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Hokkien Chinese

Hokkien
Quanzhang
福建话/閩南語(泉漳片)
Hō-ló-oē/Hô-ló-uē
Native to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, United States, Madagascar, and other areas of Hoklo settlement
Region southern Fujian province and other south-eastern coastal areas of Mainland China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia
Ethnicity Hoklo (Subgroup of Han Chinese)
Native speakers
37 million (date missing)
Sino-Tibetan
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
None (one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the Taiwan)
Regulated by None
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog hokk1242
fuki1235
Banlamgu.svg
Distribution of Southern Min languages. Hokkien is dark green.
Hokkien Map.svg
Distribution of Hokkien dialects within Fujian Province and Taiwan.
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Hokkien
Traditional Chinese 福建話
Simplified Chinese 福建话
Hoklo
Traditional Chinese 福佬話
Simplified Chinese 福佬话

Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ (from Chinese: ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Hok-kiàn-oē) is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province. It is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, most of which are not mutually intelligible with Hokkien.

Hokkien historically served as the lingua franca amongst overseas Chinese communities of all dialects and subgroups in Southeast Asia, and remains today as the most spoken variety of Chinese in the region, including in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and some parts of Indochina.


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