The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan ("Southern Fujian" language), is a family of Chinese languages which are spoken in southern Fujian and neighboring areas, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora.

 

In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to the Hokkien dialect outside China, in particular the Amoy and Taiwanese. Amoy and Taiwanese are both combinations of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The Southern Min family also includes Teochew and Hainanese. Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with the Amoy. However, Hainanese is generally not considered to be mutually intelligible with any other Southern Min variants.

 

Southern Min forms part of the Min language group, alongside several other divisions. The Min languages/dialects are part of the Chinese language group, itself a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Cantonese, or Mandarin. As with other varieties of Chinese, there is a political dispute as to whether the Southern Min language should be called a language or a dialect. 

 

 

Rough division map of Min Nan dialects

  

Geographic distribution

 

Southern Min is spoken in the southern part of Fujian province, three southeastern counties of Zhejiang province, the Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo in Zhejiang, and the eastern part of Guangdong province (Chaoshan region). The Qiong Wen variant spoken in the Leizhou peninsula of Guangdong province, as well as Hainan province, which is not mutually intelligible with standard Minnan or Teochew, is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate.

 

A form of Southern Min akin to that spoken in southern Fujian is also spoken in Taiwan, where it has the native name of Tâi-oân-oē or Hō-ló-oē. The (sub)ethnic group for which Southern Min is considered a native language is known as the Holo (Hō-ló) or Hoklo, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is generally true though not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklos speak Southern Min fluently.

 

There are many Southern Min speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Indonesia (the former Dutch East Indies) and present day Malaysia and Singapore (formerly Malaya, Burma, and the British Straits Settlements). In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, Fukien or Fookien in Southeast Asia, and is very much like Taiwanese. Many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong province and speak Teochew, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min is reportedly the native language of up to 98.5% of the community of ethnic Chinese in the Philippines, among whom it is also known as Lan-nang or Lán-lâng-oē ("Our people’s language"). Southern Min speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore with the largest being Hoklos and the second largest being the Teochews.

 

Classification

 

Southern Fujian is home to three main Amoy dialects. They are known by the geographic locations to which they correspond (listed north to south):

 

Quanzhou (Chinchew) (泉州)

Xiamen (Amoy) (厦门)

Zhangzhou (Changchew) (漳州)

 

As Xiamen is the principal city of southern Fujian, the Xiamen dialect is considered the most important, or even prestige dialect. The Xiamen dialect is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects. The Xiamen dialect (also known as the Amoy dialect) has played an influential role in history, especially in the relations of Western nations with China, and was one of the most frequently learned of all Chinese languages/dialects by Westerners during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.

 

The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou. The variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants, and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Taiwanese is used by a majority of the population and is quite important from a socio-political and cultural perspective, forming the second most important, if not the more influential pole of the language due to the popularity of Taiwanese Hokkien media. Those Southern Min variants that are collectively known as "Hokkien" in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are collectively known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of great importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra and western Kalimantan.

 

The Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou. Linguistically, it lies between Teochew and Amoy. In southwestern Fujian, the local variants in Longyan and Zhangping form a separate division of Min Nan on their own. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, Malaysia and Medan, Indonesia, a distinct form of Zhangzhou (Changchew) Hokkien has developed. In Penang, it is called Penang Hokkien while across the Malacca Strait in Medan, an almost identical variant is known as Medan Hokkien.

 

The cultural and political value of Min Nan

 

Jean DeBernardi of the University of Alberta stated that Min Nan, is a Sinitic language with more than 38 millions users, which is 4% of the 1 billion speakers of Sinitic languages. The Min Nan user are in parts of Fujian province, Northeastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Thailand,Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. In addition to it's high social value as a marker of in-group status among the various communities, it has acquired an additional political value in Taiwan, representing the aspirations of the Taiwanese independence movement in the face of fears of reunification with Mainland China.

 

Jean DeBernardi considered calling Min Nan a ‘dialects’ "is a misnomer", as the languages of China are as diverse as Romance languages. When Northern China is claimed to be relatively homogeneous linguistically (Jerry Norman observes that “many varieties of Mandarin in Shanxi and the Northwest are totally incomprehensible to a Beijing speaker”), Southern China have six major ‘dialect’ groups, which are mutually incomprehensible tongues.

 

Since the Guomindang's 1945 Mainland China's defeat and hence retreat to Taiwan, Mandarin has been encouraged at the expense of Taiwanese, and Min Nan, though spoken by an estimated 80% of the Taiwan population , has been regarded as "a substandard language with no grammar and no written form, inadequate and unsuitable for cultivated discussion”

 

SOURCE: Wikipedia