Teochew Min
| Teochew | |
|---|---|
| Chaozhou, Chaoshan, Teo-Swa | |
| 潮州話 / 潮汕話 / 潮語 | |
| Native to | China, overseas communities (particularly in Southeast Asia) |
| Region | Eastern Guangdong (Chaoshan) |
| Ethnicity | Teochew people |
Native speakers | About 14 million in Chaoshan (2004) more than 5 million overseas |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Chinese characters Teochew Romanization Peng'im | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | chao1238 |
| Linguasphere | 79-AAA-ji |
| Teochew Min | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 潮州話 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 潮州话 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Teochew, also known as Swatow or Teo-Swa, is a Southern Min language spoken by the Teochew people in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong and by their diaspora around the world. It is sometimes referred to as Chiuchow, its Cantonese rendering, due to English romanization by colonial officials and explorers. It is closely related to Hokkien, as it shares some cognates and phonology with Hokkien.
Teochew preserves many Old Chinese pronunciations and vocabulary that have been lost in some of the other modern varieties of Chinese. As such, Teochew is described as one of the most conservative Chinese languages.