section_path: Varieties
section_name: Varieties
paragraph_text: Varieties
  
  The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum, in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though the rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain. Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese, a variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong.
  
  In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River, whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian, the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible.