Gàn

Gan is the Sinitic language of the Jiangyou people, spoken chiefly across central and northern Jiangxi and into eastern Hunan, southeastern Hubei, southwestern Anhui and northwestern Fujian, with the Nanchang dialect as its prestige form. Chinese settlement of the Gan valley began with the Qin campaign against the Baiyue after 221 BCE, and in 202 BCE the Han founded Nanchang as the seat of Yuzhang Commandery, whose growing population gave the language its shape under the Han.

When the fourth-century upheaval of the Five Barbarians drove refugees south, Jiangxi served as a staging post and the old Gan speech absorbed northern elements.

From the Five Dynasties period, 907 to 960, emigrants from Jiangxi carried Gan into Hunan, Hubei, Anhui and Fujian. Phonetically it is the closest of the Chinese varieties to Hakka, and like the other Sinitic languages it is written in Chinese characters.