The Main Chinese Language Varieties (Part 2)

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Here is part 2 of our list of the main Chinese language varieties, with some explanations provided for each variety.

Min 闽语 (mǐn yǔ)

The Min group has the biggest diversity of varieties compared to any of the major dialect groups. Min is divided into two groups: Coastal Min and Inland Min. Each are then divided again.

It is widely spoken in the Fujian province as well as in Hainan, parts of Zhejiang and Guangdong.

Hakka

Hakka (not to be confused with Hokkien) is spoken natively by the Hakka people from Southern China as well as through the diaspora in East and South-East Asia.

Hakka itself developed numerous varieties due to its use in many regions far from each other.

Yue 粤语 (yuèyǔ)

The varieties of the Yue group are mainly spoken in the Southern part of China, namely Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong and Macau. The most common variety, spoken by millions of people natively, is Cantonese.

In Chinese, Cantonese is called 广东话 (guǎngdōng huà) “the speech of Guangdong”, but is often use to depict Yue as a whole.

Jin 晋语 (jìn yǔ)

Jin is a variety of Chinese spoken by more than 60 million people in Northern China, including most of the Shanxi province, Inner Mongolia and neighbouring provinces such as Shaanxi, Hebei and Henan.

It was previously included in the Mandarin group but Li Rong decided in 1985 that Jin should be considered a group in itself, and added it to his classification. In the Language Atlas of China, Jin was divided into 8 subgroups.

Huizhou 徽语 (huī yǔ)

In the past, Huizhou (also referred as Hui) was assigned to either the Wu, Gan or Mandarin group, as it shares many similarities with them and was difficult to classify.

Also known as the Hui dialect, Huizhou Chinese it is spoken in the small area of Huizhou in southern Anhui as well as in some others in Zhejiang and Guangxi. Compared to other dialect groups Huizhou is indeed spoken in a very small area, but it still has a lot of varieties in itself.

Pinghua 平话 (píng huà)

Pinghua (also referred as Ping) is mainly spoken in the Guangxi region, as well as parts of Hunan.

It used to be included in the Yue dialect group but in the 1980’s was designated as a separate variety.

There’s actually two forms of Pinghua: The Northern Pinghua is mainly spoken in northern Guangxi and some parts of Hunan. The Southern Pinghua is spoken in southern Guangxi.

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