Min Chinese

Min is a general term for a group of of the Chinese spoken language found in the southeastern of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong , Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang, and Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo, and Taiwan. There are many Min speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The most widely spoken variety of Min is , which includes Taiwanese and , amongst other dialects.

Divisions

Like all groups of Chinese spoken languages, Min has a widespread diaspora of its own, with numerous dialects which are not mutually intelligible in and amongst themselves. Min is typically divided, on the basis of mutual unintelligibility, into Min Dong , , and other sub-groups. Min Dong is centered around the city of Fuzhou , capital of Fujian province, while Min Nan is dominant in most other locations. Qiong Wen, spoken in Hainan, is sometimes classed as a separate sub-group, but often viewed as part of Min Nan.

Min Nan is also called by the name of its regional variants in the places it is spoken, especially Taiwanese. The Amoy dialect of Xiamen is the prestige dialect of Min Nan in mainland China, with also being an important sub-variant. Teochew has low intelligibility with other Minnan dialects, having fewer words in common with them than German has with English.

More complex division is suggested by : , Central Min , Eastern Min , Xinghua and Southern Min . Southern Min is also spoken by Fujian or Hoklo people who have settled in Guangdong, Taiwan, Hainan, etc.

The language in Guangdong is known as ''Hoklo'', in Hainan as ''Qiong Wen'' or ''Qiongzhou hua'' . Min Nan is the dominant Chinese dialect spoken by the Chinese minority in the Philippines, where it is known as Lan-nang. In Taiwan, Minnan is known as ''Hō-ló-oē'' and is spoken by the majority of the population as their native language. In Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and other areas in Southeast Asia, Minnan is known as , in addition to the variant, originating in the Chaoshan region, which is the ancestral home of many .

Writing system

When using Chinese characters to write Min, the writing system is largely identical to that of Standard Mandarin, with the addition of some specialized characters. Given that Min is the only branch of Chinese that cannot be directly derived from Middle Chinese, one may have trouble finding the appropriate Chinese characters for some Min vocabulary. In the case of Taiwanese, there are also indigenous words loaned from the Taiwanese aborigines, as well as a substantial number of loan words from . In Singapore and Malaysia, the Min variants spoken have borrowed heavily from and to a lesser extent, from and other languages.

Some Min speakers use the Church Romanization . For Min Nan the romanization is called Pe?h-ōe-jī and for Min Dong called Bàng-u?-cê . Both systems were created by foreign missionaries in the 19th century . There are some uncommon publications in mixed writing, using mostly Chinese characters but using the Latin alphabet to represent words that cannot easily be represented by Chinese characters.