The Dialects of Chinese

---

What are usually called the "dialects" of Chinese are really separate languages, all descended from the Chinese of the T'ang Dynasty. They are all about as far apart from each other now as English and Dutch. However, they are all written with the same characters (with some exceptions), which means that an educated person can understand (mostly) their written forms, and for cultural and political reasons, as well as their historical origin, are regarded by the Chinese as part of the same language.

The picture of the languages has changed somewhat over the years. Older sources (e.g. John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language, Fact and Fantasy, Hawaii, 1984; S. Robert Ramsey, The Languages of China, Princeton, 1987; and Nathan Sivin, editor, The Contemporary Atlas of China, Houghton Mifflin, 1988) say that there are seven different languages, or six, since sometimes Gan is linked with Hakka, or with Xiang. More recently, Lynn Pan, in The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas [Harvard, 1999], lists ten languages, where Jin is separated from Mandarin, Hui from Wu, and Pinghua from Yue. Now, however, in The Sino-Tibetan Languages (edited by Graham Thurgood and Randy J. LaPolla [Routledge Language Family Series, Routledge, London, 2003]), Jerry Norman ("The Chinese Dialects: Phonology") states, "If one takes mutual intelligibility as the criterion for defining the difference between dialect and language, then one would have to recognize not eight [or seven, etc.] but hundreds of 'languages' in China" [p.72]. This appears to resolve the issue. What previously were regarded as separate languages, like Cantonese, are in fact families of languages. It is therefore not surprising that the "splitters" (those who like to divide groups, as opposed to "lumpers," who like to combine groups -- a typological difference) should begin to divide the old languages into new ones. If there are really "hundreds" of languages involved, however, further splitting becomes pointless.

Within each of the groups of languages, there are also true dialects, which means that they are mutually intelligible. In Pan's book and The Sino-Tibetan Languages many dialects are shown for all the language groups. The confusion over all this -- couldn't everyone tell what forms of speech are mutually intelligible? -- was certainly due to the difficulties of doing research in China in the 20th century. From revolution, to war, to revolution, to totalitarianism, China until recently was not the best place for graduate students wandering around with tape recorders asking strange questions. Such behavior would often have evoked suspicion, arrest, or worse.

The table gives a classification of languages and dialects based on a combination of older sources and The Sino-Tibetan Languages. The 10 languages identified on the map from Pan's The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Overseas are given in boldface; but the overall organization is in terms of the three groups and six "dialect familes" of The Sino-Tibetan Languages [p.6]. While Gan and Xiang and now definitely separated, Hakka has come to be included under Gan -- though this is not consistently seen in the book. Some population figures are given for the older seven language classification. These are given as percentages of the total Chinese speaking population, as a number in millions (M), and, from another source, as a number in thousands (k). These count those for whom the languages are their first languages. The figure of 952,000,000 speakers for Mandarin given elsewhere is for people who speak Mandarin at all. This is considerably larger than the 715 million number below, not just because the population has grown in the last twenty years, but also because Mandarin in the national language of China, taught in schools around the country. Areas where the languages are spoken are given after the language name(s). Names of cities and provinces in Pinyin are given in italics.

• Northern
  • Mandarin, North, Southwest, 71.5%, 715 M, 679,250 k
    • Northern
      • Northern, Peking [Beijing]
      • Jin, Shanxi
      • Northwestern, Kansu [Gansu]
    • Southern, Nanking [Nanjing]
    • Southwestern, Szechwan [Sichuan]
• Central
  • Wú, Shanghai, Zhejiang, 8.5%, 85 M, 80,750 k
    • Wú (I), Suzhou, Shanghai
    • Wú (II), Wenzhou, Chekiang [Zhejiang]
    • Hui, Anhui
  • Gàn, Kiangsi [Jiangxi], 2.4%, 24 M, 22,800 k
    • Hakka, Guandong, Jiangxi, scattered, 3.7%, 37 M, 35,150 k
  • Xiang, Hunan, 4.8%, 48 M, 45,600 k
    • Old Xiang, countryside
    • New Xiang, NW Hunan, cities
• Southern
  • Min³, Fukien [Fujian], 4.1%, 41 M, 38,950 k
    • Northern Min³, Foochow [Fuzhou], 1.3%, 13 M
    • Southern Min³, Amoy-Swatow, 2.8%, 28 M
  • Yuè, Cantonese, Guandong, Guangxi, 5.0%, 50 M, 47,500 k
    • Pingua, Guangxi

Dialect Family	Initials	Finals	Tones	Syllables
Mandarin	16	39	4	2496
Gan	19	59	6	6726
Hakka	17	69	6	7038
Xiang	23	37	6	5106
Min	15	57	7	5985
Wu/Shanghai	27	50	7	9450
Yue/Cantonese	20	53	9	9540

It is noteworthy that the extension of Mandarin into the Southwest was in part the result of veterans being settled there after the Mongols were ejected from China and the Ming Dynasty founded.

The table is a comparison of dialect families from The Sino-Tibetan Languages [p.127]. The statistics, of course, are from representative languages in each group. I have rearranged the list to move the apparently more conservative languages towards the bottom of the table, though, of course, not all the indications are consistent. With the largest number of tones and of syllables, Cantonese wins as the most conservative, but then Xiang and Shanghai both have more initials than Cantonese -- and Hakka has an anomalously large number of finals and syllables. Mandarin has clearly undergone the greatest phonetic simplification.