Languages of China

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For information on various forms of spoken Han Chinese languages variants, see Chinese spoken languages.

Map of Linguistic Groups (showing arees under effective control of the People's Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau) and Republic of China combined)

China's many different ethnic groups speak many different languages, collectively called Zhōngguó Yǔwén (中国语文), literally "speech and writing of China" which mainly span six linguistic families. Most of them are dissimilar morphologically and phonetically and are mutually unintelligible. Zhongguo Yuwen includes the many different Han Chinese language variants (commonly simply called Chinese) as well as non-Han minority languages such as Mongolian and Tibetan.

Chinese language policy in mainland China is heavily influenced by Soviet nationalities policy and officially encourages the development of standard spoken and written languages for each of the nationalities of China. However, in this schema, Han Chinese are considered a single nationality, and official policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) treats the different varieties of the Chinese spoken language differently from the different national languages. For example, while official policies in mainland China encourage the development and use of different orthographies for the national languages and their use in educational and academic settings, the same is not true for the different Chinese spoken language, despite the fact that they are more different from each other than, for example, the Romance languages of Europe.

Putonghua or Standard Mandarin is the official national spoken language, although autonomous regions and special administrative regions have additional official languages. For example, Tibetan has official status within the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Mongolian has official status within the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Hong Kong and Macau not only have English and Portuguese as official languages respectively, Cantonese is a de facto official spoken Chinese variant.

Unofficially, there are large economic, social and practical incentives to be functional in Putonghua, a standardised form of the Mandarin group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which serves as a lingua franca among the different groups within mainland China. In addition, it is also considered increasingly prestigious and useful to have some ability in English, which is a required subject for persons attending university. During the 1950s and 1960s, Russian had some social status among elites in mainland China as the international language of socialism.

The Economist, issue April 12th 2006 reported that up to one fifth of the population is learning English. Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor, estimated that the total English-speaking population will outnumber the native speakers in the rest of the world in two decades. [1]

[edit] Languages in history

Most of the languages of China have historically influenced each other. During most dynasties, it was the Chinese languages that sinicized the other ethnic groups. (See Ethnic groups in Chinese history.) But during the Mongol Dynasty, it was the Mongolian language that dominated. And during the last dynasty, the Qing, the Manchu language also had a strong influence. Over their two centuries of rule, the members of the Manchu dynasty gradually lost their fluency in Manchu, although until the end of the Qing dynasty all laws were promulgated in both Manchu and Classical Chinese. As a result of these mutual influences, there is a certain amount of common vocabulary.

Not all ethnic groups in mainland China have developed a separate language. For example, the Hui Chinese speak Mandarin Chinese, like the majority of Han Chinese.

In 17th century, there was a boundary clash between the Chinese and Russians but neither side could speak a common language. Latin was chosen in the negotiation and translated into Chinese by Jesuit missionaries.

[edit] Spoken

The spoken languages of modern Chinese nationalities belong to at least seven families:

• The Sino-Tibetan family: 28 nationalities (including the Han, Tibetans, Miao (Hmong), and Yao)
• The Altaic family: 17 (including the Uyghurs, Mongols, and Manchu)
• The Austroasiatic family: 4 (the De'ang, Blang, Gin, and Wa)
• The Tai-Kadai family: several languages spoken by the Dai people of Yunnan and Zhuang.
• The Indo-European family: 2 (the Russians and Tajiks)
• The Austronesian family: 1 official nationality (the Gaoshan, who speak many languages), 1 unofficial (the Utsuls, who speak the Tsat language but are considered Hui.)
• Language isolate: 1 (the Koreans)

[edit] Written

Main article: Written Chinese

The following languages have traditionally had written forms that do not involve Chinese characters (han zi):

• The Mongolians - Mongolian language - Mongolian alphabet
• The Manchus - Manchu language - Manchu alphabet
• The Tibetans - Tibetan language - Tibetan script
• The Uyghurs - Uyghur language - Arabic alphabet
• The Kazakhs - Kazakh language - Arabic alphabet
• The Kirgiz - Kirgiz language - Arabic alphabet
• The Koreans - Korean language - Hangul
• The Xibe (Sibo) - Xibe language - Manchu alphabet
• The Dai - Dai language
• The Yi - Yi language - Yi syllabary
• The Naxi - Dongba script

Chinese banknotes contain several scripts in addition to Chinese script. These are:

• The Zhuang script (Roman alphabet)
• The Tibetan script (Tibetan syllabic alphabet)
• The Uyghur script (Arabic alphabet)
• The Mongolian script (Traditional Mongolian alphabet)

Ten nationalities who never had a written system have, under the PRC's encouragement, developed phonetic alphabets. According to a government white paper published in early 2005, "by the end of 2003, 22 ethnic minorities in China used 28 written languages."

[edit] Political controversies

Language policy within China is the subject of a number of political controversies mostly having to do with the political status of minority nationalities in China. Some critics of the Beijing government, such as the Tibetan Government-in-Exile argue that China's official multilingualism is a sham and that social pressures and political efforts result in a policy of sinicization and often term PRC policies cultural genocide. Supporters of Chinese policies argue that both in theory and in practice that Chinese policies are rather supportive of multilingualism and the development of minority languages, and that China has a far better track record in these issues than some other countries, namely the United States.

[edit] See also

• Demographics of China
• List of ISO 639 codes for Chinese languages

[edit] External links

• People's Daily: Simultaneous interpretation in seven minorities' languages provided at NPC and CPPCC