Yuxiao Xie

Yuxiao Xie 谢雨潇

PhD candidate in Mathematics

I enjoy learning about languages and linguistics. Had things turned out differently, I might as well have become a professional linguist.

Language Learning

My native languages are Mandarin and Gan Chinese. I also speak English and French. I know Japanese, Spanish, Italian, and German, to various extents. I have also dabbled in countless other languages—Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Korean, Cantonese, to name a few.

I make it a habit to always learn the local language before visiting a country. So far, the only exception was Slovakia—it was a last-minute decision since I didn’t realize you could take a day trip there from Vienna.

Just for fun, I’m planning to get certificates for languages on which I’ve spent a significant amount of time. My progress so far:

Linguistics

I am most interested in historical/comparative linguistics, phonology, and linguistic typology. I know quite a bit about the history of Indo-European languages (probably more than I should), and I wish I had more time to read up on the reconstruction of Old Chinese.

From time to time, I write and make videos (in Chinese) about the linguistics of European languages. My latest videos were about Middle and Old French.

The Language of My Hometown

I was born and raised in 抚州 fǔzhōu, a lesser-known city in Jiangxi Province in Southern China (not to be confused with 福州 fúzhōu, the capital of Fujian Province). The local language is a dialect of Gan Chinese. It is distinct from and mutually unintelligible with other Sinitic languages such as Mandarin or Cantonese.

Since March 2025, I have been working on a project to record and digitize this language. The results of my work are synthesized on my website on Fuzhou Gan. (Due to the technicality of the matter, it is currently only available in Chinese.) As a by-product of this work, a RIME-based input method for Fuzhou Gan is now available.

By the way, here’s how you would pronounce my name in Fuzhou Gan (along with my personal romanization): qiā î-xiāu [t͡ɕʰja˨ i˦˥ ɕjaʊ˨].

Sinophonic and Sino-Xenic Readings of My Name

Here’s a compilation of the various readings of my name:

Beijing Mandarin — xiè yǔ-xiāo [ɕjɛ˥˩ y˨˩-ɕjaʊ˥]
Fuzhou Gan — qiā î-xiāu [t͡ɕʰja˨ i˦˥-ɕjaʊ˨]
Guangzhou Cantonese — ze6 jyu5-siu1 [t͡sɛː˨ jyː˩˧-siːʊ˥]
Shanghai Wu — zhia6 yu6-shiau1 [ʑja˨˧ ɦy˨˧-ɕjɔ˥˧]
Japanese (kan-on) — シャ ウ-ショウ [ɕja ɯ-ɕjoː]
Korean — 사 우소 [sʰa u-sʰo]
Vietnamese — Tạ Vũ Tiêu [ta˧ˀ˩ vu˧ˀ˥-tiə̯ʊ˧]