10 Facts About Min Nan

In common parlance and in the narrower sense, Southern Min Nan refers to the Quanzhang or Hokkien-Taiwanese variety of Southern Min Nan originating from Southern Fujian in Mainland China.

Southern Min Nan dialects are spoken in Fujian, three southeastern counties of Zhejiang, the Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo in Zhejiang and the Chaoshan region in Guangdong.

Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intelligibility with Minnan.

Southern Min Nan dialects spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan.

Variants of Southern Min Nan spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou.

Related searches

Chaoshan Min Nan is of great importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra, and West Kalimantan.

Chaoshan Min Nan is significantly different from Quanzhang in both pronunciation and vocabulary.

Southern Min has one of the most diverse phonologies of Chinese varieties, with more consonants than Mandarin or Cantonese.

In general, Southern Min Nan dialects have five to six tones, and tone sandhi is extensive.

Linguists estimate that the oldest layers of Min Nan dialects diverged from the rest of Chinese around the time of the Han dynasty.