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Viewing The Chinese LanguageThe Chinese Language
By Jacob Lumbroso For the student wanting to learn Chinese, the first question that comes up is what Chinese dialect should I learn? There are several regional dialects of Chinese. The most important dialects are Mandarin with approximately 850 million speakers, Wu with about 90 million speakers, Min with an estimated 70 million, and the well-known Cantonese dialect, with at least 70 million speakers. Mandarin therefore is the main dialect in China, both in numerical terms and as well as being sanctioned as the main language by the Chinese government, and therefore of most benefit to the aspiring student. The word 'Mandarin' is a translation from the Beijing expression 'guan-huà' meaning 'official language' that was the dialect of this city for several centuries. This dialect was accepted as the official language at the beginning of the 20th century. Mandarin is also spoken in Taiwan, though differences in syntax and vocabulary do exist. Wu is spoken in the Zhejiang province, the municipality of Shanghai, the southern province of Jiangsu, as well as parts of the Anhui, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces. The Min dialect is spoken in the southeastern province of Fujian as well as by migrants to Guangdong, Hainan, three counties in southern Zhejiang, and the Zhoushan Archipelago, as well as Taiwan. In contrast, the areas with the highest concentration of speakers of Cantonese are in Guangdong province, parts of Guanx, in southern mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macua. Of the four official languages that are spoken in Singapore, Huayu is based on the dialect of Beijing, though once again differences are present. Native Mandarin speakers number about 70 per cent of the total of the population of China and live mainly in the western plains region. This region includes the central Yangzi, the plain of Huai, the neoriental plain, Sichuan, and the provinces of Guangxi, Guèizhou, and Yunnan. The different dialects spoken are normally understood by the different language groups and can be divided as follows: • Septentrional, spoken in the northern region and it includes the dialect of Peking; • Noroccidental, which includes the dialects of the Loess plain and territories to the west; • Southoccidental, spoken in Sichuan and the adjacent regions; • Oriental, that represents the dialects spoken in Nanking. Chinese is a tonal language. The tonal difference is one of the most common variations among the different Chinese dialects. At times, it happens that the dialects of two villages separated only by a few kilometers have different tonal systems. For example, the tonal system of the dialect spoken in Peking is the typical way of speaking in the septentrional region. In this area, Mandarin of Beijing represents one of the simplest Chinese dialects from the point of view of the tonal aspect, having four different tones that indicate the four levels of the words: high, very high, medium, and fallen high. The Romanization system officially adopted by the government of Beijing, called 'pinyin', represents the tones making use of diacritical superimposed signs on the nuclear vocal of the word. About the Author: Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler and an enthusiast for foreign languages, history, and foreign cultures. He writes articles on history and languages for http://www.ultimatelanguagestore.com, and has used Pimsleur courses to learn various languages. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com More free articles: 1st Rate Articles - 1stRateArticles.com |
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