There were about 5 million Teochew speakers worldwide. The chinese dialect was predominantly spoken in Chaozhou (i.e. Chaoshan or "Swatow" region) in northern parts of Guangdong province, the region whereby Teochews came from. In Southeast Asia, there was a sizeable number of Teochew speakers in Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia. There were also Teochews in Hongkong and many other parts of the world.

In Singapore, Teochew is the 2nd largest chinese dialect group after the Hokkien.

From http://www.teochewdialect.net/introduction.php, it says that Teochew actually originated from Hokkien (Southern Min/Minnan language) as a result of migration of Fujian (hokkien) people from Fujian province to Swatow region from 9th till 15th century. The reason for the migration could be due to overpopulation. Because of geographical barrier and the influence from Hakka and Cantonese, the language gradually evolved into an independent Teochew language.



Teochew and Hokkien are mutually intelligible and is often classified as member of the Southern Min dialect group.

Do you know the history of Teochew?

Teochew used to say "teo chew nang 潮州人, hok kiang zou 福建祖", which means that Teochews' ancestors are Hokkien.

One example of Teochew being influence by Cantonese : toy 睇 ( see )

BTW Hainanese, Shanwei and Leizhou dialects are also classified as member of the Southern Min dialect group.

I don't know why most people separate out Teochiu as a different dialect from Hokkien.

Hokkien (minnan) is not a SINGLE dialect, you can have chang chiu hokkien, chuan chiu hokkien, amoy hokkien, taiwan hokkien.

So to be more accurate, it should be called Teochiu hokkien. (a dialect of the minnan language)

Eg. You don't separate out Penang hokkien as a separate dialect because it has malay words such as 'baru'. It is a unique form of Hokkien and should be called Penang Hokkien.

In summary, Singapore should just break up the chinese languages into 5 groups only ie.

Cantonese
Hokkien
Hakka
Mandarin (recent migrants)
Wu (recent migrants)

Why most people separate out Teochew as a different dialect from Hokkien?

1)Due to geographical isolation from Fujian, Teochew evolved into a separate dialect.

2)Chaozhou is located in eastern Guangdong province, not Fujian.

3)In Singapore’s history, there was a Hokkien-Teochew riots in 1854, leaving 400 dead and 300 homes destroyed.

4)Teochew people "wouldn't be happy" to be classified as Hokkien. (How I know that? Because I grew up in a Teochew kampong/village)

I learned from both Hokkien-Chinese 福建人 & Teochow-Chinese 潮州人 friends ( on separate accounts ) that they're ' paternal cousins ' share common ancestors from northern China,therefore can't and typically don't intermarry.Alos,they cited petty sibling rivalry & bloodline as reasons.

1. Teochiu is a separate dialect, but it is a dialect of hokkien (minnan), hokkien is not a single dialect, it consists of Amoy hokkien, quan chiu hokkien, chiang chiu hokkien etc.

2. Taiwan is also located outside Fujian, but it is still considered Taiwan hokkien. The same goes with Penang hokkien which is located in a different country from China. Are you saying they are not hokkien dialects due to their geographical location ? Chaozhou people migrated from Fujian province.

3. That's because most people in Singapore at that time were ignorant of the common origins and history of the Teochiu and 'Hokkien' people.

4. Same reason as number 3. It is just like saying that your cousins are not happy being related to you due to common surname, genes etc because both of you were separated when both of you were still young and thus, not knowing that you are related to your cousins.