These languages are spoken in Fujian province as well as by the descendants of Min-speaking colonists on the Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan and by the assimilated natives of Chaoshan, parts of Zhongshan, three counties in southern Wenzhou, the Zhoushan archipelago, Taiwan[1] and scattered in pockets or sporadically across Hong Kong, Macau, and several countries in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei.

[4] The area features rugged mountainous terrain, with short rivers that flow into the South China Sea.

Most subsequent migration from north to south China passed through the valleys of the Xiang and Gan rivers to the west, so that Min varieties have experienced less northern influence than other southern groups.

[6] Linguists estimate that the oldest layers of Min dialects diverged from the rest of Chinese around the time of the Han dynasty.

[19] Early classifications, such as those of Li Fang-Kuei in 1937 and Yuan Jiahua in 1960, divided Min into Northern and Southern subgroups.

[20][21] However, in a 1963 report on a survey of Fujian, Pan Maoding and colleagues argued that the primary split was between inland and coastal groups.

In some cases a semantic shift has occurred in Min or the rest of Chinese: Norman and Mei Tsu-lin have suggested an Austroasiatic origin for some Min words: However, Norman and Mei Tsu-lin's suggestion is rejected by Laurent Sagart (2008),[15] with some linguists arguing that the Austroasiatic predecessor of the modern Vietnamese language originated in the mountainous region in Central Laos and Vietnam, rather than in the region north of the Red River delta.

Contrary to popular belief, a vernacular written in this fashion is not in general comprehensible to a Mandarin speaker, due to significant changes in grammar and vocabulary and the necessary use of a large number of non-Mandarin characters.

The Min (Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Luichow, Hinghwa, Hokchew, Hokchia, Haklau / Hai Lok Hong) spoken in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia has borrowed heavily from Malay (or Indonesian for Indonesia) and, to a lesser extent, from Singaporean or Malaysian English and other languages.

Meanwhile, the Hokkien spoken in the Philippines has also borrowed a few terms from Spanish, Tagalog (Filipino), and English over the recent centuries.

In 2006, Tâi-lô (Tâi-uân Lô-má-jī Phing-im Hong-àn) which was derived from Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ) was officially promoted by Taiwan's Ministry of Education (MOE).

In Taiwan, a mix of Chinese characters and Latin letters written in Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ) or Tâi-lô has recently been practised.