The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the

varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ma ...

and minority languages of China. It was a collaborative effort by the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...

and the

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) is a Chinese research institute and think tank. The institution is the premier comprehensive national academic research organization in the People's Republic of China for the study in the fields of ...

, published simultaneously in the original Chinese and in English translation.

Endymion Wilkinson Endymion Porter Wilkinson (born 15 May 1941) is an English diplomat and scholar who served as the European Union Ambassador to China and Mongolia from 1994 to 2001. He is particularly noted for '' Chinese History: A New Manual'', the first ver ...

rated this joint venture "outstanding". A second edition was published in 2012.

Classification of Chinese varieties

The atlas organizes the

in a hierarchy of groupings, following the work of Li Rong: * supergroups (大区 ''dàqū''):

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and

Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Am ...

* groups (区 ''qū''): Jin, Wu,

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

, Xiang,

Gan The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places *Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated ''Gā ...

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

, Yue,

Pinghua Pinghua (; Yale: ''Pìhng Wá''; sometimes disambiguated as /) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Gu ...

and groups within Mandarin and Min * subgroups (片 ''piàn'') * clusters (小片 ''xiǎopiàn'') are only identified for some subgroups * local dialects (点 ''diǎn''): localities that were surveyed

The atlas contains 36 colour maps, divided into three sections: * A. General maps ** A1 Languages in China ** A2 Chinese dialects in China ** A3 National minorities in China ** A4 Minority languages in China ** A5 Language distribution (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) * B. Maps of Chinese dialects ** B1 Mandarin-1 (Northeastern China) ** B2 Mandarin-2 (Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and western Shandong) ** B3 Mandarin-3 (Henan, Shandong, northern Anhui, northern Jiangsu) ** B4 Mandarin-4 (Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia) ** B5 Mandarin-5 (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) ** B6 Mandarin-6 (Southwestern China) ** B7 Jin group (Shanxi and adjacent areas) ** B8 Chinese dialects (southeastern China) ** B9 Wu group (Zhejiang, Shanghai, southern Jiangsu) ** B10 Chinese dialects (southern Anhui area) ** B11 Chinese dialects (Hunan and Jiangxi) ** B12 Min supergroup (Fujian, Taiwan, eastern Guangdong and Hainan Island) ** B13 Chinese dialects: Guangdong (mainland) ** B14 Chinese dialects (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) ** B15 Hakka group ** B16 Chinese dialects overseas: (a) insular Southeast Asia (b) other parts of the world * C. Maps of minority languages ** C1 Minority languages in northern China ** C2 Mongolian languages ** C3 Mongolian dialects ** C4 Turkic (Tujue) languages ** C5 Manchu-Tungus languages ** C6 Minority languages in southern China ** C7 Kam-Tai languages ** C8 Miao-Yao languages ** C9 Dialects of the Miao language ** C10 Tibeto-Burman stock languages ** C11 Tibetan dialects ** C12 Minority languages (Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) ** C13 Minority languages (Yunnan province) ** C14 Minority languages on Hainan and Taiwan islands The maps are printed on loose white sheets measuring by . Each map is accompanied by a blue sheet of the same size containing explanatory notes.

Second edition

Work began on revised edition in 2002. The work was published in 2012 as a joint venture between the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the

City University of Hong Kong City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is a world-class public research university located in Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and became a fully accredited university in 1994. Currently, CityU is ...

. It consists of two volumes, dealing respectively with varieties of Chinese and minority languages. The revision follows the same structure as the first edition, but the number of maps has increased to 79, and the explanatory text is greatly expanded. The number of minority languages covered has also increased from 81 to 130.

References

External links

* "Digital Language Atlas of China", compiled by Lawrence W. Crissman, version 6, 5 October 2012, Australian Centre for the Asian Spatial Information and Analysis Network (ACASIAN) GIS Data Archive. {{doi, 10.7910/DVN/OHYYXH (Harvard Dataverse). The full dataset consists of eight layers in

ESRI shapefile The shapefile format is a geospatial vector GIS file formats, data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It is developed and regulated by Esri as a mostly open standard, open specification for data interoperability among Esri ...

format derived from the ''Language Atlas of China''. The initial release (under Creative Commons v3.0 – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) contains only a draft of the first layer, representing maps A1–4 and marking language families and major Chinese dialect groups, but not individual non-Chinese languages or subgroups of Chinese dialects. Varieties of Chinese Languages of China China Books about China

Classification of Chinese varieties

Contents

Second edition

See also

References

External links