There are about 200 dialects in China. The dialect spoken in Beijing, known in the west as Mandarin, is one of the eight major Chinese dialects. It’s the official language of the People’s Republic of China after 1949, and one of the official languages of both Taiwan and Singapore. Mandarin is now taught in all the Chinese school, and Mandarin radio and TV programs are broadcast throughout China. And more than 70 per cent of China’s population speaks Mandarin as their first language.
The eight major dialects are:
l. Mandarin (Putong hua)
About 1.2 billion people in China speak Mandarin. So if you can speak Mandarin, you can travel all over China.
2. Cantonese (Guang tong hua)
About 50 million people in China speak Cantonese (including some inhabitants in Hong Kong); they’re mainly from Guangton Province. It’s also the language most spoken by the people living abroad. (Before 1949, a lots of inhabitants in Guangton Province immigrated overseas for job.)
3. Fujian / Taiwanese (Min nan hua)
About 40 million people in China speak Fujian / Taiwanese, they are mainly from Fujian Province. And there are over 15 million people in Taiwan who speak Fujian /Taiwanese. (They are originally from Fujian Province)
4. Shanghainese
Mainly from Shanghai Province.
5. Minbei
Mainly from North Fujian Province.
6. Xiang
Mainly from Sichuan, Guangxi Province.
7. Gan
Mainly from Jiangxi Province.
8. Kejia
Originally from Sichuan Province, later moved to Guang ton Province.
CHARACTERS AND PRONUNCIATION:
From 1950 onward, the government of new China simplified about 15% of the traditional Chinese characters, which makes the written language simpler, faster, also easier to be typed in from computer.
In 1958, the system of marking-pronunciation was officially adopted by alphabet. It’s has been getting easier for non-chinese spoken people to learn or speak Chinese.
There are about 82% homophones of Chinese language, and 4 tones, which make this language more interesting and challenging.
