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Linguists have split Chinese into somewhere between seven and ten main language groups—the largest being Mandarin (also known as Northern), Wu, Min, and Yue—and each group also has a number of sub-dialects.
Feb 12, 2019 · By Jun Shan. Updated on February 12, 2019. There are many Chinese dialects in China, so many that it is hard to guess how many dialects actually exist. In general, dialects can be roughly classified into one of the seven large groups: Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang, and Yue ( Cantonese ).
Apr 12, 2024 · Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars. More people speak a variety of Chinese as a native language than any other language in the world, and Modern Standard Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations .
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 .
Jan 30, 2014 · The classification widely adopted divides Chinese into seven regional groups: Mandarin (northern half of China and the southwest), Wu (Jiangsu and Zhejiang, e.g., Shanghai and Suzhou dialects), Gan (Jiangxi and surrounding areas), Xiang (Hunan), Min (mainly Fujian, Hainan and Taiwan), Yue (mainly Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, e.g., Cantonese), ...
With 56 ethnic groups, there are over 100 languages used in China, and there are countless local dialects. Mandarin. On October 31st, 2000, the Law of Universal Language and Character of the People's Republic of China came into force, which stipulates Mandarin as China's universal national language.
The Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects ( Chinese: 汉语方言地图集; pinyin: Hànyǔ Fāngyán Dìtú Jí ), edited by Cao Zhiyun and published in 2008 in three volumes, is a dialect atlas documenting the geography of varieties of Chinese.
