Download or read book Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology written by David Prager Branner and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses the methodology of systematic Chinese Dialect classification, with particular attention to the conservative Miin and Hakka groups spoken in southern China. The primary linguistic methodology employed is the historical-comparative method, and the dialects chosen as examples of classification are those spoken in and around the township of Wann'an in western Fukien's Longyan country. The book features extensive comparative tables of dialect forms, and a two-hundred page appendix outlining the diasystem of the four principal Wann'an dialects.