Longyan dialect

Longyan Min
Longyan Min
龍巖閩語
Native to	China.
Region	Fujian Province
Native speakers	740,000 (approx.)[citation needed]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Min Coastal Min Southern Min Hokkien Longyan Min; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
	Distribution of Hokkien dialects. Longyan Min is in yellow.

Longyan Min (龍巖閩語), is a variety of Min Chinese spoken in the Longyan region of the southern Chinese province of Fujian. The Longyan Min people had settled in the region from southern part of Fujian Province as early as the Tang dynasty period (618–907). Longyan Min has in the past been influenced by Hakka Chinese due to large numbers of Hakka migrants into the region. As a result, it has limited intelligibility with Southern Min dialects such as Teochew and Hokkien–Taiwanese. Today, Longyan Min is predominantly spoken in Longyan's Xinluo District and Zhangping City. Longyan Hakka on the other hand is spoken in Changting County, Yongding County, Shanghang County, Liancheng County and Wuping County.^[1]

Branner suggests that the Xinluo and Zhangping dialects should be grouped with the Datian dialect as an inland subgroup of Southern Min.^[2] However, he argues that the dialect of Wan'an township, in the northern part of Xinluo district, is a coastal Min variety that can not be assigned to Southern or Eastern Min.^[3]

References

^ Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Li, Rong; Baumann, Theo; Lee, Mei W. (1987). Language Atlas of China. Longman. ISBN 978-962-359-085-3.
^ Branner, David Prager (1999). "The Classification of Longyan" (PDF). In Simmons, Richard VanNess (ed.). Issues in Chinese Dialect Description and Classification. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series. Vol. 15. pp. 36–83.
^ Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka (PDF). Trends in Linguistics series. Vol. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-015831-1.