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. 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.
Xiang can be divided into three dialects:
* Changyi
* Luoshao
* Jishu
*
Classification of Xiang Dialects
