ABSTRACT

The Sinitic people called the Gan live primarily in Jiangxi Province, making up most of that province's population. The language form spoken by the Gan is sufficiently different from Mandarin to be treated as a separate sublanguage within Sinitic. The Gan River valley was not even within the boundaries of any of the outer states of the Warring States period, although the land around Poyang Lake belonged to the kingdom of Wu. In northern Jiangxi, kaolin and other clays had early been discovered and had brought a measure of local prosperity. The Gail-speaking domains are only roughly coterminous with Jiangxi as a province. The province of Jiangxi is famous in China for its porcelains, papers, ramie cloth, fruit, and forest products. Gan influence goes beyond provincial borders in several directions. The Gan sublanguage is usually typified by the dialect spoken in the provincial capital of Nanchang. Gan are generally stereotyped by other Chinese of north and south China.