Mánjiǎng

Manjiang, or Man speech, is an Eastern Min dialect of the border hills where southern Zhejiang meets northern Fujian, spoken chiefly in Taishun and Cangnan counties of Wenzhou and in parts of Qingyuan. Together with the related Manhua of the Cangnan coast it forms the Man subgroup of Eastern Min.

Its vocabulary and sounds keep a strong indigenous substratum, possibly Austroasiatic or Tai-Kadai, left by the Yue peoples before Han settlement. Local genealogies trace the speaker families mainly to migrants who came from Wenzhou and Fujian between the Tang and the Yuan.

Early Ming settlers opened mines in these hills, and after a miners' revolt the court set up Taishun county in 1452, with the market town of Luoyang as its seat, to bring the mountain border under direct rule.