| Maihua | |
|---|---|
| 邁話 | |
| Native to | China |
| Region | Hainan (Sanya) |
Native speakers | 15,000 (2007) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
Maihua (simplified Chinese: 迈话; traditional Chinese: 邁話; pinyin: Màihuà, meaning 'Mai speech') or Mai dialect is a variety of Chinese of uncertain affiliation spoken in the area of 崖县 Yáxiàn (Sanya) in southern Hainan, China. It was classified as Yue in the Language Atlas of China. Ouyang, Jiang & Zou (2019) consider Mai to be a divergent Yue Chinese variety with Hakka and other mixed influences. There are just over 10,000 speakers of Mai in southern Hainan.
A comprehensive description of Mai was published in a monograph by Ouyang, Jiang & Zou (2019).
Mai speakers refer to themselves as mai¹³nɔn⁵⁵ (迈人).
Jiang et al. (2007) considers Mai to be a mix of Yue Chinese, Hakka-Gan, and Hainanese Min.
Mai is spoken in the following four villages in southern Hainan.
The Utsat language is spoken just to the west of the Mai area. Just to the southwest is Haibo Village (海波村), where Danzhouhua (儋州话) is spoken.
Shuinan Maihua, spoken in Yazhou District of Sanya. There are two origins of the differences between Maihua and modern Cantonese. One is the conservation of early Cantonese, and the other is the independant innovation after its arrival in Hainan.
This paper discusses the phonology and lists the homophony syllabary of Maihua, an unclassified dialect with some features similar to Yue group and Hakka, in Sanya city, Hainan province.
The Mai dialect is the speech of the sedentary Tanka people, which is a variety of Cantonese.