Sino-Tibetan · ISO 639-3 hsn
Xiang Chinese Language 湘語
Xiang Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 40 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Simplified Han, Latin and Traditional Han scripts.
Where Xiang Chinese is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Xiang Chinese
Language family
- Sino-Tibetan
- Sinitic
- Classical-Middle-Modern Sinitic
- Middle-Modern Sinitic
- Xiang Chinese
Writing system
Simplified Han, Latin and Traditional Han scripts
Related languages
About the Xiang Chinese language
Xiang Chinese (湘語) is spoken by about 40 million people, which makes it the 43rd most spoken language in the world — just behind Malayalam (42 million) and ahead of Polish (40 million). It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and, more precisely, to the Middle-Modern Sinitic group within the Classical-Middle-Modern Sinitic branch.
Where is Xiang Chinese spoken?
Xiang Chinese is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in China (41 million).
Xiang Chinese is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Xiang Chinese is written in the Simplified Han, Latin and Traditional Han 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 Mandarin Chinese, Wu Chinese, Yue Chinese, Jinyu Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Gan Chinese and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 hsn.
Frequently asked questions about Xiang Chinese
How many people speak Xiang Chinese?
Where is Xiang Chinese spoken?
What language family does Xiang Chinese belong to?
What is Xiang Chinese called in Xiang Chinese?
Is Xiang 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.