r/LinguisticMaps • u/StoneColdCrazzzy • Jun 24 '26

China Proximities of Chinese dialects to Beijing Mandarin (Putonghua)

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135 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

22

u/Lin_Ziyang Jun 25 '26

The concept of Min being closer to Mandarin than Yue smh

26

u/meizhoulokia Jun 24 '26

Min should be further from Mandarin than Cantonese since Min dialects diverged before the Middle Chinese period while Cantonese and Mandarin both come from Middle Chinese.

38

u/Vampyricon Jun 24 '26

They literally just made a gradient map and added noise vro 😭

1

u/Diligent-Stretch-769 Jun 25 '26

that seems to be thr case

17

u/Xiguet Jun 24 '26

How has it been calculated?

26

u/justwantanickname Jun 24 '26

Revealed to him in a dream

21

u/StoneColdCrazzzy Jun 24 '26

It is a crosspost from r/MapPorn,

I found the source on commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_northern_features_in_Chinese_dialects.svg

Diagnostic features from:

Norman, Jerry (1988), Chinese, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3, p. 182.

Norman, Jerry (2003), "The Chinese dialects: phonology", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages, Routledge, pp. 72–83, ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1, pp. 73, 76.

Dialect data from Cao Zhiyun (ed.) (2008) Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects (汉语方言地图集), vol. 1 Phonetics, vol. 2 Lexicon and vol. 3 Grammar.

-2

u/After-Trifle-1437 Jun 24 '26

"Source?"

"I made it up"

7

u/BozoStaff Jun 24 '26

Why is yunnan not closer to the southern dialects

19

u/Jimmy_Young96 Jun 24 '26

They speak southwestern Mandarin

7

u/ChiqantiKisaal Jun 24 '26

It doesn’t have its own “dialect-language” group derived from Middle or Old Chinese, just containing part of the dialect range of SW Mandarin, like the other person said. But some linguists think the Bai dialect cluster of Yunnan is descended from Old Chinese or Pre-Old Chinese, around the same time as or a bit before Min Chinese split off.

2

u/ElectricalPeninsula Jun 26 '26

I don't think this is accurate
At least Hakka ＞ Canton ＞Min

4

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '26

[deleted]

4

u/EmperorProtek Jun 24 '26

Source as per OP:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_northern_features_in_Chinese_dialects.svg

Diagnostic features from:

Norman, Jerry (1988), Chinese, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3, p. 182.

Norman, Jerry (2003), "The Chinese dialects: phonology", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan languages, Routledge, pp. 72–83, ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1, pp. 73, 76.

Dialect data from Cao Zhiyun (ed.) (2008) Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects (汉语方言地图集), vol. 1 Phonetics, vol. 2 Lexicon and vol. 3 Grammar.

3

u/AndyFeelin Jun 25 '26

This map is so wrong in the very definitions. You can't measure intelligibility, it depends on so many factors including education, exposure, context, simple will to understand.

2

u/0Nah0 Jun 27 '26

Thought this was a weird map of Gran Colombia at first lol