Chinese Language Family

The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the 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 (the Tibeto-Burman languages). 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 common writing system, 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.

Population

The total speakers of the Chinese macrolanguage is 1,521,943,700, of which about 73.5% (1,118,584,040) speak a Mandarin variety. The estimated number of speakers globally, both native and secondary, of the larger branches of the Sinitic languages are listed below (2018–19):

Languages

Dialectologist Jerry Norman estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible Sinitic languages. They form a dialect continuum in which differences generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though there are also some sharp boundaries.

*? Macro-Bai
**Greater Bai languages
** Caijia
** Longjia († ?)
** Luren († ?)
*Chinese
** Ba-Shu († ?)
***Minjiang dialect (disputed)
**Min
***Inland Min
****Northern Min (''Minbei'')
**** Shaojiang
****Central Min (''Minzhong'')
***Coastal Min
****Eastern Min (''Mindong'', incl. Fuzhou dialect)
****Puxian Min
****Southern Min (''Minnan'')
***** Hokkien (incl. Amoy dialect and Taiwanese)
*****Chaoshan (incl. Teochew dialect)
*****Longyan
***** Zhenan
***** Datian (disputed)
*****Zhongshan (disputed, some dialects may be Eastern Min)
****Leizhou
****Hainanese (''Qiongwen'')
**Guan (Northern Chinese)
*** Jin
***Central Mandarin Chinese (incl. Standard Chinese and Dungan, spoken by Hui Chinese in Central Asia, and Taz, of the Russian Far East)
***Lower Yangtze Mandarin (incl. Nanjing dialect)
***Southwestern Mandarin (incl. Sichuanese dialect)
*** Changyi Xiang (New Xiang)
** Xiang/Hunanese (Old Xiang)
*** Loushao Xiang
*** Jixu Xiang (Chenxu Xiang)
*** Yongquan Xiang
*** Hengzhou Xiang
**Huizhou
*** Yanzhou Hui
*** Jingzhan Hui
*** Xiuyi Hui
*** Jishe Hui
*** Qide Hui (Qiwu Hui)
** Wu
*** Oujiang Wu (incl. Wenzhounese)
***mainstream Wu
****Central Wu
*****Taihu Wu (incl. Shanghainese)
***** Taizhou Wu
**** Chuqu Wu
****Wuzhou Wu
**** Xuanzhou Wu
**Gan–Hakka
***Hakka
***Gan
**** Changdu
**** Yiliu
**** Jicha
**** Fuguang
**** Yingyi
****Datong
**** Leizi
**** Dongsui
**** Huaiyue
** Yue
***Yuehai (incl. Standard Cantonese)
***Siyi Yue (incl. Taishanese dialect)
*** Yong-Xun Yue (incl. Nanning dialect)
***Goulou Yue (incl. Bobai dialect)
*** Luo-Guang Yue
***Gao-Yang Yue
***Qin-Lian Yue
*** Wu-Hua Yue
**Pinghua
***Northern Ping
***Southern Ping

There are additional, unclassified varieties, including:

* Shaozhou Tuhua
*Badong Yao
*Danzhou
* Junjia
* Lingling
* Mai
* She
* Waxiang
* Yeheni ("Yao")

Internal classification

The traditional, dialectological classification of Chinese languages is based on the evolution of the sound categories of Middle Chinese. Little comparative work has been done (the usual way of reconstructing the relationships between languages), and little is known about mutual intelligibility. Even within the dialectological classification, details are disputed, such as the establishment in the 1980s of three new top-level groups: Huizhou, Jin and Pinghua, despite the fact that Pinghua is itself a pair of languages and Huizhou may be half a dozen.

Like Bai, the Min languages are commonly thought to have split off directly from Old Chinese. The evidence for this split is that all Sinitic languages apart from the Min group can be fit into the structure of the ''Qieyun'', a 7th-century rime dictionary. However, this view is not universally accepted.

Points of contention

Like many other language familes, Sinitic languages have had problems of classification. The following are a few examples.

Southern China

Traditionally, the lect of urban Hangzhou and New Xiang of eastern Hunan are not considered Mandarin. However, linguists such as Richard VanNess Simmons and Zhou Zhenhe have observed that these two varieties possess more qualifying features of Mandarin languages. For instance, the vowels of the second division of the ''jia'' (假) initial is often raised and backed in Wu and Xiang, while they are not in Hangzhounese and New Xiang.

Note that Nantongnese has heavy Wu influence, which has led to it also having raised and backed vowels.

Danzhounese (儋州話) and Maihua (邁話) are both traditionally considered Yue lects. Recent research, however, has noted that these are both are more likely unclassified. Maihua, for example, may be a Yue-Hakka- Hainanese Min mixed language.

Dongjiang Bendihua (東江本地話) is spoken in and around Huizhou and Heyuan. Its classification has always been unclear, though the most common standpoint is that it is considered Hakka.

Northern China

The variety spoken in the Ganyu District of Lianyungang (贛榆話) is listed as a variety of Central Plains Mandarin in the Language Atlas of China, though its tonal distribution is more similar to Peninsular Mandarin varieties.

Relationships between groups

Jerry Norman classified the traditional seven dialect groups into three larger groups: Northern (Mandarin), Central (Wu, Gan, and Xiang) and Southern (Hakka, Yue, and Min). He argued that the Southern Group is derived from a standard used in the Yangtze valley during the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), which he called Old Southern Chinese, while the Central group was transitional between the Northern and Southern groups. Some dialect boundaries, such as between Wu and Min, are particularly abrupt, while others, such as between Mandarin and Xiang or between Min and Hakka, are much less clearly defined.

Scholars account for the transitional nature of the central varieties in terms of wave models. Iwata argues that innovations have been transmitted from the north across the Huai River to the Lower Yangtze Mandarin area and from there southeast to the Wu area and westwards along the Yangtze River valley and thence to southwestern areas, leaving the hills of the southeast largely untouched.

A quantitative study

A 2007 study compared fifteen major urban dialects on the objective criteria of lexical similarity and regularity of sound correspondences, and subjective criteria of intelligibility and similarity. Most of these criteria show a top-level split with Northern, New Xiang, and Gan in one group and Min (samples at Fuzhou, Xiamen, Chaozhou), Hakka, and Yue in the other group. The exception was phonological regularity, where the one Gan dialect (Nanchang Gan) was in the Southern group and very close to Meixian Hakka, and the deepest phonological difference was between Wenzhounese (the southernmost Wu dialect) and all other dialects.

The study did not find clear splits within the Northern and Central areas:

* Changsha (New Xiang) was always within the Mandarin group. No Old Xiang dialect was in the sample.
* Taiyuan ( Jin or Shanxi) and Hankou (Wuhan, Hubei) were subjectively perceived as relatively different from other Northern dialects but were very close in mutual intelligibility. Objectively, Taiyuan had substantial phonological divergence but little lexical divergence.
* Chengdu (Sichuan) was somewhat divergent lexically but very little on the other measures.

The two Wu dialects (Wenzhou and Suzhou) occupied an intermediate position, closer to the Northern/New Xiang/Gan group in lexical similarity and strongly closer in subjective intelligibility but closer to Min/Hakka/Yue in phonological regularity and subjective similarity, except that Wenzhou was farthest from all other dialects in phonological regularity. The two Wu dialects were close to each other in lexical similarity and subjective similarity but not in mutual intelligibility, where Suzhou was actually closer to Northern/Xiang/Gan than to Wenzhou.

In the Southern subgroup, Hakka and Yue grouped closely together on the three lexical and subjective measures but not in phonological regularity. The Min dialects showed high divergence, with Min Fuzhou (Eastern Min) grouped only weakly with the Southern Min dialects of Xiamen and Chaozhou on the two objective criteria and was actually slightly closer to Hakka and Yue on the subjective criteria.

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

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{{Sino-Tibetan languages

Sino-Tibetan languages