Jìxī

Jixi denotes the Ji-She branch of Hui Chinese, the speech of historical Huizhou Prefecture in the mountainous south of Anhui, centred on Jixi and She counties and reaching into Ningguo and Jingde, with Chun'an across the Zhejiang border. Jixi itself was established as a county in 776 under the Tang dynasty.

Hui dialects took shape as the Chinese brought by migrants from the Central Plains absorbed elements of the language of the indigenous Shanyue peoples. Hemmed in between Wu and Gan, their classification has long been disputed. Jixihua is the leading variety of the Ji-She branch and shows clear Wu influence, and the speech of She county once served as the representative pronunciation of Huizhou speech.

During the Ming and Qing, Huizhou merchants carried the dialect across the empire, while newcomers speaking Jianghuai Mandarin settled the region, widening an already sharp internal variation in which neighbouring townships could be mutually unintelligible.