Chinese Language
Chinese or the Sinitic language(s)is a language family consisting of languages mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages. About one-fifth of the world"s population, or over one billion people, speak some form of Chinese as their native language. The identification of the varieties of Chinese as "dialects" instead of "languages" is considered inappropriate by some linguists and Sinologists.
Spoken Chinese is distinguished by its high level of internal diversity, although all spoken varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. There are between seven and thirteen main regional groups of Chinese (depending on classification scheme), of which the most spoken, by far, is Mandarin (about 850 million), followed by Wu (90 million), Cantonese (Yue) (70 million) and Min (70 million). Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and the Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms and some degree of intelligibility. Chinese is classified as a macrolanguage with 13 sub-languages in ISO 639-3, though the identification of the varieties of Chinese as multiple "languages" or as "dialects" of a single language is a contentious issue.
The standardized form of spoken Chinese is Standard Mandarin (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu), based on the Beijing dialect, which is part of a larger group of North-Eastern and South-Western dialects, often taken as a separate language , this language can be referred to as Guan hua or Beifanghau in Chinese. Standard Mandarin is the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC), as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. Chinese-de facto, Standard Mandarin-is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Of the other varieties, Standard Cantonese is common and influential in Guangdong Province and Cantonese-speaking overseas communities, and remains one of the official languages of Hong Kong (together with English) and of Macau (together with Portuguese). Hokkien, part of the Min language group, is widely spoken in southern Fujian, in neighbouring Taiwan (where it is known as Taiwanese or Hoklo) and in Southeast Asia (where it dominates in Singapore and Malaysia).
Standard Mandarin and diglossia
Putonghua / Guoyu, often called "Mandarin", is the official standard language used by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and Singapore (where it is called "Huayu"). It is based on the Beijing dialect, which is the dialect of Mandarin as spoken in Beijing. The governments intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.
In mainland China and Taiwan, diglossia has been a common feature: it is common for a Chinese to be able to speak two or even three varieties of the Sinitic languages (or "dialects") together with Standard Mandarin. For example, in addition to putonghua a resident of Shanghai might speak Shanghainese and, if they did not grow up there, his or her local dialect as well. A native of Guangzhou may speak Standard Cantonese and putonghua, a resident of Taiwan, both Taiwanese and putonghua/guoyu. A person living in Taiwan may commonly mix pronunciations, phrases, and words from Standard Mandarin and Taiwanese, and this mixture is considered normal under many circumstances. In Hong Kong, Standard Mandarin is beginning to take its place beside English and Standard Cantonese, the official languages.
Chinese Characters
Chinese character inscriptions have been found in turtle shells dating back to the Shang dynasty 1 (1766-1123 BC) proving the written language has existed for more than 3,000 years. The Chinese written language uses single distinctive symbols, or characters, to represent each word of the vocabulary. The vast majority of characters are written versions of spoken sounds that have meaning. A large dictionary usually contains 40,000 characters. 2 One must be able to recognize 2,000 to 3,000 characters to read a newspaper. Although the written system has been altered over time due to revolutions and political changes, the principles of the language along with the symbols and characters have remained basically the same.
Pin-yin, the English form of Chinese In an attempt to make the Chinese language more understandable to the western world, China developed the "pinyin" (pin-yin) system. 4 The pinyin system uses the western alphabet and spelling to pronounce Chinese words. Chinese languages have been transliterated into the pinyin system since 1892 5 (except personal and location names). In 1977, Chinese officials made a formal request to the United Nations (UN) 6 to use the pinyin system for naming geographical locations in China. People who use pinyin are those who are more familiar with the western alphabet and are learning to speak Mandarin Chinese. Ni Hao! (Hello! How do you do!) Zao Shang Hao! (Good Morning!)
Chinese Pinyin
Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin, is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and Pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound". The system is now used in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore to teach Mandarin Chinese to schoolchildren and internationally to teach Mandarin as a second language. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and can be used to enter Chinese characters (hanzi) on computers and cellphones.
The romanization system was developed by a government committee in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and approved by the Chinese government on February 11, 1958.[3] The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982,[4] and since then it has been adopted by many other organizations. This romanization system also became the national standard in the Republic of China (ROC, commonly known as Taiwan) on January 1, 2009.
