Min Bei

Northern Min
Min Bei 闽北语
Spoken in	Southern China, United States (mostly California)
Region	northwestern & central Fujian; Nanping
Native speakers	10.3 million  (1984) (no recent data available)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Min Inland Min Northern Min
Dialects	Shao-Jiang Jian'ou
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mnp

The Min-Bei language, or Northern Min (simplified Chinese: 闽北; traditional Chinese: 閩北; pinyin: Mǐnběi) is a collection of dialects of Min spoken in Nanping Prefecture of northwestern Fujian which, apart from Shao-Jiang Min, are mutually intelligible.

The Chinese languages of Fujian province were traditionally divided into Min-Bei (Northern) and Min-Nan (Southern). However, dialectologists now divide Min more finely.^[1] By this narrower definition, Northern Min covers the dialects of Shibei (in Pucheng County), Chong'an (in Wuyishan City), Xingtian (in Wuyishan City), Wufu (in Wuyishan City), Zhenghe (in Zhenghe County), Zhengqian (in Zhenghe County), Jianyang and Jian'ou.^[1]

The dialects of eastern Nanping are sometimes split off as a separate division of Min, Shao-Jiang.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Zev Handel (2003). "Northern Min Tone Values and the Reconstruction of Softened Initials" (PDF). Language and Linguistics 4 (1): 47–84. http://intranet.ling.sinica.edu.tw/eip/FILES/journal/2007.3.9.9267824.79555112.pdf. Retrieved February 16, 2011. 

• Branner, David Prager (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka. Trends in Linguistics series, no. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 31-101-5831-0.