During the Tang Dynasty, Shehua speakers lived in the Jiangxi-Guangdong-Fujian border region. Afterwards, they moved to their present locations further to the northeast.
Classification
Some linguists consider Shehua to be a variety of Hakka Chinese, while others consider it to be an unclassified variety of Chinese that has received some influence from Hakka and is not part of Hakka. Hiroki Nakanishi considers Shehua to be a Hakka dialect that may have a Sheyu substratum. However, Zhao considers Shehua to be an independent branch of Chinese, and that it should not be classified within Hakka. Depending on their locations, Shehua dialects have been variously influenced by Hakka, Gan, Wu, and Min.
Dialects
You divides Shehua into 9 dialectal areas, and with respective locations and speaker demographics from You listed as well. The Eastern Fujian and Southern Zhejiang dialectal areas each have over 100,000 speakers, while the smallest dialectal areas are in Guangdong and Jiangxi, with each having only a few thousand speakers. Altogether, there are more than 400,000 Shehua speakers in China.
Mindong 闽东区, spoken in the counties of Fu'an 福安, Fuding 福鼎, Xiapu 霞浦, Ningde 宁德, Shouning 寿宁, Zhouning 周宁, Zherong 柘荣, Pingnan 屏南, Luoyuan 罗源, Lianjiang 连江, Fuzhou 福州郊区, Minhou 闽侯, Minqing 闽清, and Yongqin 永泰. 184,000 speakers. In contact with Eastern Min.
Minbei 闽北区, spoken in the counties of Nanping 南平, Jian'ou 建瓯, Jianyang 建阳, Shaowu 邵武, Shunchang 顺昌, and Guangze 光泽. 21,000 speakers. In contact with Northern Min.
Minzhong 闽中区, spoken in the counties of Sanming 三明, Yong'an 永安, Shaxian 沙县, and Ninghua 宁化. Also spoken in Shuangguishan 双贵山, Youxi County, Fujian. 12,000 speakers. In contact with Central Min.
Minnan 闽南区, spoken in the counties of Licheng District 鲤城区, Anxi 安溪, Dehua 德化, Yongchun 永春, Hua'an 华安, Longyan 龙岩, and Zhangping 漳平. 12,000 speakers. In contact with Southern Min. In Zhangping City, Shanyangge Shehua 山羊隔畲话 is spoken by over 800 people in the two villages of Shanyangge 山羊隔, Guilin Township 桂林乡, and Jianci 尖祠, Xi'nan Township 溪南乡. Shanyangge Shehua is distinct from Shejiake 畲家客, which is a Southern Min dialect spoken by over 100 people in Zhangping County in the two villages of Changta Village 长塔村, Xianghu Township 象湖乡 and Wei Village 尾村, Shuangyang Township 双洋乡.
Zhe'nan 浙南区, spoken in the counties of Pingyang 平阳, Cangnan 苍南, Rui'an 瑞安, Wencheng 文成, Taishun 泰顺, Lishui 丽水, Jingning 景宁, Yunhe 云和, Longquan 龙泉, Songyang 松阳, Qingtian 青田, and Wuyi 武义. 120,000 speakers. In contact with Wu Chinese.
Zhezhong 浙中区, spoken in the counties of Longyou 龙游, Quxian 衢县, Lanxi 兰溪, Jinhua 金华, and Suichang 遂昌. 23,000 speakers. In contact with Wu Chinese.
Zhebei 浙北区, spoken in the counties of Tonglu 桐庐, Jiande 建德, Lin'an 临安, Fuyang 富阳, and Anji 安吉. 13,000 speakers. In contact with Wu Chinese.
Yuedong 粤东区, spoken in the counties of Chaozhou 潮州 and Fengshun 丰顺. 2,200 speakers. In contact with the Teochew dialect of Southern Min. In Fengshun County, it is spoken in Fengping Village 凤坪村, Tanjiang Town 潭江镇.
Gandong 赣东区, spoken in the counties of Guixi 贵溪 and Yanshan 铅山. 4,000 speakers. In contact with Gan Chinese. The Shehua variety of Taiyuan 太源畲族乡, Yanshan County, Jiangxi has been documented in detail by Hu & Hu, while the Shehua variety of Zhangping Township 樟坪畲族乡, Guixi City, Jiangxi has been documented in detail by Liu.
In Anhui Province, there is also a Shehua dialect spoken by about 2,400 people in Yunti She Ethnic Township, Ningguo City that has been influenced by Lower Yangtze Mandarin. You provides a comparative vocabulary list for the following 13 datapoints. The Zhebei dialectal area 浙北方言区 has not been included by You.
The following maps show ethnic She townships and other administrative divisions in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangxi provinces. The She people of these three provinces speak Shehua, while the She of central Guangdong and Guizhou speak Hmongic languages. The most Shehua speakers are located in Ningde Prefecture, Fujian, and Wenzhou and Lishui Prefectures, Zhejiang. Smaller communities of Shehua speakers are located in central Zhejiang, southern Fujian, the mountainous interior of western Fujian, and northeastern Jiangxi near its border with Fujian. It is not known whether Shehua is spoken by She people living in central and southern Jiangxi.
Phonology
Like many Hakka dialects, most Shehua dialects have the final stop consonants -p, -t, and -k. Some varieties of the Mindong Shehua dialect have the initial voiceless lateral fricative ɬ- where other Shehua dialects have an initial s-. Shehua has 6 phonemic contour tones, which can be organized into the following 6 tone categories.
Tone category 1: dark level 阴平
Tone category 2: light level 阳平
Tone category 3: rising 上声
Tone category 6: departing 去声
Tone category 7: dark entering 阴入
Tone category 8: light entering 阳入
Unique vocabulary
You notes that Shehua has many unique vocabulary items that have no cognates in Hakka, Gan, Wu, or any other Chinese language. Instead, many words have parallels in Hmong-Mien languages, and in Tai and Kam-Sui languages. Other words appear to have no parallels in any other language family or branch.
