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Oct 13, 2023 · Did you know there are 7 major Chinese dialects and up to 300 lesser known varieties? Read on to discover the 7 most common Chinese dialects and find out features of each, including where they're spoken. We'll also share some sample words from each dialect and review the history behind this fascinating and diverse language!
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.
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Conventional English-language usage in Chinese linguistics is to use dialect for the speech of a particular place (regardless of status) while regional groupings like Mandarin and Wu are called dialect groups. Other linguists choose to refer to the major groups as languages.
- Sino-TibetanChinese
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Apr 12, 2024 · Chinese languages, principal language group of eastern Asia, belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars.
Dec 8, 2023 · Officially, there are 302 living languages in China. Depending on your definition of “language” and “dialect,” this number can vary somewhat. The number of speakers of many of China’s minority languages and dialects has decreased in recent years, and some of them are now considered endangered.
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.
Standard Chinese, known in China as Putonghua, based on the Mandarin dialect of Beijing, is the official national spoken language for the mainland and serves as a lingua franca within the Mandarin-speaking regions (and, to a lesser extent, across the other regions of mainland China).
