About Guanzhong Hua


关中话/關中話 Guanzhong Hua is mostly spoken in the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi, which is why it is also referred to as Guanzhong Hua.  It is spoken by many local people; however since it is not considered an official language, it is hard to find many video/entertainment sources of it being spoken online or on official TV stations / websites.  However, it is spoken regularly in everyday life. There are many differences between Guanzhong Hua and standard Chinese, but can be particularly noticed in pronunciation.

Preferred language name(s): 关中话, 關中話, Guanzhong Hua
Alternative names: Xi’an Hua (西安话/西安話), Shaanxi Hua (陕西话/陕西話)
Language classification: [Sino-Tibetan, Sinitic, Mandarin, Central-Plains Mandarin, Guanzhong Dialect].  However, Guanzhong Dialect is further divided into Xifu (西府话/西府話) and Dongfu Dialect (东府话/東府話).  We are focusing specifically on Xifu Dialect.
Geographical areas where spoken: Guanzhong Hua is mostly spoken within Shaanxi’s province Guanzhong region (also known as Guanzhong Plain region) in China.  It is also spoken in some parts of Gansu and Ningxia provinces. Xifu Dialect is mostly spoken mostly in Baoji, Tianshui, Qingyang, Pingliang, Longnan (in some areas), west of Xianyang city, Zhuanglang and other cities and towns. Dongfu Dialect is mostly spoken in Xi’an, Weinan, Tongchuan, Xianyang, Shangluo and other areas.
Approximate number of speakers: Couldn’t find any numbers although baidu lists it at 50 million, although we are not sure how accurate that is.
Other languages spoken in the community: Within the province, Mandarin (Standard Chinese), other many different languages from the Central Plains Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, and Jin Chinese.
Official language(s) in your country: Standard Chinese (also known as Mandarin or 現代標準漢語)
Other language(s) in your country: There are many many other languages in China. There are also recognized regional languages. However the official language is Standard Chinese.
Does your language have a widely accepted writing system? Yes. It uses the simplified Chinese characters
If yes, what materials are written? Not sure.

Language Background
My vitality assessment
Inter-generational transmission:
All community members speak the language.
Absolute number of speakers:
>100000
Speaker number trends:
Almost all community members speak the language; speaker numbers are stable or increasing.
Domains of use of the language:
Used in all domains except official ones (i.e. government and workplace); nearly all speakers value their language;
What have other sources said about your language?
We were unable to find anything on Guanzhong Hua on endangeredlanguages.com or ethnologue.com. Wikipedia did list Guanzhong Hua, however there was no number of speakers or vitality assessment reported.   On baidu it was reported that there were more than 50 million speakers, although we are unsure about how accurate that is.

Language Documentation Training Center