Gan (linguistics)
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| Gan 赣语 |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | China | |
| Region: | central and northern Jiangxi, estern Hunan, parts of Fujian, Anhui, Hubei | |
| Total speakers: | 20 million | |
| Ranking: | 45 | |
| Language family: | Sino-Tibetan Chinese Gan |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | zh | |
| ISO 639-2: | chi (B) | zho (T) |
| ISO 639-3: | gan | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Gan (赣语) is one of the major divisions of spoken Chinese, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, concentrated in and typical of Jiangxi Province.
Different dialects of Gan exist, and the representative dialect is the Nanchang dialect.
The name "Gan" comes from the shortened name of Jiangxi Province.
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[edit] Classification
Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is plenty of dispute as to whether Gan is a language or a dialect.
Please see Identification of the varieties of Chinese for the issues surrounding this dispute.
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This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
[edit] Geographical distribution
Gan is spoken by 20-50 million people, over most of the northern two-thirds of Jiangxi Province, as well as the northwest of Fujian; and some parts of Anhui and Hubei in mainland China.
[edit] History
Ancient Ages
In the Qin Dynasty（221 BC）, large troops were sent to the southern China in order to conquer the Baiyue（百越） territories in Fujian and Guangdong, and a large quantity of Han Chinese immigrated to Jiangxi afterwards. In the early Han Dynasty（202 BC）, Nanchang was set up to be the capital of Yuzhang Commandery（豫章郡）（this name comes from the original name of Gan River）, with 18 counties（縣）all over Jiangxi. And the population of Yuzhang Commandery increased to 1,670,000（AD 140） from 350,000（AD 2）, with a net growth of 1,320,000. Yuzhang Commandery ranked forth in the population among more than 100 commanderies in China of that time. As the largest commandery of YangZhou（揚州）, Yuzhang Commandery accepted the two fifths of the population and meanwhile, Gan gradually took shape at this time.
Middle Ages
Because of the flames of wars of a long period in the central China, the first large immigration took place in the history of China. The people in the central China enormously moved to the southern China for escaping wars, and at this time, Jiangxi played a role of transfer station. So the ancient Gan was mixed with the northern Kouan-houa（官話）. After hundreds of years of the Southern Dynasties, Gan still remained many characters proper in spite of certain mixture of Kouan-houa. Up to the Tang Dynasty, there wasn’t much difference between the old Gan and the modern Gan. Since the Five Dynasties, the people in the centre and the north of Jiangxi began to move to the east of Hunan, the east of Hubei, the south of Anhui and the northwest of Fujian. In this period of hundreds of years, Gan spread with the immigration and its distribution was formed from then on.
Near Ages
In this period, Kouan-houa turned to be a language based on the Beijing mandarin, owing to the politic factors. And at the same time, the difference between Gan and Kouan-houa was continuously enlarged. However, because Jiangxi geographically borders on the zones of Jianghuai Kouan-houa, Xiang, Hakka, Gan proper has also been influenced by the languages around, especially in its border districts.
Modern Times
After 1949, as a “dialect” in Mainland China, Gan faced a severe situation. The impact of Mandarin is quite evident due to official campaigns. Nowadays, quite many youths cannot master the expressions of Gan, even no longer speak Gan. These years, thanks to more and more requests to protect the local language, Gan goes to appear in the Medias, and there are already the news-casts and tele-plays of Gan.
[edit] Main Characters
Sounds
Gan（Nanchang dialect, e.g.）has 19 syllable onsets（聲母）, 65 syllable rimes（韻母） and 7 tones. It doesn’t have the retroflex consonant（捲舌音） and R Finals（兒化音 Erhua） which abundantly exist in Mandarin.（These syllables are formed after the Middle Ages, Gan didn’t change with Mandarin.）
[edit] Citation tones
| Tone number | Tone name | Tone contour |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | yin ping (陰平) | 42 |
| 2 | yang ping (陽平) | 24 |
| 3 | shang sheng (上聲) | 213 |
| 4 | yin qu (陰去) | 55 |
| 5 | yang qu (陽去) | 21 |
| 6 | yin ru (陰入) | 5 |
| 7 | yang ru (陽入) | 21 |
Grammar
In Gan, there are principally 9 grammatical tense – initial（起始）, progressive（進行）, experimental（嘗試）, durative（持續）, processive（經歷）, continuative（繼續）, repeating（重行）, perfect（已然）, complete（完成）.
Vocabulary
In Gan, there are quite many ancient words and expressions of ancient Chinese, which are now seldom or no longer used in Mandarin. For example, the noun ‘clothes’ in Gan is ‘衣裳’ while ‘衣服’ in Mandarin, the verb ‘sleep’ in Gan is ‘睏覺’ while ‘睡覺’ in Mandarin. And to describe something dirty, people use ‘下里巴人’ in Gan, which is a song of Chu（楚國） in the Spring and Autumn Period.
In addition, there are plenty of interjections in Gan（哈、噻、啵, e.g.）, which can largely strengthen the manifestation of sentences, and better express the different feeling.
[edit] Dialects
The Nanchang dialect is the canonical representative of the group. The mountainous geography of Jiangxi has resulted in a high degree of fragmentation, with many mutually unintelligible varieties. Speakers typically identify their speech as being that of a particular county, e.g., Wannianese, rather than Gan in general.
According to 《Diagram of divisions in People’s Republic of China》（《中華人民共和國行政區劃簡冊》）（２００４）, Gan is spoken by around ４８,０００,０００ people.
（２９,０００,０００ in Jiangxi; ４,５００,０００ in Anhui; ５,３００,０００ in Hubei; ９,０００,０００ in Hunan; ２７０,０００ in Fujian)
According to 《Atlas of Chinese languages》（《中國語言地圖集》）（１９８７）, there are ９ dialects in Gan.
1. Chang-Jing（昌靖片）, of which Nanchang Dialect is representative.
2. Yi-Liu（宜瀏片）, of which Yichun Dialect is representative.
3. Ji-Cha（吉茶片）, of which Ji’an Dialect is representative.
4. Fu-Guang（撫廣片）, of which Fuzhou Dialect is representative.
5. Ying-Yi（鷹弋片）, of which Yingtan dialect is representative.
6. Da-Tong（大通片）
7. Lei-Zi（耒資片）
8. Dong-Sui（洞綏片）
9. Huai-Yue（懷嶽片）
[edit] Writing system
Gan has no form of writing beyond Vernacular Chinese, which is used by all Chinese speakers.[1]
[edit] Note
[edit] References
- CHEN Chang-yi 《Summary of Gan》
- CHEN Chang-yi 《Chorography of languages in Jiangxi》
- LI Ru-long 《Investigation of Gan-Hakka》
- XIONG Zheng-hui 《Dictionary of Nanchang Dialect》
- YAN Sen 《Division of languages in Jiangxi》
- YAN Sen 《Summary of modern Chinese·Gan》
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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| Traditional categories: | ||||
| Other: | ||||
| Unclassified: | ||||
| Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. |
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| Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Nan | |||
| Min Dong | Min Zhong | Hainanese | Puxian | | Shaojiang | ||||
| Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | ||||
| Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese | |||
| Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner | |||
| Chinese: written varieties | ||||
| Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese | |||
| Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese | |||
