Old Xiang, also known as Lou-Shao (娄邵片 / 婁邵片), is a conservative

Xiang Chinese Xiang or Hsiang (; ); Changsha Xiang: ''sian1 y3'', 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 neighborin ...

language. It is spoken in the central areas of

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

where it has been to some extent isolated from the neighboring Chinese languages,

Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese language spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northe ...

and

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 ...

languages, and it retains the

voiced plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is manner of articulation, blocked so that all airstream mechanism, airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongu ...

s of

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

, which are otherwise only preserved in Wu languages like

Shanghainese The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the Districts of Shanghai, central districts of the Shanghai, City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as ...

. See

Shuangfeng dialect The Shuangfeng dialect () is a dialect of Xiang Chinese, spoken in Shuangfeng County, Hunan province, China. Phonology Consonants Vowels Tones Phonemically, Shuangfeng dialect has three tones. Phonetically, however, the pitch of a syllable ...

for details.

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

was a speaker of Old Xiang with his native

Shaoshan Shaoshan () is a county-level city in Hunan Province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xiangtan. Qingxi Town is its seat. Located on the mid-eastern Hunan and the mid-north of Xiangtan, Shaoshan is bordered by ...

dialect.

Dialects and regions

The

is representative.

Dialects and regions

References

Further reading