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China Overview

  • Population: 1.3 billion
  • Currency: yuan
  • Guinness World Records: most people painting each other's faces simultaneously in one location (13,413), largest bottle of cooking oil (containing 3212 litres), most couples hugging (3009 couples).
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  • Squirrel fish: whole mandarin fish deep-fried and manipulated to resemble a squirrel.
  • Number of chinese characters: over 56,000
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Spoken Chinese

fāng yán

Chinese is a collection of closely-related but often indecipherable languages. These languages are known ?as fāngyán (regional languages), dialects of Chinese or varieties of Chinese. Overall over 1.2 billion people speak one or more varieties of Chinese. All varieties of Chinese belong to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages and each one has their own dialects and sub-dialects.

What are usual features of spoken Chinese?

Firstly, all varieties of Chinese are tonal. This means that each syllable can have a number of different meanings depending on the intonation with which it is pronounced. For example Mandarin has 4 tones; Cantonese has between 6 and 9 tones.
Secondly, the major varieties of Chinese are mutually coherent. For instance, if there is no standard Mandarin it will be difficult for people in different areas

caricature

to communicate. Although most people in China and Taiwan don't speak Mandarin as their first language, they can speak or at least understand it a bit.

Thirdly, each of the major variations of Chinese have numerous dialects. For example, Mandarin can be divided into northern, southern and south-western dialects.

What are major varieties of spoken Chinese?”
P?tōnghuà (Mandarin)
Mandarin is spoken by possibly more people than any other language, which is mainly based on Beijing dialect. It is the main language of government, the media and education in China and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages in Singapore.

Among the unique features of Mandarin are its four distinct tones and its notable dropping of final consonants in pronunciation. Interestingly, the loss of final consonants means that Mandarin includes more compound words than any other Chinese dialect.
fangyan of Shanghai

Wú is spoken in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces and in Shanghai, which in a way is closer to the Song mandarin than that of the northern dialect. While Wu is one of the few Chinese dialects to maintain "voiced initials," the fact that it is spoken primarily in mountainous regions means that sub-dialects of Wu are often unintelligible to each other. Because mountain towns tend to be more isolated than other urban areas, sub-dialects of Wu have grown increasingly

different.Therefore, there are some dialects branches of Wu including Shanghainese and Suzhou.

Cantonese is spoken by about 66 million people in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and Hainan in China, and also in Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia and many other countries. This Chinese dialect includes a variety of sub-dialects. Because Cantonese sub-dialects can vary dramatically in their number and types of tones, some are unintelligible to each other.

Victoria Harbour

M?n Nán (Southern Min)
M?n Nán is in the south of Fujian province, Guangdong province, southern Hainan Island, in the south of Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces, and also in Taiwan, Singapore and many other countries. Min is the only Chinese dialect that doesn't have its roots in Middle Chinese, an early version of the Chinese language first spoken in 6th Century. Min includes the largest range of sub-dialects, all seven of which are difficult to decipher.
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Jinyu is spoken mainly in Shanxi province and also in Shanxi and Henan provinces by about 45 million people. It used to be considered as a dialect of Mandarin, but is now thought to be a separate variety of Chinese.

Hakka

Hakka is spoken in south eastern China, parts of Taiwan and in the New Territories of Hong Kong. There are also significant communities of Hakka speakers in such countries as the USA, French Guiana, Mauritius and the UK. Hakka is translated to "guest families," Unique features of Hakka include its nasal and occlusive endings and its range of tones (between four and seven, depending on the sub-dialect).
caricature of Hunan fangyan

Xiāng (Hunanese)

Xiang (Hunanese) is spoken by about 25 million people in China, mainly in Hunan province, and also in Sichuan, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. Xiang is a Chinese dialect that includes the sub-dialects "Old Xiang" and "New Xiang." New Xiang is also influenced by Mandarin principles.

Gàn
Gan is spoken by about 20.5 million people in Jiangxi province and in parts of Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and Fujian provinces. Gan is a Chinese dialect marked by aspirated initials, which refers to the voiceless initial that is breathed but not specifically articulated. Gan is closely related to Hakka.
Mín B?i (Northern Min)
Mín B?i has about 10,3 million speakers mainly in Northern Fujian Province and Singapore. Mín is the Classical Chinese name for Fujian province and B?i means 'north' or 'northern'.

Mín Dōng (Eastern Min)
Mín Dōng is spoken mainly in east central Fujian Province and also in Brunei, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Singapore, Thailand. The approximate number of native speakers is 250,000.

Mín Zhōng (Central Min)
Mín Zhōng is spoken mainly in central Fujian Province.

Dungan
Dungan is spoken by the Muslim Hui people in China, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There are approximately 50,000 speakers. Dungan is the only variety of Chinese not with Chinese characters. Instead it is written with the Cyrillic alphabet.
P?-Xián
P?-Xián is spoken by about 6,000 people mainly in east central Fujian Province and in Malaysia and Singapore.

Huīzhōu
Huīzhōu is spoken in southern Anhui and northern Zhejiang provinces. It used to be considered as a dialect of Mandarin, but is now thought to be a separate variety of Chinese.

Various Chinese spoken languages make Chinese culture more colorful. In order to make communication easier, the Chinese government has set a standard language, however, the different Chinese dialects are important parts of not only Chinese culture but also world culture.

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