Southern Min facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Southern Min
閩南語 / 闽南语 Bàn-lâm-gú
Ethnicity:	Hoklo people Teochew people
Geographic distribution:	Fujian Province; the Chaozhou-Shantou (Chaoshan) area and Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong Province; extreme south of Zhejiang Province; much of Hainan Province (if Hainanese or Qiongwen is included) and most of Taiwan as well as Malaysia, Singapore , Thailand and Sumatra
Linguistic classification:	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Min Coastal Min Southern Min
Subdivisions:	Hokkien (Quanzhang / Tsuan-Tsiang) (e.g. Amoy, Taiwanese, Singaporean, etc.) Chaoshan (Teo-Swa) (e.g. Teochew, Swatow) Longyan (Liongna) Zhenan Datian (transitional) Sanxiang (Sahiu) Hailufeng (Haklau) LongDu Dialect (ZhongShan Min; LongDu region = ShaXi town + DaChong town)
Southern Min in mainland China and Taiwan
Subgroups of Southern Min in mainland China and Taiwan

Southern Min (simplified Chinese: 闽南语; traditional Chinese: 閩南語; pinyin: Mǐnnányǔ; literally "Southern Fujian language") is a group of related Chinese languages. It is also called Minnan or Banlam. These languages are spoken in parts of Fujian province, most of Taiwan, and other areas in China. Many people who moved from these places to other countries also speak Southern Min. You can find speakers in Southeast Asia, like Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Southern Min is the most common type of Min Chinese. About 48 million people spoke it in 2017–2018.

When people say "Southern Min," they often mean the Hokkien-Taiwanese kind. This type comes from southern Fujian in mainland China. It is spoken mainly in Fujian, Taiwan, and parts of Southeast Asia. This is often seen as the main Southern Min language.

There are other types of Southern Min too. Some, like Teochew, are quite similar to Hokkien-Taiwanese. People speaking them can often understand each other. But other types, like Hainanese, are very different. Speakers of these types might not understand Hokkien-Taiwanese at all.

Southern Min languages are not easily understood by people who speak other types of Chinese, like Mandarin. Even different types of Southern Min are not always understood by each other.

Where is Southern Min Spoken?

Southern Min is spoken in several places around the world.

In Mainland China

Southern Min languages are spoken in Fujian province. They are also found in three southeastern counties of Zhejiang and the Chaoshan region in Guangdong. The language spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong, and Hainan is called Hainanese. Hainanese is very different from other Southern Min languages.

In Taiwan

In Taiwan, the Southern Min languages are known as Taiwanese. This is the main language for most Hoklo people, who are a large ethnic group in Taiwan. While most Hoklo people speak Taiwanese, some do not. Also, some people who are not Hoklo can speak Taiwanese very well.

In Southeast Asia

Many Chinese immigrants moved to Southeast Asia. A lot of them were Hoklo people from southern Fujian. They brought Southern Min languages with them to places like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

In Southeast Asia, Southern Min from southern Fujian is often called Hokkien. This Hokkien is usually understood by Hokkien speakers elsewhere. Many Chinese people in Southeast Asia also came from the Chaoshan region of Guangdong. They speak Teochew language, which is another type of Southern Min. Teochew is especially common in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

In the Philippines, Philippine Hokkien is the main language for most Chinese Filipinos. In Singapore, Southern Min speakers are the majority of Chinese people. Hokkien is the largest group, and Teochew is the second largest.

Different Kinds of Southern Min

There are two or three main groups of Southern Min languages. This depends on whether Leizhou and Hainanese are included.

• Minnan Proper (Hokkien–Taiwanese): This group is also called the Quanzhang division.
• Chaoshan (Teochew): This group is also called the Chaoshan division.
• Qiong-Lei (Leizhou and Hainanese dialects): This group is also called the Qiong-Lei division.

More recently, some experts group Southern Min dialects into Northern, Central, and Southern branches.

• Northern
  • Cangnan
  • Quanzhou, Zihu, Lukang
• Central-Southern
  • Central
    • Zhangzhou
    • Longyan, Datian
  • Southern
    • Guangdong
      •  ? Haifeng
      • Jieyang, Chaoyang
    • Hainan
      • Leizhou
      • Haikou

Quanzhang (Hokkien)

The Quanzhang dialects are spoken around Xiamen, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou in southern Fujian. They are mostly understood by each other. This group is called Minnan Proper or Hokkien-Taiwanese. It is the most common form of Southern Min. It is also a widely spoken regional language in Taiwan.

There are two kinds of standard Minnan: Traditional and Modern. Traditional Standard Minnan is based on the Quanzhou dialect. Modern Standard Minnan is based on the Amoy dialect (spoken in Xiamen) and Taiwanese (spoken in Tainan). Both modern forms mix Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. Today, Modern Standard Minnan is used in TV shows, radio, and songs. Most Minnan books use this pronunciation.

In Taiwan, the Hokkien spoken in northern Taiwan is more like the Quanzhou dialect. The Hokkien in southern Taiwan is more like the Zhangzhou dialect. They have small differences in how words sound and what words are used. But the grammar is mostly the same. Taiwanese Hokkien also has many words borrowed from Japanese.

Hokkien is also spoken in Singapore (as Singaporean Hokkien), Malaysia (as Penang Hokkien and Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien), and Indonesia (as Medan Hokkien and Riau Hokkien). These versions have words borrowed from English and Malay. In the Philippines, Philippine Hokkien has words borrowed from Spanish, Tagalog, and English.

Chaoshan (Teo-Swa)

Teo-Swa or Chaoshan speech is a related type of Southern Min. It includes the Teochew and Swatow dialects. It is somewhat understood by Quanzhang speakers, but they have different pronunciations and words. Chaoshan Min started from an older dialect related to the Quanzhou dialect. It later got some influence from the Zhangzhou dialect. Its grammar is similar to Minnan Proper.

How Southern Min Sounds

Southern Min languages have many different sounds compared to Mandarin or Cantonese. They have more consonant sounds. The vowel sounds are similar to Mandarin. Most Southern Min dialects have five or six tones. Tones change a lot when words are put together in a sentence.

Writing Systems

Both Hokkien and Chaoshan (Teochew and Shantou) have ways to write them using the Latin alphabet (romanized systems). They also use Chinese characters. In mainland China, the written language is called 閩南文 (Bân-lâm-bûn). In Taiwan, it is called 台文 (Tâi-bûn). The Chinese characters are known as 漢字 (Hàn-jī / Hàn-lī).

History of Southern Min

The area where Min languages are spoken, called Fujian, was settled by Han Chinese people a long time ago. This happened after the Minyue state was defeated in 110 BC. Fujian is a very mountainous area. Because of this, the Min languages did not get as much influence from northern China as other Chinese languages.

Experts believe that the oldest Min dialects separated from other Chinese languages around the time of the Han dynasty. However, many people also moved from northern China to Fujian later on. These migrations include:

• A large movement of people to the south during the Jin dynasty (around 311 AD).
• In 669 AD, Chen Zheng and his son Chen Yuanguang came from Henan to set up a government in Fujian.
• In 893 AD, Wang Chao also moved to Fujian from Henan with many soldiers. His younger brother later started the Min Kingdom in 909 AD.

Experts say that modern Min languages have different layers of words:

1. Words from the original languages of the Minyue people, which might have been Austroasiatic.
2. The first Chinese words, brought by settlers from Zhejiang during the Han dynasty.
3. Words from the Northern and Southern Dynasties period.
4. A formal layer of words based on the language spoken in Chang'an, the capital during the Tang dynasty.

Southern Min and Other Asian Languages

Southern Min (Hokkien) has roots going back to the Tang Dynasty. Because of the strong influence of Tang culture, many Southern Min words sound similar to words in Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. This is because these languages also borrowed words from Chinese during the Tang Dynasty.

See also

• Chinese in Singapore
• Languages of China
• Languages of Taiwan
• Languages of Thailand
• Malaysian Chinese

Related languages

• Fuzhou dialect (Min Dong branch)
• Lan-nang (Philippine dialect of Minnan)
• Medan Hokkien (North-Sumatra, Indonesia dialect of Minnan)
• Penang Hokkien
• Singaporean Hokkien
• Southern Malaysia Hokkien
• Taiwanese Minnan