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Phonemic evidence reveals interwoven evolution of Chinese dialects

Han Chinese experienced substantial population migrations and admixture in history, yet little is known about the evolutionary process of Chinese dialects. Here, we used phylogenetic approaches and admixture inference to explicitly decompose the underlying structure of the diversity of Chinese dialects, based on the total phoneme inventories of 140 dialect samples from seven traditional dialect groups: Mandarin, Wu, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Min and Yue. We found a north-south gradient of phonemic differences in Chinese dialects induced from historical population migrations. We also quantified extensive horizontal language transfers among these dialects, corresponding to the complicated socio-genetic history in China. We finally identified that the middle latitude dialects of Xiang, Gan and Hakka were formed by admixture with other four dialects. Accordingly, the middle-latitude areas in China were a linguistic melting pot of northern and southern Han populations. Our study provides a detailed phylogenetic and historical context against family-tree model in China.

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