|
| Chinese Language |
- The Chinese Language Group
- The Chinese languages are the languages of the Han people, the major
ethnic group of China, including both the People's Republic of China and
the Republic of China. The Chinese languages are spoken by over one billion
people. Approximately 95 percent of the Chinese population speaks Chinese,
as opposed to the non-Chinese languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, Lolo,
Miao, and Tai spoken by minorities. The vast majority of the Chinese-speaking
population is in China (over 980 million), Hong Kong, and Taiwan (19 million),
but substantial numbers are also found throughout the whole of southeast
Asia, especially in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Important
Chinese-speaking communities are also found in many other parts of the
world, especially in Europe, North and South America, and the Hawaiian
Islands.
- General Linguistic characteristics of Chinese
- Chinese, together with Tibetan and Myanmar (formerly known as Burmese)
and the many tribal languages of South and Southeast Asia, belongs to
the family of Sino-Tibetan languages. Besides a core vocabulary and sounds,
Chinese and most related languages share features that distinguish them
from most Western languages: they are monosyllabic, have little inflection,
and are tonal. In order to indicate differences in meaning between words
similar in sound, tone languages assign to words a distinctive relative
pitch-high or low-or a distinctive pitch contour-level, rising, or falling.
- Language versus dialects
- Spoken Chinese comprises many regional variants, generally referred to
as dialects. However, the mutual unintelligibility of the subvarieties
is the main ground for classifying them as separate languages or dialect
groups. Each dialect group consists of a large number of dialects, many
of which may themselves be referred to as languages. The boundaries between
one so-called language and the next are not always easy to define. Because
each dialect group preserves different features of Middle Chinese (dating
back to early or even pre-T'ang times), they have proven to be valuable
research tools in the phonological reconstruction of Middle and even to
some extent its ancestor, Old Chinese. Most Chinese speak one of the Mandarin
dialects, which are largely mutually intelligible.
- Members of the Chinese language group
- Chinese has seven major language groups of which the Mandarin language
group forms the largest group. The Mandarin group consists of a wide range
of dialects in the northern, central, and western regions. The Cantonese
dialects are spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong, Southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region, parts of Hainan, Macau, and in many overseas settlements. The
Hakka (Kejia) languages are spoken in Guangdong, southwestern Fujian,
Jiangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hainan, Taiwan, Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia, many overseas Chinese communities, and in pockets
throughout Southeast Asia. Most of the inhabitants of the south central
region, in Hunan use the Xiang dialects, also known as Hunanese. The Min
dialects are spoken in most of Fujian, large areas of Taiwan and Hainan,
parts of Eastern Guangdong and the Leizhou Bandao Peninsula, and in areas
of Southeast Asia. Most of the people living in Jiangxi, eastern part
of Hunan, and the southeastern corner of Hubei use the Gan dialects. The
majority of the inhabitants of Zhejiang, as well as people living in southern
areas of Jiangsu and Anhui, speak the Wu dialects. The Wu dialects share
marginal mutual intelligibility with the Mandarin and Gan dialects.
- Chinese, The national language
- The need to establish an official national language was felt as early
as the 17th century when the Ch'ing dynasty established a number of "correct
pronunciation institutes" to teach standard Peking pronunciation, particularly
in the Cantonese and Fukienese-speaking southern provinces. The success
of these schools, however, was extremely limited. The concept of a national
language coalesced around 1910. In 1913, the Ministry of Education convened
a Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation to establish a standard
national tongue. Wu Ching-heng (also known as Wu Chih-hui, a philosopher
and one of the founders of the Republic of China, was chosen to direct
the task of creating a truly national language that would transcend locality
and dialect. Due to the domination of the numerically superior Mandarin-speaking
delegates, the Peking dialect was voted for the general foundation of
the new national language 'guoyu' (national speech). It embodies the pronunciation
of Peking, the grammar of the Mandarin dialects, and the vocabulary of
modern vernacular Chinese literature, but features of various local dialects
were also incorporated. Guoyu is now the official language of mainland
China, Taiwan and one of the official languages of Singapore. After the
establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 it was renamed
to putonghua (common language) . In 1956, it became the medium of instruction
in all schools nationwide and a policy of promoting its use began. It
is now the most widely used form of spoken Chinese. In Taiwan, it still
goes under the name of guoyu, or 'national speech'. In the West it is
generally referred to Mandarin.
- Phonetic spelling
- After several previous attempts to write Chinese using the letters of
the roman alphabet, pinyin, a 58-symbol writing system was finally adopted
in 1958. Some strange and unnatural sounds for the x's, q's, and zh's
reflect the graphic choices of Russian linguists. Its main aims are to
facilitate the spread of putonghua, and the learning of Chinese characters.
In the 1970s a new map of China was published using the alphabet, and
a list of standard spellings for Chinese placenames was compiled.
- The number of Chinese characters
-
| Number of characters |
Dictionary |
Period |
Date |
| 3,300 |
Cangjiepian, Yuanlipian, Boxuepian |
Qin |
221-206 BC |
| 9,535 |
Shuowen jiezi |
Eastern Han |
100 AD |
| 16,917 |
Yupian |
Liang |
543 |
| 26,149 |
Guangyun |
Norther Song |
1011 |
| 32,200 |
Hongwu zhengyun |
Ming |
1375 |
| 47,043 |
Kangxi zidian |
Qing |
1716 |
| 48,000 |
Zhonghua da zidian |
ROC |
1916 |
| 56,000 |
Xiandai Hanyu da zidian |
PRC |
1986-90 |
Although around 56,000 characters have been accumulated in Chinese, only
a few thousand are needed to write Modern Chinese. A large part of the
56,000 characters (40 percent) are variants of a same character (yiti).
| Number of characters |
Coverage rate (per cent) |
| 500 |
80 |
| 1,000 |
91 |
| 2,400 |
99 |
| 3,800 |
99.9 |
| 5,200 |
99.99 |
| 6,600 |
99.999 |
- Traditional and simplified writing system
- In mainland China a simplified writing system is used, whereas in Hong
Kong, Taiwan, and overseas regions the traditional script is being used.
Starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, there was a growing
consensus that the writing system constituted an obstacle to the achievement
of a higher literacy rate. The simplified writing system differs in two
ways from the traditional writing system: (1) a reduction of the number
of strokes per character and (2) the reduction of the number of characters
in common use (two different characters are now written with the same
character). A large-scale reform was continued after the founding of the
PRC. In 1955 1,053 variant characters were eliminated. In 1956, the Scheme
of Simplified Chinese Characters, known later as the First Scheme, was
promulgated by the PRC government. It was composed of 525 simplified characters
and 54 simplified basic components of characters. The Second Scheme of
Simplified Chinese Characters was promulgated in 1977 but was repealed
in 1986 amid general disapproval.
- The comeback of the traditional writing system
- The use of the simplified script has also given rise to some problems.
When some simplified characters become easier to learn and write, they
may not necessarily be easier to recognize. Characters may become less
differentiated from each other as a result of simplification of their
shape.
There is no balance between the legibility and distinctiveness of its
basic symbols. Furthermore, simplified characters offer even fewer clues
to their pronunciation than their traditional counterparts, making them
more prone to mispronunciation. Finally, it is argued that the simplified
script hinders access to writings before 1956, as well as those from outside
mainland China. In comparison with the twenty-year period following 1956,
the 1980s and 1990s have witnessed a comeback of the original traditional
characters.They are everywhere to be seen on signboards of streets, stores,
schools, companies, and government institutions, as well as in advertisements,
slogans, and televisions subtitles. More than 50% of the universities
in Beijing use traditional characters in their signs, as is the case for
85% of the restaurants in Beijing. In the southern parts of China these
rates are even higher. In the ShenZhen area some schools have started
to teach the traditional script again because people were not able to
understand writings and contracts from the neighoring Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region.
- Differences between Putonghua and Guoyu
- Obviously, there are some slight deviations between the Mandarin variants
spoken in Beijing, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR. These include
deviations in grammar, vocabulary, stylistic aspects, and loan words.
For example, there is a 23% discrepancy in standard pronunciation between
the 3,500 most commonly used characters in the 'Xinhua zidian' of the
mainland and 'Guoyu cidian' of Taiwan. All radio and television broadcast
announcers in Beijing, both men and women, broadcast in a pitch range
noticeably higher than that of their normal speaking voices. Each sentence
begins high and shrill. Then pitch falls gradually, reaching a lower key
by the end of the sentence. Pauses are exaggerated and more drawn out.
This special type of intonation seems intended to arouse in the audience
an impression of struggle and determination. In Taiwan, by contrast, announcers
broadcast in a more conversational speaking voice.
- Bilingual education
- Bilingual education is now common in Taiwan as a way of reversing the
previous neglect of Chinese dialects other than the national language.
Although the mainland central government acknowledges the importance of
local dialects they are several steps behind bilingual education due to
the continuing efforts to establish putonghua as the national language.
|
|
