ABOUT CHINESE LANGUAGE

Chinese is the language of the Han Nationality in its narrow sense. It's a mother tongue of all Chinese people in the world. Moreover it is called the China National Language in Taiwan and it is called Chinese Language in Singapore and Malaysia.

In 1982 year the China State promotes the nationwide use of Mandarin(common speech based on Beijing pronunciation). 'The common language lawer in the People's Republic of China' was published on 31st October 2000,then Mandarin is defined as the common language of China.

The Chinese Language is one of the great languages in the world. It's belong to the Sino-Tibetan Language System and uppermost language of it. The Chinese Language is grow out of the middle area of China and it's finalized in the Han Dynasty. At first it's a common language in the Han Nationality and later became a current language of the Chinese Nation. The language is distributed over some broad areas even countries just like Singapore and Malaysia and so forth. At present,1.3 billion people,approximately l/5 of the word's population,speak Chinese as their mother tongue and about 30 million people register for studying the second foreign language-Chinese. Chinese is also one of the five official working languages of the United Nations.

The Standardizing Language of Chinese which gradually developed on the basis of northern dialect in China over the past few centuries. The Beijing sound is the standard pronunciation. In other words,the derivation of Chinese Language is from a source which developed on the basis of 'Bejing dialect or Pekingese'.

Chinese generated a significant impact on the letter or character for the surrounding countries. For example, Japanese,Korean and Vietnamese language keep a large sum of loanwords and the writing forms of Chinese all along.

Sinaean is Chinese language and literature. There are the ancient and the modem forms,unwritten and written systems in Chinese Language. Furthermore,there are the traditional Chinese characters and the simplified Chinese characters. It is reported that the number of all Chinese characters is 91251 or so now. Fortunately,in general,the social people who just master about 3500 Chinese words and according to the idiomatic expressions of Chinese,enough to engage in a spoken(written)exchange of thoughts or express ideas,feelings and talk freely.

China Central Government defines, Mandarin / Putonghua is the only standard and official pronunciation of Chinese language in mainland of China. The other pronunciations are local Dialects that can not be used in public.

Mainly dialects: Northern dialect,Dialect of Wu district,Hunan dialect,Jiangxi dialect,Hakka dialect,Fujian dialect,Cantonese dialect

1.Northern dialect Also called Mandarin. Speakers include over 70% of the Han population and live in Northern China along the Changjiang River in Jiangsu,Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan. Those areas can be divided into four hypo-dialect regions: Huabei, Xibei, Xinan and Jianghuai. Beijing Hua ( Beijing People Pronunciation) is one kind of Northern Dialects. The pronunciation of Putonghua / Mandarin is defined based on Beijing Hua by China Government. So generally only Beijing People can speak standard mandarin.

2.Dialect of Wu district(Wuyu) Speakers include about 8% of the Han and are generally distributed in most areas in Sunan and Zhejiang, and a small part in Jiangxi and Zhejiang.

3.Hunan dialect(Xiangyu) It is generally believed that Xiangyu includes New Xiangyu and Old Xiangyu. Speakers amount to 5% of the Han population. They are distributed in most areas to the south of Dongting Lake in Hunan Province.

4.Jiangxi dialect(Ganyu) Speakers number more than 2% of the Han population. They live in the northern and central parts of Jiangxi Province.

5.Kakka dialect Speakers are 4% of the total number of Han. It is spoken in the southern part of Jiangxi Province, northern part of Guangdong, western part of Fujian and Xinzhu, Miaosu and other areas in Taiwan. Ganyu is very similar to Kejiahua. Some believe that they can be regarded as two main branches of one dialect.

6.Fujian Dialect(Minyu) Speakers number more than 4% of the total population of the Han. They are scattered in Fujian (except the region of Minxikehua), eastern Guangdong, Hainan Island, a part of Leizhou Byland, most of Taiwan and a small area along the border of Zhenan and Fujian.

7.Cantonese(Guangdong dialect) Speakers number 5% of the Han population. They live in most of Guangdong and the south-eastern part of Guangxi. Cantonese, Minyu and Kejiahua are spoken in Hongkong, Macao and outside China as well.

About this contribution

For learning	Chinese (Mandarin)
Base language	English
Tags	Beginner Chinese Conversation language Pronunciation Speaking Vocabulary Writing
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