Lower Yangtze Mandarin
| Lower Yangtze Mandarin | |
|---|---|
| Xiajiang Guanhua | |
| Region | Huai and Yangzi Rivers (Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Jiangxi, Henan) |
|
Native speakers
|
ca. 70 million (2011) |
| Written vernacular Chinese | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| ISO 639-6 | juai |
| Glottolog | jing1262 |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-bi |
Areas where Jianghuai is spoken
|
|
Lower Yangtze Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 下江官话; traditional Chinese: 下江官話; pinyin: xiàjiāng guānhuà) is one of the most divergent and least mutually intellegible groups of Mandarin dialects, as it neighbors the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Chinese varieties. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 江淮官话; traditional Chinese: 江淮官話; pinyin: jiānghuái guānhuà), after the Yangtze (Jiang) and Huai Rivers. Lower Yangtze dialects are distinguished from most other Mandarin varieties by their retention of a final glottal stop in words that ended in a final stop in Middle Chinese.
The official court koine language, particularly in the Ming dynasty period, was based on Lower Yangtze dialect. Later on the official language became based on the Beijing dialect.
Lower Yangtze Mandarin is spoken in central Anhui, eastern Hubei, most of Jiangsu north of the Yangtze, as well as the area around Nanjing. The number of speakers was estimated in 1987 at 67 million.
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Wikipedia