hokkien and chaozhou hua (and gan and hakka)

[michaelm]

I'm a little confused on the naming schemes of certain dialects of Chinese. Specifically this:

Is it accurate to call Chaozhou Hua (spoken in Guangdong) Hokkien (mostly spoken in Fujian, Taiwan).

I made a side by side comparison of basic Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Gan and Chaozhou words at thekungpaochicken.com/chinesedialecttest.html but am unsure about whether to call Chaozhou Hua by the more familar name Hokkien or not.

[Quest]

Chaozhouhua is not Hokkien, Hokkien is Fujianhua(Min).

[michaelm]

thank you.

[naus888]

Chaozhouhua is actually grouped within Min (Hokkien) and not Yue (Cantonese), although it is more intelligible to people who speak Cantonese than Minnan. Because vocabulary and usage are more similar between Chaozhou and Cantonese.

[wix]

It is misleading to talk of a Min language. Minbei and Minnan are in fact different languages. Hokkien is generally used to refer to Minnan.

Chaozhou language is a dialect of Minnan. Not surprising given their close geographical proximity. Many of the words are the same or similar, but two speakers of the different dialects would have difficulty understanding each other.

[pazu]

Because vocabulary and usage are more similar between Chaozhou and Cantonese.

Are you sure??

[naus888]

Are you sure??

Yeah, Chaozhou has a lot of Cantonese influences. Like word order in comparisons:

I am bigger than you.

Cantonese: 我大过你

Chaozhou: 我大过你

Fujian Minnan: 我较大你

Usage of unequal-comparison prepositional 比:

Mandarin: 我比你大

Wu: 我比侬大 / 我比仔侬大 (Wu equal-comparison, e.g. I am as big as you, preposition is 得)

Lots of Cantonese vocabulary (pronounced in Chaozhou phonology) are used in Chaozhou.

Chaozhou is mainly a Min language because of its phonology (three-way consonants like all Min/Wu dialects), and certain peculiar ways of asking questions.

[ala]

The Mandarin and Wu comparisons I think share Altaic sentence patterns:

[Object 1] [X] [Object 2] [Y] [Comparison quality].