chinese are retained in Wu dialects such as Suzhou and , as well as Old Xiang dialects and a few Gan dialects, but have merged with voiceless initials elsewhere.[95][96] Southern Min varieties have an unrelated series of voiced initials resulting from devoicing of nasal initials in syllables without nasal finals.[97]

Shanghai

The Middle Chinese initials are retained in many Mandarin dialects, including Beijing but not southwestern and southeastern Mandarin varieties.[98]

retroflex

In many northern and central varieties there is of dental affricates, velars (as in Suzhou), or both. In many places, including Beijing, palatalized dental affricates and palatalized velars have merged to form a new palatal series.[99]

palatalization

Adverbs generally precede verbs, but in some southern varieties certain kinds of adverb follow the verb.

[143]

In the north, animal gender markers are prefixed to the noun, as in Beijing mǔjī (母鸡/) 'hen' and gōngjī (公鸡/公雞) 'rooster', but most southern varieties use the reverse order, while others use different orders for different words.[144]

母雞

Compounds consisting of an attributive following a noun are less common, but some are found in the south as well as a few northern areas.

[145]

Languages of China

List of varieties of Chinese

Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects

Protection of the Varieties of Chinese

DOC (Dialects of China or Dictionary on Computer) files

doi

Institute of Linguistics, (1981), Fāngyán diàochá zìbiǎo 方言调查字表 [Dialect survey character table] (PDF) (revised ed.), Beijing: Commercial Press.

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

– linguistic maps and commentaries from Iwata, Ray, ed. (2009), Interpretive maps of Chinese dialects, Tokyo: Hakuteisha Press.

Chinese Dialect Geography

by Dylan W.H. Sung (Phonology and Official Romanization Schemes)

Technical Notes on the Chinese Language Dialects