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Southwestern Mandarin?
edit@Kwamikagami: You've designated New Xiang as Southwestern Mandarin citing Zhou & You (1986). Why does this source override all the others, which classify it as Xiang? Kanguole 21:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- There hasn't been much since that addresses the issue, AFAIK. Xiang tends to be a bit obscure. — kwami (talk) 21:40, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- That doesn't seem to be much of a basis for discarding the consensus view. Kanguole 21:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- @Kwamikagami: Most authorities classify New Xiang as Xiang. Why should this one take precedence over the others? Kanguole 09:06, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- The next sentence in the lede of our article contradicts the classification as SW mandarin by contrasting the usage area of Southwestern mandarin an that of New Xiang. Classification of Chinese languages is controversial. New Xiang is no exception. Because of strong influences from Northern dialects and the existance of currently spoken more-conservative variety Old Xian, Defining what a Xiang dialect is isn't an exact science. Some sources call it a Xiang dialect which isn't surprising since we've decided to call it "New Xiang", but is a bit surprising considering just how many of the Xiang features have been replaced by (Southwest) Mandarin features. Chinese By Jerry Norman . various sources say the following: "some people prefer to classify New Xiang as Southwestern Mandarin" (Yuan et al. 1960) . "It is difficult to say what attitude one should have towards so called 'old xiang' and 'new xiang'", "New Xiang in northern Hunan and Old Xiang in southern Hunan are included in Xiang"
- I believe the solution is rather simple. Simply describe the classification as controversial and summarize the above as simply as possible, citing appropriate sources. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:53, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Norman describes a dialect continuum from Southwest Mandarin to Old Xiang. In such a situation, investigators draw different boundaries depending on which criteria they give most weight to. We should mention minority views such as that of Zhou & You, but most Chinese dialectologists follow Yuan Jiahua in classifying it as Xiang. Kanguole 17:18, 5 May 2015 (UTC)