Dialects or Languages?
Chinese language is the language spoken by most people of the world, at least theoretically. There exist many inhabitants of China, especially in the South, that do barely understand the official language that is based upon the dialect of Peking. There are a few numbers of dialects, or we should better call it languages, in China that are related to the official language. These dialects are more archaic than the modern official language and tend to have more tone pitches and closed syllable endings. The most important languages are:
Cantonese Guangdonghua 廣東話 or Yueyu 粵語, spoken in Guangdong (the origin of the city name Canton is actually the province name, the city is called Guangzhou)
Wu 吳, spoken in the Yangtse Delta and Shanghai (hence called Shanghaihua
上海話). Wu is the name of an old feudal state of the Spring and Autumn Period.
Northern Min Minbeihua 閩北話, spoken in northern Fujian province
Southern Min Minnanhua 閩南話, spoken in southern Fujian and Taiwan
Hakka 客家, distributed in many provinces of South China and oversees. "Hakka" means "guest people"; the Hakka language "islands" are enclaves inmidst of territories where mainly Cantonese is spoken
Gan 贛, spoken in Jiangxi
Xiang 湘, spoken in Hunan
Recently some dialects were classified as languages: Dongan (the language of the Muslim Chinese in the West), Jin in Shanxi, Mindong, Minzhong and Puxian in Fujian, and Huizhou in Anhui and Zhejiang.
[Last Modified By Admin, at 2006-01-05 09:07:56]
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