Jin Chinese
| Jin | |
|---|---|
| 晋语 / 晉語 晋方言 / 晉方言 | |
Jinyu written in Chinese characters (vertically, traditional Chinese on the left, simplified Chinese on the right) | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | most of Shanxi province; central Inner Mongolia; parts of Hebei, Henan, Shaanxi |
Native speakers | 48 million (2021) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cjy |
| Glottolog | jiny1235 |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-c |
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| Jin Chinese | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 晉語 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 晋语 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 山西話 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 山西话 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Shanxi speech | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Jin (simplified Chinese: 晋语; traditional Chinese: 晉語; pinyin: Jìnyǔ) is a group of Chinese linguistic varieties spoken by roughly 48 million people in northern China, including most of Shanxi province, much of central Inner Mongolia, and adjoining areas in Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi provinces.
Although Jin was traditionally classified as a branch of Mandarin due to partial mutual intelligibility with neighboring varieties, modern linguistic research has largely established Jin as a distinct Sinitic branch independent of Mandarin. In linguistic terms, Jin is widely regarded as the only major non-Mandarin Sinitic variety predominantly spoken in northern China, distinguishing it from surrounding Mandarin-speaking regions.