It’s safe to say that the Chinese language is one of the most popular languages in the world. But did you know that Chinese actually encompasses a huge spectrum of different dialects that sound nothing alike? Oh yes, if you think Chinese (Mandarin) is hard to learn, you ain’t seen anything yet!
Officially, there are ten recognized Chinese dialects (or eight, depending on who you ask) that are spoken in China and throughout the world, some of which have a large multitude of native speakers while others are confined to certain geographical areas.
However, there are also some of the lesser-known dialects and subvarieties that are spoken by indigenous tribes, making Chinese one of the most diverse languages in the world.
Let’s take a look at some of the most spoken Chinese dialects in the world. See if you can recognize any of them!
Note: for the purposes of this article, we will only focus on the common dialects of Chinese that are spoken by large numbers of people.
Where is Chinese spoken?
Chinese is one of the most ancient languages in the world, with thousands of years of history. To pinpoint the exact origin of Chinese would be quite an impossible task, as the Sino-Tibetan language is one that evolved over the many years when China was divided into smaller warring states, each adding their own influence and dialects to the language.
Eventually, many of the lesser dialects and languages died out and several main Chinese dialects became the lingua franca of different areas. Today, the Chinese language and most of its dialects are spoken in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, as well as locations where there are vibrant Chinese communities (such as Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States).
What’s more thanks to the popularity of Chinese being an international language for business and work, learning Chinese is a popular interest shared by many people around the world. To date, it’s estimated that no less than 1.3 billion people speak at least one Chinese dialect, making it one of the most widely spoken global languages.
1. Mandarin
Of all the Chinese dialects currently in use, Mandarin is easily the most recognizable and most widely used. With over a billion speakers, it is the dialect that most people around the world associate with the Chinese language.
Also known as Putonghua (meaning “common language”), Mandarin is the official dialect in Mainland China, spoken by almost every person in the country and taught as a compulsory subject in all schools. It’s also one of the main languages in Taiwan and one of the six official languages of the United Nations!
Mandarin is mainly characterized by its four (or five, if you count neutral tones) distinctive tones that help Mandarin speakers identify and understand different words and phrases. Those of you who want to learn Mandarin online will know that it’s one of the most popular “languages” (technically dialect) to learn, as it’s used in many parts of the world, especially for business.
The popularity of Mandarin as the national dialect took off as early as the late Ming Dynasty in the 14th century when the dialect was chosen as the official language of the imperial court in Beijing before its influence quickly spread throughout northern China.
If you visit Mainland China today, you’ll quickly realize that Mandarin sounds a lot more pristine and clear in the north than in the south. That difference is definitely down to historical roots! What’s more, while Mandarin is also widely spoken in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, you’ll notice that they sound slightly different albeit still intelligible.
2. Cantonese
While Cantonese isn’t the second-most widely spoken Chinese dialect, it certainly ranks as such when it comes to popularity. In fact, one could argue that it is one of the most spoken Chinese dialects if you include people who speak it outside of Mainland China.
Originating in ancient Guangzhou (once known as the Canton Region), Cantonese is today one of the most common Chinese dialects in the southern part of China — Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and more. While Mandarin is also spoken in these parts of Mainland China, Cantonese is the lingua franca, with around 80 or so million native speakers. You’ll also find Cantonese speakers in Malaysia and other parts of Southeast Asia, although this number pales in comparison to Mandarin speakers.
Compared to Mandarin, Cantonese has slightly more tones (six) that speakers use to differentiate between words. While there is a certain degree of intelligibility between the two dialects, they are distinctively different in terms of romanization, vocabulary usage, and pronunciation. Thankfully, it’s quite easy to learn Cantonese online as it is the second most popular dialect among language learners.
Fun fact: Cantonese in Mandarin can either be called guangdong hua (Guangdong language) or yue yu (Yue language). The former is more accurate while the latter technically refers to a wider range of dialects. That’s because Cantonese itself is actually a branch of the Yue dialect, spoken by people living south of the Pearl River Delta. However, because Cantonese was the predominant subdialect, it eventually became associated with the word yue yu.
3. Wu
The first time I heard the Wu dialect, I was extremely confused, and you would be too. That’s because it sounds like both Mandarin and Cantonese but it isn’t!
Often referred to as “Shanghainese” (not 100% accurate as certain areas like Hangzhou speak a sub-variety of the dialect), the Wu dialect is the second most spoken Chinese dialect in Mainland China. After among all the Chinese dialects, the Wu dialect boasts a pool of around 80 million plus speakers, most of whom are in Shanghai and the coastal areas of the Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces in the eastern regions of Mainland China.
The Wu dialect has eight different tones. However, it follows a similar grammatical pattern and uses the same characters as Mandarin. One key characteristic of the Wu dialect is that it’s often spoken at a rapid pace, so it sounds “soft, light, and flowing”.
4. Min
After the Wu dialect, the next most spoken Chinese dialect is the Min dialect. With over 60 million speakers, it is the fourth most widely spoken dialect in Mainland China, often spoken in the Fujian Province. What makes the Min dialect special is that it is one of the oldest Chinese dialects, dating as far back as the Sui and Tang Dynasties, around 600 A.D.
These days, the most common variety of the Min dialect you’ll hear is Hokkien (or fujian in Mandarin), also known as Minnan or Southern Min. This is largely spoken in the Xiamen region of southern Fujian and amongst Chinese communities in Malaysia, Singapore, and more. Before anyone asks, yes, there is also a Northern Min dialect, but that is largely only spoken in the Nanping Prefecture, with only about two million speakers.
In fact, there are also subvarieties of the Min dialect that are quite widely spoken, such as Taiwanese, a slightly different version of the Southern Min dialect, and Teochew, a subdialect from Chaozhou, a city in the Guangdong District.
5. Hakka
The Hakka (or kejia in Mandarin) is another one of the most common Chinese dialects, with close to 50 million native speakers in Mainland China, and plenty more around the world.
As the name implies, this particular Chinese dialect is spoken by the Hakka people. However, what makes Hakka unique is that the dialect isn’t linked to any particular region. As such, it can usually be heard in scattered regions around the world, mostly in southern China and in places with vibrant Hakka communities like Malaysia and Taiwan.
Hakka isn’t typically taught in schools and, given its increasingly limited use, can be seen as a linguistic heritage that is slowly dying out — most younger generations barely speak a word of Hakka, even in Mainland China. That said, in southern China (extending to Hong Kong and Macau), you can still find Hakka villages where most inhabitants speak the dialect.
6. Gan
The Gan dialect is another one of the most spoken Chinese dialects that sound similar to Min and Hakka. After all, like those dialects, the Gan dialect is most often heard around the southeastern region, although it is more concentrated in the inland areas and not along the coastal zones — think: Jiangxi, Hubei, and Anhui.
All in all, there are an estimated 60 million native Gan speakers, with the Nanchang subvariety often considered the most representative branch of the dialect. The best way to describe how the Gan dialect sounds is that it is a mix of Mandarin and Hakka, although it leans more towards the latter in terms of pronunciation and phonetics.
Interestingly, the Gan dialect is perhaps one of the oldest common Chinese dialects, being traced all the way back to the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC, when large swathes of Han Chinese migrated to the Jiangxi Province. The historical nature of the Gan dialect can be seen through its lexicon as it contains many words that are rarely (if ever) used in Mandarin today.
7. Xiang
One of the lesser-known Chinese dialects is the Xiang dialect, also popularly known as Hunanese. As you might have guessed, this particular dialect is often spoken in Hunan Province, as well as in Guangxi, Hubei, and the Xiangjiang River Basin. All in all, there’s an estimate of about 35 million or more native speakers.
When you first hear the Xiang dialect, you might think that it’s a subvariant of Mandarin, and you would be historically correct. This particular dialect can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (between the 14th and 17th centuries), when large groups of people migrated to Hunan and started speaking with a dialect that was slightly different in tone than that of Mandarin.
Today, you’ll likely hear Hunanese only spoken by locals in the area as it is one of the most scarcely-heard spoken dialects of Chinese since there aren’t that many formal resources that teach it.
8. Jin
The Jin dialect (found mostly in certain parts of northern China like Shanxi, Hebei, and Inner Mongolia), is spoken by around 63 million people, which makes it one of the most widely-spoken dialects of Chinese. However, it’s also one of the most disputed Chinese dialects because of how closely it resembles Mandarin.
In fact, before 1985, the Jin dialect was counted as a subvariety of Mandarin, before it was elevated to the status of a high-level dialect due to it retaining the entry tone (a phonological tone found in Middle Chinese dialects) in some of its words, thereby making distinct from Mandarin.
Historically, the Jin dialect can be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty of 14th century China.
9. Cheng-Yu
Another one of the most common Chinese dialects that is cause for debate is the Cheng-Yu dialect, a unique Chinese dialect spoken mainly in the Chengdu and Chongqing regions in the southwest of China. With over 90 million speakers, it’s one of the most widely spoken dialects of Chinese, though some linguists might dispute that.
The reason for this is because Cheng-Yu, at least to me, sounds just like Mandarin but with different tones of pronunciation. I remember hearing Cheng-Yu for the first time on douyin (Chinese Tiktok), and how it sounded like a distorted version of Mandarin. I could understand perfectly what was said, it just sounded different to me. This has led to some people disputing that Cheng-Yu (or Chongqing dialect as it’s more commonly known) is an accent rather than a dialect.
However, there are some instances where different characters are used in Cheng-Yu. For example, the word zhidao (to know) in Mandarin is sometimes xiaode in Chongqing dialect. Mutually intelligible, yes, but certainly different from putonghua.
10. Ping
The Ping dialect is one of the most obscure Chinese dialects that is spoken in Mainland China, mostly because it’s mainly only spoken in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and a scattering of a few native speakers in Yunnan. That said, it is a widely-spoken trade language in the area with around 7 million native speakers.
Little is known about the Ping dialect, apart from the fact that it was designated as a separate dialect in 2008 and uses a phonetic system that is similar to Cantonese and other Yue dialects but also not quite the same. What’s interesting is that most speakers of the Ping dialect are known as Zhuang people, genetically different from the majority of Han people of China.
11. Hui
The Hui dialect is perhaps one of the most underrated Chinese dialects in China, spoken by only about four million people, most of whom belong to the Hui ethnic group found in the historical mountainous regions of Huizhou and Anhui.
Like Hakka, the Hui dialect is a historical dialect that is slowly losing its heritage but this is mainly because of the limited reach of the dialect itself. Since mostly only locals speak the dialect, most Hui native speakers choose to converse using Mandarin or other more well-known dialects.
Final thoughts
And there you have it: 11 of the most commonly spoken Chinese dialects you’ll hear in the world today (though mostly in China). Did you find any of these dialects interesting, or are you actively learning any of them? Drop us a comment to let us know!