Dialects with a twist

With punchlines, parody, and plenty of personality, young Chinese are making local dialects cool again — and sparking a nationwide language revival, Gui Qian reports.

"Has the grain been filled?" is a playful way of asking, "Have you eaten?" Similarly, "Your hands are like excavators, with the strength of bears, wolves, and leopards "means "You have a strong grip."

These expressions, marked by grammatical quirks and vivid metaphors, are known as Nangyanwen or "Nan Chinese".

Nan, a type of baked flatbread, is a staple food for the Uygur, Kazakh, and some other ethnic groups in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Recently, Nangyanwen has gone viral across major Chinese social media platforms, with many people eager to imitate and learn these distinctive expressions.