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"Chinese" is a blanket term covering many different varieties spoken across China. Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect, and is used as a lingua franca across China.
Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetanlanguage family. Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen dialect groups, depending on the classification.
The conventionally accepted set of seven dialect groups first appeared in the second edition of the dialectology handbook edited by Yuan Jiahua (1961).
In order of decreasing number of speakers, they are:
In addition to the varieties listed below, it is customary to speak informally of dialects of each province (such as Sichuan dialect and Hainan dialect). These designations do not generally correspond to classifications used by linguists, but each nevertheless has characteristics of its own.
In addition to the varieties within the Sinitic branch of Sino-Tibetan, a number of mixed languages also exist that comprise elements of one or more Chinese varieties with other languages.
A group of distinctive Chinese dialects in South China, including Yuebei Tuhua and Xiangnan Tuhua. It incorporates several Chinese dialects, as well as Yao languages.
^The official sanction of Mandarin as an official language has given rise to the following varieties of Standard Mandarin in areas that did not originally speak any dialect of the Mandarin group:
^For example, though the Southwestern Mandarin of Chengdu is intelligible to speakers of Standard Chinese, other local variants of Southwestern Mandarin may not be mutually intelligible to each other.
References
^Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2012), Zhōngguó yǔyán dìtú jí (dì 2 bǎn): Hànyǔ fāngyán juǎn 中国语言地图集(第2版):汉语方言卷 [Language Atlas of China (2nd edition): Chinese dialect volume], Beijing: The Commercial Press, pp. 3, 125, ISBN978-7-100-07054-6.
^Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Li, Rong; Baumann, Theo; Lee, Mei W. (1987), Language Atlas of China, Longman, ISBN978-962-359-085-3.
^Kurpaska, Maria (2010). Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects". Walter de Gruyter. p. 63. ISBN978-3-11-021914-2.
