Gan (赣语 / 江西话)

Gan, or Jiangxihua, is a variety of Chinese spoken by about 22 million people mainly in the Chinese province of Jiangxi (江西), and also in eastern Hunan (湖南), southeastern Hubei (湖北), southwestern Anhui (安徽) and northwestern Fujian (福建) provinces. It has some intelligibility with Mandarin and Wú. Gan (赣) is an alternative name name for Jiangxi province.

Gan pronunciation (Pinfa romanization system)

The Pinfa romanization system was developed by Dr C. F. Lau, a.k.a. Liu Zin Fad (劉鎮發) for Hakka, and was later adapted for Gan and Xiang.

Gan has nine main dialects:

Changdu (昌都片), which is spoken in northwest Jiangxi.
Yiliu (宜瀏片), which is spoken in central parts of western Jiangxi.
Jicha (吉茶片), which is spoken in central parts of southern Jiangxi.
Fuguang (撫廣片) , which is spoken in central parts of eastern Jiangxi.
Yingyi (鷹弋片), which is spoken in the northeast of Jianxi.
Datong (大通片), which is spoken in the southeast of Hubei.
Leizi (耒資片), which is spoken in the southeast of Hunan.
Dongsui (洞綏片), which is spoken in the southwest of Hunan.
Huaiyue (懷嶽片), which is spoken in the southwest of Anhui.

Download an alphabet chart for Gan (Excel)

Sample texts in Gan

春曉　孟浩然
春眠不覺曉，
處處聞啼鳥。
夜來風雨聲，
花落知多少？

Cun Hieu – Men Hau-len
cun mien but gok hieu,
cu cu mun ti tieu.
ya loi fung ui sang,
fa lok zi do seu?

人人生而自由，在志向跟权利上一律平等。渠们赋有理性跟良心，并理当以弟兄义气相对待。

Transliteration

Ngin ngin sang e ciiu, cai zi son gen kuanli song itlit piangdeng. Giemen fuiu lising gen liangsin, bing li dong i tixiang ngi ci siong ditai.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Books about Chinese characters and calligraphy
Mandarin, Shanghainese, Hokkien, Taiwanese and Cantonese learning materials

Videos in Gan

Links

Information about Gan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gan_Chinese
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/赣语
 http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_language.asp?code=KNN
http://www.chiculture.net/0604/html/c09/0604c09.html

Sinitic (Chinese) languages

Dungan, Cantonese, Fuzhounese, Gan, Hakka, Jian'ou, Mandarin, Puxian, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hakka, Teochew, Weitou, Wenzhounese, Xiang

Chinese pages

Written Chinese: Oracle Bone Script, Simplified characters, Bopomofo, Types of characters, Structure of written Chinese, Evolution of characters, How the Chinese script works, Xiao'erjing, General Chinese

Spoken Chinese: Mandarin, Dungan, Wu, Shanghainese, Wenzhounese, Yue, Cantonese, Weitou, Min, Jian'ou, Taiwanese, Teochew, Fuzhounese, Puxian, Hakka, Xiang, Gan, How many people speak Chinese?

Semanto-phonetic writing systems

Akkadian Cuneiform, Ancient Egyptian (Demotic), Ancient Egyptian (Hieratic), Ancient Egyptian (Hieroglyphs), Chinese, Chữ-nôm, Cuneiform, Japanese, Jurchen, Khitan, Linear B, Luwian, Mayan, Naxi, Sawndip (Old Zhuang), Sui, Sumerian Cuneiform, Tangut (Hsihsia)

Other writing systems

Page last modified: 15.03.23

[top]

You can support this site by Buying Me A Coffee, and if you like what you see on this page, you can use the buttons below to share it with people you know.

Conversations - learn languages through stories

If you like this site and find it useful, you can support it by making a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or by contributing in other ways. Omniglot is how I make my living.

Note: all links on this site to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr are affiliate links. This means I earn a commission if you click on any of them and buy something. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site.

[top]