Chinese Chinese linguistics and dialect

Hui (linguistics) Wikipedia

: The Hui (徽) dialects are unrelated to the Hui (回) ethnic group of China.

Hui, or Hui-yu (Simplified Chinese: 徽语; Traditional Chinese: 徽語; Hanyu Pinyin: Huīyǔ), or Huizhou-hua (Simplified Chinese: 徽州话; Traditional Chinese: 徽州話; Hanyu Pinyin: Huīzhōuhuà), is a subdivision of Chinese spoken language|spoken Chinese. Its exact status is greatly disputed among linguists. Some prefer to classify it under Wu (linguistics)|Wu, others prefer to classify it under Gan (linguistics)|Gan, still others set it apart as an independent branch.

Hui is spoken over a small area compared to other Chinese varieties: about ten or so mountainous county of China|counties in southern Anhui, plus a few more in neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangxi. Despite its small size, Hui displays a very high degree of internal variation. Nearly every county has its own distinct dialect unintelligible to a speaker a few counties away. It is for this reason that bilingualism and multilingualism are common among speakers of Hui.

Like all other varieties of Chinese language|Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Hui is a language or a dialect. See Chinese_language#Is_Chinese_a_Language_or_a_Family_of_Languages?|here for the issues surrounding this dispute.

language|name=Hui|nativename=徽语
|familycolor=tomato
|states=China
|region=southern Anhui, neighbouring portions of Zhejiang and Jiangxi, about 12 counties in total
|speakers=3.2 million|rank=Not in top 100
|family=Sino-Tibetan

 Chinese language|Chinese

  Hui
|nation=-
|agency=-
|iso1=zh|iso2=chi (B) / zho (T)|sil=CZH

Last Modified:   2005-02-27