Late Old Gan (中古贛語, Zung-gu Gon-ngi) is a stage of the Gan language used between AD 220 and 589, a period that large-scale settlement by people from Zhongyuan (中原) immigrated into Jiangxi. It is the successor to Old Gan.
Although Old Gan was a creole language, late Old Gan was largely sinicized by new settlers. Some scholars consider late Old Gan, together with Hakka language and Tongtai dialect of Jianghuai Mandarin as the once lingua franca of the Southern Dynasties.[1]
However, late Old Gan still kept a distinguishable difference from the official language. Nanshi (南史, History of Southern Dynasties) records that "Hu Xiezhi (胡諧之) of Nanchang, the Emperor wants to bestow a noble marriage on him. He sends several persons of the Palace in order to teach his children the [official] language. Two years later, the Emperor asks him if the language has been standardized in his family, and Hu answers that his family hasn't acquired the official language while those imperial envois have already been Ganized."[2]
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