Xiang Chinese (Yongzhou dialect)

Yongzhou Xiang (永州湘语) refers here to the Xiang varieties centered on Lingling and Lengshuitan in Yongzhou, southern Hunan. Recent classifications place much of this speech in the Yong–Quan branch, a corridor extending west toward Quanzhou and Guanyang in northern Guangxi; however, some studies classify the urban Yongzhou koine as Southwestern Mandarin, while southern counties also contain diverse Southern Hunan Tuhua, so “Yongzhou speech” is not homogeneous. Yong–Quan varieties are distinguished by their reflexes of Middle Chinese voiced initials and sibilants, and they differ substantially from Changsha-based New Xiang. They are normally written with standard Chinese characters rather than a separate orthography, while Standard Mandarin dominates formal education and administration.