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Min Nan

NameSouthern Min
Nativename  /   /  
FamilycolorSino-Tibetan
StatesChina (PRC and ROC areas), Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, United States (New York City), and other areas of Southern Min and Hoklo settlement
RegionSouthern Fujian province; the Chaozhou-Shantou (Chaoshan) area and Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong province; extreme south of Zhejiang province; much of Hainan province(if Hainanese or Qiong Wen is included); and most of Taiwan;
Speakers49 million
Fam2Chinese
Fam3Min
Fam4Coastal Min
Dia1Hokkien
Dia2Teochew
Dia3Hainanese
NationNone (Legislative bills have been proposed for Taiwanese (Amoy Southern Min) to be one of the 'national languages' in Taiwan); one of the statutory languages for public transport announcements in the ROC
AgencyNone (The Republic of China Ministry of Education and some NGOs are influential in Taiwan)
MapcaptionDistribution of Southern Min.
Iso3nan
NoticeIPA

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The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan ( ), are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora.

In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, in particular the Amoy and Taiwanese. Amoy and Taiwanese are both combinations of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou speech. The Southern Min family also includes Teochew and Hainanese. Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with the Amoy. However, Hainanese is generally not considered to be mutually intelligible with any other Southern Min variants.

Southern Min forms part of the Min language group, alongside several other divisions. The Min languages/dialects are part of the Chinese language group, itself a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Cantonese, or Mandarin. As with other varieties of Chinese, there is a political dispute as to whether the Southern Min language should be called a language or a dialect.


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