Gàn Gan is spoken by about 20.5 million people in Jiangxi province and in parts of Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and Fujian provinces. Gan is a Chinese dialect marked by aspirated initials, which refers to the voiceless initial that is breathed but not specifically articulated. Gan is closely related to Hakka. Mín B?i (Northern Min) Mín B?i has about 10,3 million speakers mainly in Northern Fujian Province and Singapore. Mín is the Classical Chinese name for Fujian province and B?i means 'north' or 'northern'. Mín Dōng (Eastern Min) Mín Dōng is spoken mainly in east central Fujian Province and also in Brunei, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Singapore, Thailand. The approximate number of native speakers is 250,000. Mín Zhōng (Central Min) Mín Zhōng is spoken mainly in central Fujian Province. Dungan Dungan is spoken by the Muslim Hui people in China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There are approximately 50,000 speakers. Dungan is the only variety of Chinese not with Chinese characters. Instead it is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. P?-Xián P?-Xián is spoken by about 6,000 people mainly in east central Fujian Province and in Malaysia and Singapore. Huīzhōu Huīzhōu is spoken in southern Anhui and northern Zhejiang provinces. It used to be considered as a dialect of Mandarin, but is now thought to be a separate variety of Chinese. Various Chinese spoken languages make Chinese culture more colorful. In order to make communication easier, the Chinese government has set a standard language, however, the different Chinese dialects are important parts of not only Chinese culture but also world culture. |