Other Varieties

Chinese varieties or dialects not so frequently requested by clients

Wu

Geographic area: provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the municipality of Shanghai

Sub-dialects: Shanghai dialect, sometimes taken as the representative of all Wu dialects. Wu's subgroups are extremely diverse, especially in the mountainous regions of Zhejiang and eastern Anhui. The group possibly comprises hundreds of distinct spoken forms which are not mutually intelligible.

Characteristics: Wu is notable among Chinese dialects in having kept "voiced" (actually slack voiced) initials, such as /b̥/, /d̥/, /ɡ̊/, /z̥/, /v̥/, /d̥ʑ̊/, /ʑ̊/ etc.

Yue (subgroup of Cantonese)

Geographic area: Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Southeast Asia and by Overseas Chinese with an ancestry tracing back to the Guangdong region.

Sub-dialects: The term "Cantonese" is sometimes used for all the Yue dialects, including Taishanese, although it is mostly identified as the Canton dialect of Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Characteristics: Not all varieties of Yue are mutually intelligible. Yue retains the full complement of Middle Chinese word-final consonants (p, t, k, m, n, ng), and has a well-developed inventory of tones.

The Min languages

Geographic area: Fujian, Taiwan, parts of Southeast Asia particularly Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore, and among Overseas Chinese who trace their roots to Fujian and Taiwan, particularly prevalently in New York City in the United States.

Sub-dialects: Hokkien, which is spoken in Southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many Chinese in Southeast Asia and includes the Taiwanese, and Amoy dialects amongst others.

Characteristics: Min is the only branch of Chinese that cannot be directly derived from Middle Chinese. It is also the most diverse, divided into seven subgroups defined on the basis of relative mutual intelligibility: Min Nan (which includes Hokkien and Teochew), Min Dong (which includes the Fuzhou dialect), Min Bei, Min Zhong, Pu Xian, Qiong Wen, and Shao Jiang.

Xiang or Hunanese

Geographic area: Hunan.

Sub-dialects: Xiang is usually divided into the "old" and "new" dialects

Characteristics: new dialects being significantly influenced by Mandarin.

Hakka

Geographic area: several provinces across southern China, in Taiwan, and in parts of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia and Singapore.

Sub-dialects: Some dialects of Hakka have seven tones, due to splitting in the qu tone. One of the distinguishing features of Hakka phonology is that Middle Chinese voiced initials are transformed into Hakka voiceless aspirated initials.

Characteristics: spoken by the Hakka people, a sub-group of the Han Chinese. The term "Hakka" itself translates as "guest families", and many Hakka people consider themselves to be descended from Song-era and later refugees from North China, although their genetic origin is still disputed. Hakka has kept many features of northern Middle Chinese that have been lost in the North. It also has a full complement of nasal endings, -m -n -ŋ and occlusive endings -p -t -k, maintaining the four categories of tonal types, with splitting in the ping and ru tones, giving six tones.

Gan

Geographic area: Jiangxi.

Sub-dialects: In the past, it was viewed as closely related to Hakka dialects.

Characteristics: because of the way Middle Chinese voiced initials have become voiceless aspirated initials, as in Hakka, and were hence called by the umbrella term "Hakka-Gan dialects".