fangyan

See also: fāngyán and fángyán

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Mandarin 方言 (fāngyán).

Noun

fangyan (uncountable)

1. Synonym of topolect (a regional variety of Chinese)
   • 1991 January 1, Michael Clyne, Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 305:

     During this time the language has diversified into a number of so-called fangyan which share the same written form but are radically different in phonology, to such an extent that the spoken fangyan are not mutually intelligible.

   • 2005 January 31, Victor H. Mair, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Paul R. Goldin, Hawai‘i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture, University of Hawaii Press, →ISBN, page 2:

     If analyzed by the standards applied to languages in Europe or South Asia, these fangyan would be classified as branches of the Sinitic group. Speakers from any one of the major fangyan are incapable of conversing with speakers from those of any of the other major fangyan.

   • 2019 November 20, Wai-Siam Hee, Remapping the Sinophone: The Cultural Production of Chinese-Language Cinema in Singapore and Malaya before and during the Cold War, Hong Kong University Press, →ISBN, page 2:

     One consequence of such misinformation is the tendency to view Mandarin as a single Chinese language, and fangyan as subdivisions of it. […] Actually, Chao Yuen Ren (2002b, 82) himself, in a 1959 lecture at National Taiwan University, accepted that 'fangyan in the broad sense if the term refers to fundamentally different languages'.