Xiang (linguistics)

Encyclopedia : X : XI : XIA : Xiang (linguistics)

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.

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.

Dialects

Xiang can be divided into three dialects:

Changyi
Luoshao
Jishu

Trivia

Mao Zedong spoke Xiang instead of normal Mandarin.

External links

[Classification of Xiang Dialects]

Chinese: spoken varieties

Categories:

Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese
Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua

Subcategories of Min:

Subcategories of Mandarin:

Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many.
The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories.

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

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.