Varieties of Chinese

There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but are identified by common correspondences with selected features of Middle Chinese.

Chinese varieties differ in their phonology, vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All have phonemic tones, with northern varieties tending to have fewer distinctions than southern ones. Many have tone sandhi, with the most complex patterns in the coastal area from Zhejiang to eastern Guangdong. There are major lexical and grammatical differences between northern and southern varieties, but often some northern areas have features found in the south, and vice versa.

Standard Chinese takes its phonology from the Beijing dialect, with vocabulary from the Mandarin group and grammar based on literature in the modern written vernacular. It is one of the official languages of China, the de facto official language of Taiwan and one of the four official languages of Singapore. It has become a pluricentric language, with differences in pronunciation and vocabulary between them. Standard Chinese is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.