Yue is a branch of the Sinitic languages primarily spoken in Southern China, particularly in the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi (Liangguang).
Min is a broad group of Sinitic languages with about 70 million native speakers. These languages are spoken in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min-speaking colonists on the Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan and by the assimilated natives of Chaoshan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, the Zhoushan archipelago, Taiwan, and Singapore. The name is derived from the Min River in Fujian, which is also the abbreviated name of Fujian Province. Min varieties are not mutually intelligible with one another nor with any other variety of Chinese.
Southern Min, Minnan or Banlam, is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Chinese languages that form a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Fujian, most of Taiwan, Eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and Southern Zhejiang. Southern Min dialects are also spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Southern Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Southern and Central Vietnam, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City. Minnan is the most widely-spoken branch of Min, with approximately 48 million speakers as of 2017–2018.
Zhongshan is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China. As of the 2020 census, the whole city with 4,418,060 inhabitants is now part of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen conurbation with 65,565,622 inhabitants. The city-core subdistricts used to be called Shiqi or Shekki.
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties, 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, 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.
Eastern Min or Min Dong is a branch of the Min group of the Chinese languages of China. The prestige form and most commonly cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, the speech of the capital of Fujian.
The Sinitic languages, often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is a primary split between the Sinitic languages and the rest of the family. This view is rejected by a number of researchers but has found phylogenetic support among others. The Greater Bai languages, whose classification is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic; otherwise Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a shared historical background, and usage of the term "Sinitic" may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct languages, rather than variants of a single language.
Central Min, or Min Zhong, is a part of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. It is spoken in the valley of the Sha River in Sanming prefecture in the central mountain areas of Fujian, consisting of Yong'an, the urban area of Sanming and Sha County.
Leizhou or LuichewMin is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in Leizhou city, Xuwen County, Mazhang District, most parts of Suixi County and also spoken inside of the linguistically diverse Xiashan District. In the classification of Yuan Jiahua, it was included in the Southern Min group, though it has low intelligibility with other Southern Min varieties. In the classification of Li Rong, used by the Language Atlas of China, it was treated as a separate Min subgroup. Hou Jingyi combined it with Hainanese in a Qiong–Lei group.
Hailufeng, or in the language itself Haklau, is a variety of Chinese mostly spoken in the Hailufeng region of Guangdong. The region includes Shanwei (Swabue), which administratively includes Haifeng County, and Lufeng City, which itself was a former county and now county-level city. The name 'Hailufeng' / 'Hai Lok Hong' (海陸丰) is a portmanteau of those places. It is a Southern Min language with similarities to Hokkien, especially Chiangchew Hokkien, though it also has close geographical and cultural ties with neighboring Teochew. Ethnically, the Haklau see themselves as Hokkiens, separate from the Teochews.
Zhongshan Min, known as Cunhua by its speakers, are three Min Chinese dialect islands in the Zhongshan region of the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. The Zhongshan Min people settled in the region from Fujian Province as early as the Northern Song dynasty period (1023–1031). The three dialects are:
Zhenan Min, is a Min Nan Chinese language spoken in the vicinity of Wenzhou, in the southeast of Zhejiang province.
The Longyan dialect, also known as Longyan Minnan or Liong11l11334, is a dialect of Hokkien spoken in the urban city area of Longyan in the province of Fujian, China while Hakka is spoken in rural villages of Longyan. The Longyan Min people had settled in the region from southern part of Fujian Province as early as the Tang dynasty period (618–907). Although Longyan Min has some Hakka influence to a limited extent by the peasant Hakka Chinese language due to close distance of rural village Hakka peasants of the region, Longyan Min is a close dialect of the Minnan language and has more number of tones than Hakka. The Longyan dialect has a high but limited intelligibility with Southern Min dialects such as Hokkien–Taiwanese. Today, Longyan Minnan is predominantly spoken in Longyan's urban district Xinluo District while Zhangzhou Minnan is spoken in Zhangping City excluding Chishui and Shuangyang towns where Longyan Minnan is spoken. Hakka on the other hand is spoken in the non-urban rest of the rural areas of Longyan prefecture: Changting County, Liancheng County, Shanghang County, Wuping County, and Yongding District.
The Zhanjiang dialect is a dialect mostly spoken in Zhanjiang in Guangdong, China. It is a sub-dialect of Leizhou Min.
Sanxiang is a variety of Eastern Min Chinese mostly spoken in Sanxiang in Zhongshan in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong, China. Despite its close proximity, Sanxiang is not very closely related to the surrounding dialects in the region, which belong to the Yue group, and thus forms a "dialect island" of Min speakers. It is one of three enclaves of Min in Zhongshan, the others being Longdu and Nanlang.
The Nanlang dialect is a variety of Eastern Min Chinese mostly spoken in Nanlang in Zhongshan in the Pearl River Delta of Guangdong, China. Despite its close proximity, Nanlang is not very closely related to the surrounding dialects in the region, which belong to the Yue group. As such, Nanlang forms a "dialect island" of Min speakers. It is one of three enclaves of Min in Zhongshan, the others being Longdu and Sanxiang.
Southern Malaysian Hokkien is a local variant of the Min Nan Chinese variety spoken in Central and Southern Peninsular Malaysia. Due to geographical proximity, it is heavily influenced by Singaporean Hokkien.
The Fu'an dialect (福安話) is a dialect of Eastern Min, which is a branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in the eastern part of Fujian Province, China.
The Yongchun dialect is a dialect of the Hokkien language mostly spoken in Yongchun County of Quanzhou city in Southern Fujian Province, China. It belongs to the Quanzhou Hokkien branch.
Chaoshan or Teo-Swa is a Southern Min language spoken by the Chaoshan people of the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province, China, and by their diaspora around the world. It is closely related to Hokkien, with which it shares some cognates and phonology, and the two are mutually intelligible.
