Lower Yangtze Mandarin
Lower Yangtze Mandarin (traditional Chinese: 下江官話; simplified Chinese: 下江官话; pinyin: Xiàjiāng Guānhuà) is one of the most divergent and least mutually-intelligible of the Mandarin languages, as it neighbours the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Sinitic languages. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (traditional Chinese: 江淮官話; simplified Chinese: 江淮官话; pinyin: Jiānghuái Guānhuà), named after the Yangtze (Jiang) and Huai Rivers. Lower Yangtze is distinguished from most other Mandarin varieties by the retention of a final glottal stop in words that ended in a stop consonant in Middle Chinese.
| Lower Yangtze Mandarin | |
|---|---|
| Xiajiang Guanhua | |
| Region | Huai and Yangzi Rivers (Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Jiangxi, Henan) |
| Ethnicity | Jianghuai people Subei people |
Native speakers | ca. 70 million (2011) |
| Written vernacular Chinese | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| ISO 639-6 | juai |
| Glottolog | jing1262 |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-bi |
Huang–Xiao Western Hongchao Eastern Hongchao Tong-Tai / Tai–Ru | |
During the Ming dynasty and early Qing dynasty, the lingua franca of administration was based on Lower Yangtze Mandarin. In the 19th century the base shifted to the Beijing dialect.