Which are the seven ancient Chinese dialects?

According to modern popular classification, modern Chinese dialects can be divided into seven major dialect areas, namely Mandarin dialect, Wu dialect, Hunan dialect, Hakka dialect, Fujian dialect, Cantonese dialect, and Gan dialect.

Dialect means "language spoken in four directions". The Chinese nation regards itself as the center and regards itself as "China" - the country in the center. The four directions are Dongyi, Xirong, Nanman and Beidi, all of whom are outsiders.

Traditionally, there are seven major dialects in China, including six in the south, namely Wu, Xiang, Gan, Min (northern and southern Fujian), Cantonese and Hakka. In the north, there is a kind of northern dialect. There are more dialects in the south and less in the north, just like the eight major cuisines in China, seven of them are in the south and there is only one Shandong cuisine in the north.

Extended information:

The formation of Chinese dialects

During the development process of Han Chinese society, there were different degrees of differentiation and unification, which gradually gave rise to dialects of Chinese. . There are many factors that contribute to the formation of dialects, including social, historical, geographical and other factors,

For example, the long-term small-scale peasant economy, social divisions, population migration, barriers of mountains and rivers, etc.; there are also factors that belong to the language itself factors, such as the imbalance of language development, the mutual conflict and mutual influence between different languages, etc.

Modern Chinese has various dialects, and they are distributed over a wide area. The differences between the various languages ??of modern Chinese are reflected in various aspects of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, among which the pronunciation aspect is particularly prominent.

Chinese is divided into two categories according to dialects: Mandarin dialect and other six southern dialects. Mandarin is very similar to lingua franca in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, so they are not independent dialects, that is, modern dialects. Chinese, called Mandarin-Chinese in English. Other southern dialects have no official language status.

Except for Hakka, Hokkien, Cantonese, and northern Wu dialect, they have not been standardized and are in a state of decline and disappearance. Except for Min and Cantonese, which retain many characteristics of ancient Chinese, the others can correspond to Guangyun and belong to the descendants of medieval Chinese. Hakka and Gan dialects are largely the descendants of Northern Dynasty Chinese of Medieval Chinese, while Wu and Xiang languages ??may be descendants of Southern Dynasties Chinese.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Chinese Dialect