What Chinese dialect is most similar to Middle Chinese?
No single dialect is exactly like Middle Chinese, however it is possible to find one that is more similar than any other. Middle Chinese had a great number more sounds than any modern Chinese dialect. Most dialects have lost parts of those sounds. In Mandarin, the most apparent sound loss is the syllable-final occlusive /-p, -t, -k/ sounds. Yue (Cantonese) keeps most of these traditional sounds, however several dialects have many words that have mixed the -p, -t, and -k around. Most dialects have lost voiced consonants which helped to differentiate high and low tone registers. Wu dialects are some of the few dialects that still have voiced consonants and still differentiate high and low tone registers in this way. However, the earliest branching of Chinese dialects occurred with the Min dialects, so these dialects share some characteristics that resemble Middle Chinese in many ways; more so than most other dialects. Here is a chart that shows the branching of the Chinese dialects. Noti
