| Mai | |
|---|---|
| Maihua | |
| 邁話 | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Hainan (Sanya) |
Native speakers | 15,000 (2007)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
Mai orMaihua (simplified Chinese:迈话;traditional Chinese:邁話;pinyin:Màihuà, meaning 'Mai speech') is avariety of Chinese of uncertain affiliation spoken in the area of 崖县Yáxiàn (Sanya) in southernHainan, China. It was classified asYue in theLanguage Atlas of China. Ouyang, Jiang & Zou (2019) consider Mai to be a divergent Yue Chinese variety withHakka and other mixed influences. There are just over 10,000 speakers of Mai in southern Hainan.[2]
A comprehensive description of Mai was published in a monograph by Ouyang, Jiang & Zou (2019).[2]
Mai speakers refer to themselves asmai¹³nɔn⁵⁵ (迈人).[2]
Jiang et al. (2007) considers Mai to be a mix ofYue Chinese,Hakka-Gan, andHainanese Min.[1]
Mai is spoken in the following four villages in southernHainan.[1]
TheUtsat language is spoken just to the west of the Mai area. Just to the southwest is Haibo Village (海波村), whereDanzhouhua (儋州话) is spoken.
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
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| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
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