Xiang (linguistics)
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| Xiang 湘语 |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | China | |
| Region: | Hunan | |
| Total speakers: | 36 million | |
| Ranking: | 30 | |
| Language family: | Sino-Tibetan Chinese Xiang |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | zh | |
| ISO 639-2: | chi (B) | zho (T) |
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | hsn | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Xiang (湘語/湘语), also Hunan, Hunanese, or Hsiang, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese.
Xiang is spoken by over 36 million people in China, primarily in Hunan province, and also in over 20 counties in Sichuan, and parts of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. Many scholars divide Xiang into two distinct varieties: Old Xiang, which is spoken in the southern parts of the Xiang-speaking area, and New Xiang, which can be heard in the northern Xiang-speaking area and is significantly closer to Mandarin due to the influence of Mandarin. One of the most well-known speakers of Xiang was Mao Zedong, whose mother tongue was Xiang.
Linguistically, Xiang is between Mandarin and Wu Chinese and marginally intelligible with them. The written form is standard Chinese.
Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Xiang is a language or a dialect. See Identification of the varieties of Chinese for the issues surrounding this dispute.
[edit] Dialects
Xiang can be divided into three dialects:
- Changyi
- Loushao (Old Xiang)
- Jishu
[edit] External links
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| Categories: |
Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese |
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| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Puxian | Qiongwen | Shaojiang | |||
| Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
| Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. |
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| Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | ||||
| Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese | |||
| Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner | |||
| Chinese: written varieties | ||||
| Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese | |||
| Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese | |||
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