A Passage to China (走近中国) - The languages of China

If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.
(Confucius)

Sino-Tibetan languages from the languages from the language family that is second only to the Indo-European stock in the number of its speakers, spoken by over a billion people in central and Southeast Asia. The language of Chinese is one of three subfamilies of Sino-Tibetan languages and the other two are Tibeto-Burman and Tai or Thai.
It is controversial to classify the members of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Some people also assign the Tai and Chinese languages to a single subfamily called Sino-Siamese of Sinitic. It seems that the classification of a number of the languages suggested for Sino-Tibetan Family and its various subfamilies is still unresolved, and more work must be done before general agreement is reached.

The language of Chinese comprises a number of variants and those variants and classed, though separate languages, among the many dialects of Chinese. Mandarin Chinese is the standard from of Chinese and is spoken in North and Central China by over 835 million people as their first language.

The Chinese refer to themselves and their language as Han,a name that derives from the Han Dynasty. Han Chinese is to be distinguished from the non-Han minority language used in China. There are over 50 of non-Han minority languages spoken by about 6% of the Chinese population.

Forms of Chinese

The most widespread from of Chinese is Mandarin, which, originally spoken in the Beijing region and in northern China generally, is now regarded as modern standard Chinese, or Putonghua. Today Putonghua is the official language of government and education, and everyone is expected to learn to speak it.

Before 1911 when the Nationalists seized control, the language of the court at Beijing during the imperial period was called guanhua (official speech). After the Nationalists seized control in 1911, the name was changed to guoyü (national tongue). In 1949 when the People’s Republic of China was founded, the government adopted and simplified the Beijing dialect of Mandarin as the basis for a national language, renaming it Putonghua (generally understood speech). Mandarin in its various forms is spoken by about 70% of the population of China. It is the official language of the People’s Republic of China and is employed as one of the official languages of the United Nations.
The leading forms of Chinese (dialects) include:
Northern dialect –the language spoken north of Changjiang River in the northern areas of China by over 70% of China’s population; the basic part of Putonghua;
Dialect of Cantonese or Yue –the tongue spoken by over 65 million people resising in Guangxi and Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, South East Asia and the United States;
Dialect of Wu –the dialect of about 65 million people in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang;
Dialect of Hakka or Kejia –the language of about 35 million persons in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujiang Provinces;
Dialect of Min –the tongue of about 65 million people distributed in Fujian Province, Guangdong Province, the island of Taiwan and many places outside mainland China;
Dialect of Xiang –spoken largely in Hunan Province by about 65 million people;
Dialect of Gan – the mostly spoken in Jiangxi Province and part of Hubei Province by about 31 million people.
Even though there are those major dialects in China, the main differences between them are firstly revealed in pronunciation and then in vocabulary. There is little difference in terms of grammar.
As China is a big country with many national minorities and dialects, Putonghua plays a very important role in the communications among the national minorities within the country. If a foreigner learns Putonghua, he or she can travel anywhere in China, able to understand others and to be understood in return.

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