The Chinese Language
Chinese (漢語) comprises of seven main dialects, Mandarin (官話),
Cantonese (廣州話, 廣府話), Hakka (客家話), Wu (吳語), Min (閩語), Xiang (湘語), and
Gan (贛語) (figure). The variety of Mandarin based on the speech in the
capital Beijing is the official national language of mainland China and
is termed Pŭtōnghuà (普通話, Common language). The common language in Hong
Kong and overseas Chinese communities is Cantonese. The major languages
spoken in Taiwan are Mandarin, Taiwanese (a variety of Min), and Hakka.
Six of the seven main dialects are in the southeast of Chinese, south
of the Yangtze river. Mandarin is spoken in most of northern China and
part of western China.
The Chinese dialects are not mutually intelligible but are termed
dialects from sociological and political points of view. Most of the
dialects are themselves composed of a number of
Han Chinese represent about 92 percent of the total Chinese
population. About two-thirds of the Han population speaks a variant of
Mandarin as their native tongue. A significant part of the Han
population is therefore bilingual. Under these circumstances the Common
language is used as a second language for formal communication in
government, media, and education. The mother tongue is used for
remaining occasions such as conversation at home, between friends and
relatives, entertainment, etc.
All varieties of Chinese belong to the Sino-Tibetan family of
languages. Members of the Sinitic family are typically tonal, meaning
that different tones, or intonations, distinguish words that otherwise
are pronounced identically. Chinese by origin is monosyllabic. The
vocabulary of dialects more recent in the linguistic tree such are
Mandarin tend to become more polysyllabic (compound words) as an
adjustment to the loss of a number of sounds compared to ancient
Despite the diversity of speech the Han Chinese share one common
script making written communication possible between people speaking
mutually unintelligible dialects.
Norman, J.L. (1988) Chinese. Cambridge University Press.
Kurpaska, M. (2010) Chinese language(s): a look through the prism
of the Great dictionary of modern Chinese dialects. Walter de Gruyter
GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York