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Nov 12, 2020 · All these variations of Chinese have a representative dialect, for example in Standard Mandarin it is the Beijing dialect. This is probably the most studied area of Chinese dialect differentiation. Based on the distinctions online, there are 93 dialects of Mandarin.
- Contents
- The 7 Major Chinese Dialect Groups
- How Many Chinese Dialects Are there?
- The History of Language in China
1. Mandarin Chinese
Where it’s spoken:China, Taiwan Number of speakers:∼1.1 billion Mandarin, also known as Putonghua, is the official language of China.It’s spoken throughout the country and is taught and used in all schools. As a result, nearly every Chinese person can speak (or at least understand) Mandarin. Some regions prefer their local dialect, however, in addition to Mandarin. They are sometimes stereotyped as speaking “bad” Mandarin, which of course is not true. Mandarin began to be recognized as the la...
2. Cantonese Chinese
Where it’s spoken:China’s Guangdong province, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau Number of speakers:∼73 million Though not quite second in terms of speakers, Cantonese is the second most widely spread dialect spoken in China. Today, it’s largely spoken by the Tanka people, who are natives of the Pearl River Delta. The Cantonese Chinese dialectoriginated in ancient Guangzhou, also known as Canton City (hence, “Canton”ese!). It began with Middle Chinese and was then influenced by Proto-Tai. Then the l...
3. Wu Chinese
Where it’s spoken:China’s Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, Shanghai Number of speakers:∼80 million Used primarily in Shanghai, the Wu Chinese dialect is mostly known as Shanghainese. But while Shanghainese is one of the major Wu varieties, areas such as Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Jinhua, Shaoxing and others have their own varieties. The Wu Chinese dialect originated in the ancient Wu (吴) and Yue (越) kingdoms of China. These kingdoms were located in the modern-day Jiangsu and northern Z...
Linguists debate whether some Chinese dialects should be considered whole languages on their own. But for now, due to political reasons, China classifies them all as dialects, and there is at least some degree of mutual intelligibility between them. According to K&J Translations, China is home to over 302 individual languages and dialects. In fact,...
The Chinese language has a rich and complex history dating back thousands of years. As a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family, modern Chinese emerged from Proto-Sino-Tibetan and then Old and Middle Chinese, which is the original source of all dialects spoken today. The Chinese language is the oldest known written language on earth.The oldest ...
Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect, and is used as a lingua franca across China. Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen dialect groups, depending on the classification.
The point of all this is that Mandarin is one of many dialects, and it is important to understand the diversity of dialects within China. Linguists have split Chinese into somewhere between seven and ten main language groups—the largest being Mandarin (also known as Northern), Wu, Min, and Yue—and each group also has a number of sub-dialects.
The hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin, the other six are Wu, Gan, and Xiang in central China and Min, Hakka, and Yue on the southeast coast. [12]
- 920 million (2017), L2 speakers: 200 million (no date)
- most of Northern and Southwestern China (see also Standard Chinese)
The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin, Wu, Min, Xiang, Gan, Jin, Hakka and Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese .
With 56 ethnic groups, there are over 100 languages used in China, and there are countless local dialects. Mandarin. On October 31st, 2000, the Law of Universal Language and Character of the People's Republic of China came into force, which stipulates Mandarin as China's universal national language.
