Geographic distribution of Sinitic language families within the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China

The following is a list of Chinese dialects and languages.

Classification

Linguists classify these languages as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this broad classification, linguistics identify between seven and fourteen subgroups.

Tradition classification

Traditional Chinese classification lists seven groups, comprising:

(shown here with the romanized Standard Mandarin names of the categories, ordered alphabetically).

Modern linguistic classification

James Matisoff's widely accepted^{citation needed} classification is as follows:

Matisoff's list uses the common English names of the groups, ordered by decreasing number of speakers of languages within the group.

Ethnologue

The Ethnologue lists 14 language groups,^[1] namely:

See also Campbell's article on classifying Chinese dialects^[2] and ChinaDC's chart of Sino-Tibetan languages.^[3]

As the above categories illustrate, there are three common approaches to naming categories and languages in English:

• A Romanization of the name in Standard Mandarin (e.g. "Gan" or "Xiang")
• The common English name, where there is one (e.g. "Cantonese" or "Mandarin")
• A Romanization of the name in the principal language of the group (e.g. "Hakka" or "Hokkien")

The classification used here is a combination of the classifications given above.

Distinction between dialects and languages

In addition to the languages and dialects given below, it is customary to speak informally of languages and dialects belonging to each province, e.g. Sichuan dialect, Henan dialect. These designations do not always correspond to classifications used by linguists, but each nevertheless has approximate characteristics of its own.

The question of whether these should be called dialects or languages in their own right is particularly interesting in Chinese. On the one hand, the designation seems to be as much socio-political as linguistic, reflecting Max Weinreich's comment that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy." Purely from a linguistic point of view, many of these idioms seem to meet the criteria of a language. On the other hand, to a large degree the various Chinese idioms share a common written language and literature, lending weight to calling them "dialects". Because the written language is grammatically closest to Standard Mandarin, many Chinese speakers view Standard Mandarin as "the Chinese language", and everything else as dialects.

List of dialects and languages

Gan - 赣语/贛語

Main article: Gan Chinese

Guan (Mandarin) - 官话/官話

The eight main dialect areas of Mandarin in Mainland China.

Main article: Mandarin Chinese

Hui - 徽語

Main article: Huizhou Chinese

Sometimes subcategory of Wu.

Jin - 晋语/晉語

Main article: Jin Chinese

Sometimes subcategory of Mandarin.

Kejia (Hakka) - 客家話

Main article: Hakka Chinese

Min - 閩語/闽语

Main article: Min Chinese

Wu - 吴语/吳語

Main article: Wu Chinese

Xiang - 湘语/湘語

Main article: Xiang Chinese

Yue (Cantonese) - 粵語/粤语

Main article: Cantonese

Unclassified

See also

• Chinese language
• Chinese spoken language
• Chinese written language
• Dialects of Mandarin
• Dialect (discussion of "dialect" or "language")
• Identification of the varieties of Chinese

References

1. ^ "Ethnologue report for Chinese". Retrieved on 2006-09-04.
2. ^ James Campbell. "Chinese Dialect Classification". Glossika. Retrieved on 2006-08-30. Includes descriptions of the dialects spoken in over 2,500 cities and counties in China. Includes interactive map.
3. ^ "Linguistic chart of Sino-Tibetan Languages". ChineseDC.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-30. In Chinese.
4. ^ Also known as Putonghua (which is also the official name in English) 普通话 in the People's Republic of China, Guoyu (also spelled Kuo-yü) 國語 in the Republic of China, Huayu 华语 in Singapore. The official sanction of Standard Mandarin as an official language has also given rise to the following varieties of Standard Mandarin in areas that did not originally speak any dialect of the Mandarin group:
   • Cantonese Mandarin
   • Singaporean Mandarin
   • Taiwanese Mandarin
5. ^ Includes:
   • Central Taiwanese
   • Northeastern coastal Taiwanese
   • Northern Taiwanese
   • Southern Taiwanese