History of Gan Chinese


The history of Gan Chinese, a variety of Chinese spoken in modern-day China, stretches back to the beginning of the Qin dynasty. This long stretch of time is divided into Old Gan, late Old Gan, and Middle Gan periods.

Old Gan

Old Gan or Proto-Gan was spoken between the beginning of the Qin dynasty to the latter part of the Han dynasty.
In the year of 221 BC, General Tu Sui was sent on behalf of the Qin dynasty to the south of China in order to conquer the territory of Baiyue. 500,000 soldiers then settled down at Yugan, Nankang and three other places. This formed the initial Chinese population in Jiangxi. In 202 BC, Yuzhang Prefecture was set up by the Han dynasty. Following this, the local population increased rapidly.

Late Old Gan

Late Old Gan was spoken between the 3rd and 6th centuries. It was largely sinicized by new settlers from the Central Plain. Some scholars consider late Old Gan, together with Hakka Chinese and the Tongtai dialect of Jianghuai Mandarin to have been the lingua franca of the Southern Dynasties.
However, late Old Gan was still distinctly different from the official language. History of Southern Dynasties records that

Middle Gan

Middle Gan is the variety of Gan spoken between the Tang and Song dynasties. The last time of large-scale settlement in Jiangxi by people from the Central Plain took place as a result of the An Lushan Rebellion. Gan also became stabilized following this period.
Research on the rhyming system of Jiangxi poets of this period has been made in order to reconstruct the linguistic form of Middle Gan. Scholars have found that modern Gan still keeps many linguistic characteristics of this historical layer.
For example,
Late Middle Gan was the form of Gan spoken between the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
Some linguistic characteristics of late Middle Gan are:
Early Modern Gan was the form of Gan spoken from the Qing dynasty up to the beginning of modern times.
The textbook Lei Zi Meng Qiu published in the middle of the 19th century has been used to understand the linguistic form of Nanchang dialect; scholars have found that Gan has stayed relatively stable from this time. For example, the nasal ending merged into, and 7 tones were used.
Westerners also began to study Gan during this period. British diplomatic official Edward Harper Parker was the first westerner to recorded Gan speech. He noticed his friend Wen-yuan of Fuzhou merged muddy consonants with aspirate consonants.
Bibles in some Gan dialects were also published at this time.