The Hmu language, also known as Qiandong Miao, Central Miao (中部苗语), East Hmongic, or Black Miao, is a dialect cluster of Hmongic languages of China. The best studied dialect is that of Yǎnghāo (养蒿) village, Taijiang County, Guizhou Province.
Xiang or Hsiang, also known as Hunanese, is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in northern Guangxi and parts of neighboring Guizhou, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces. Scholars divided Xiang into five subgroups, Chang-Yi, Lou-Shao, Hengzhou, Chen-Xu and Yong-Quan. Among those, Lou-shao, also known as Old Xiang, still exhibits the three-way distinction of Middle Chinese obstruents, preserving the voiced stops, fricatives, and affricates. Xiang has also been heavily influenced by Mandarin, which adjoins three of the four sides of the Xiang-speaking territory, and Gan in Jiangxi Province, from where a large population immigrated to Hunan during the Ming dynasty.
A number of ethnic groups of the People's Republic of China are not officially recognized. Taken together, these groups would constitute the twentieth most populous ethnic group of China. Some scholars have estimated that there are over 200 distinct ethnic groups that inhabit China, compared to 56 groups are officially recognized. There are in addition small distinct ethnic groups that have been classified as part of larger ethnic groups that are officially recognized. Some groups, like the Hui of Xinjiang with the Hui of Fujian, are geographically and culturally separate, except for the shared belief of Islam. Han Chinese, being the world's largest ethnic group, has a large diversity within it, such as in Gansu, whose Han individuals may have genetic traits from the assimilated Tangut civilization. Although they are indigenous to Hainan island and do not speak a Chinese language, the Lingao (Ong-Be) people near the capital are counted as Han Chinese.
Sichuanese or Szechwanese (simplified Chinese: 四川话; traditional Chinese: 四川話; Sichuanese Pinyin: Si4cuan1hua4; pinyin: Sìchuānhuà; Wade–Giles: Szŭ4-ch'uan1-hua4), also called Sichuanese/Szechwanese Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 四川官话; traditional Chinese: 四川官話; pinyin: Sìchuān Guānhuà), is a branch of Southwestern Mandarin spoken mainly in Sichuan and Chongqing, which was part of Sichuan Province until 1997, and the adjacent regions of their neighboring provinces, such as Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and Shaanxi. Although "Sichuanese" is often synonymous with the Chengdu-Chongqing dialect, there is still a great amount of diversity among the Sichuanese dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible with each other. In addition, because Sichuanese is the lingua franca in Sichuan, Chongqing and part of Tibet, it is also used by many Tibetan, Yi, Qiang and other ethnic minority groups as a second language.
Southwestern Mandarin, also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin, is a Mandarin Chinese dialect spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northern part of Guangxi and some southern parts of Shaanxi and Gansu.
Jiamao is a divergent Kra-Dai language or possible language isolate spoken in southern Hainan, China. Jiamao speakers' autonym is 1.
Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings are usually used in loanwords, names, literary works, and in formal settings, while colloquial/vernacular readings are usually used in everyday vernacular speech.
The Mak language is a Kam–Sui language spoken in Libo County, Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou, China. It is spoken mainly in the four townships of Yangfeng, Fangcun (方村), Jialiang (甲良), and Diwo (地莪) in Jialiang District (甲良), Libo County. Mak speakers can also be found in Dushan County. Mak is spoken alongside Ai-Cham and Bouyei. The Mak, also called Mojia (莫家) in Chinese, are officially classified as Bouyei by the Chinese government.
The Mienic or Yao languages are spoken by the Yao people of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.
Ba–Shu Chinese (Chinese: 巴蜀語; pinyin: Bāshǔyǔ; Wade–Giles: Ba1 Shu3 Yü3; Sichuanese Pinyin: Ba¹su²yu³; IPA:[pa˥su˨˩y˥˧]), or Old Sichuanese (or Old Szechwanese; Chinese: 蜀語), is an extinct Chinese language formerly spoken in what is now Sichuan and Chongqing, China.
Chengdu-Chongqing dialect or Cheng–Yu is the most widely used branch of Southwestern Mandarin, with about 90 million speakers. It is named after Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan, and Chongqing, which was split from Sichuan in 1997. It is spoken mainly in northern and eastern Sichuan, the northeastern part of the Chengdu Plain, several cities or counties in southwestern Sichuan, southern Shaanxi and western Hubei.
Pingtang Miao, named after Pingtang County in which it is spoken, is a group of Miao language varieties of China.
Raojia is a Hmongic language spoken by about 5,000 people in 3 villages of Heba Township 河坝乡, Majiang County, Guizhou.
The Shaoxing dialect is a Wu dialect spoken in the city of Shaoxing more specifically in the city center of Yuecheng and its surrounding areas. It is a representative Wu dialect with a tripartite distinction on voiced stop initials and a textbook register split with each of the four tonal categories of Middle Chinese being divided into upper and lower registers. Within Wu, it is classified as a Northern Wu dialect belonging to the Taihu division within which it is classified under the Linshao subdivision (臨紹小片/临绍小片).
Baihong is a Southern Loloish language of Yunnan, China. It is spoken in Jiangcheng Hani and Yi Autonomous County, Mojiang Hani Autonomous County, Yuanjiang Hani, Yi and Dai Autonomous County, Lüchun County, and Yuanyang County, Yunnan.
Yu Min was an influential Chinese linguist, a 1940 graduate of the Fu Jen Catholic University, Chinese Department, a former professor of Yenching University, and professor of Beijing Normal University. His primary research areas were Chinese historical linguistics, Sino-Tibetan comparison, the study of Sanskrit in Chinese transcription. His collected writings were published posthumously in 1999.
Jizhao is an unclassified Kra-Dai language spoken in Jizhao Village 吉兆村, Tanba Town 覃巴镇, Wuchuan, Guangdong. It may be most closely related to Be. In Wuchuan, Jizhao is locally referred to as Haihua 海话, which is the term used elsewhere in Leizhou 雷州, Xuwen 徐闻, and Maoming 茂名 to refer to the local Minnan Chinese dialect of Leizhou.
Shehua is an unclassified Sinitic language spoken by the She people of Southeastern China. It is also called Shanha, San-hak (山哈) or Shanhahua (山哈话). Shehua speakers are located mainly in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of Southeastern China, with smaller numbers of speakers in a few locations of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Anhui provinces.
In Chinese dialectology, Beijing Mandarin refers to a major branch of Mandarin Chinese recognized by the Language Atlas of China, encompassing a number of dialects spoken in areas of Beijing, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Tianjin, the most important of which is the Beijing dialect, which provides the phonological basis for Standard Chinese. Both Beijing Mandarin and its Beijing dialect are also called Beijingese.
The Xiangxiang dialect is a dialect of Xiang Chinese, spoken in Xiangxiang, Hunan province, China. It is part of a group of dialects called the Central Xiang dialects.
