Sino-Tibetan · ISO 639-3 nan
Min Nan Chinese Language Min Nan
Min Nan Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 50 million people in 3 countries. It is written in the Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts.
Where Min Nan Chinese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Language family
- Sino-Tibetan
- Sinitic
- Min
- Coastal Min
- Southern Min-Pu-Xian
- Southern Min
- Min Nan Chinese
Writing system
Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts
Related languages
About the Min Nan Chinese language
Min Nan Chinese (Min Nan) is spoken by about 50 million people, which makes it the 35th most spoken language in the world — just behind Bhojpuri (52 million) and ahead of Kannada (49 million). It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and, more precisely, to the Southern Min group within the Min branch.
Where is Min Nan Chinese spoken?
Min Nan Chinese is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in China (27 million), Singapore (349,650) and Macau (23,843).
Share of the population that speaks Min Nan Chinese: China 1.9% (27 million), Singapore 5.8% (349,650) and Macau 3.7% (23,843).
Min Nan Chinese is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Min Nan Chinese is written in the Simplified Han, Traditional Han and Latin scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Hainanese, Pu-Xian Chinese, Min Dong Chinese and Min Bei Chinese.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 nan.
Frequently asked questions about Min Nan Chinese
How many people speak Min Nan Chinese?
Where is Min Nan Chinese spoken?
What language family does Min Nan Chinese belong to?
What is Min Nan Chinese called in Min Nan Chinese?
Is Min Nan Chinese an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.