Chinese Languages

See also: Chinese

The Chinese languages (中国 语 文, Zhōnggúo yǔwén) or the Chinese (中 文, Zhōngwén) belong to the family of the Langues sino-Tibetans. For as much, the language Tibetan E is not related with Chinese. In their most universal character, one considers the written language (文, Wén), transcending the pronunciation of various spoken. The spoken language in its most general character is generally called Hanyu (汉 语), that is to say “language of the Han S”, even if other ethnicities gradually adopted this language. The various speeches can be regarded language (语, Yǔ) or as dialect (话, Huà). The statute of a speech like language or dialect is often prone to controversies in the absence of references written to the pronunciation.

See also: Chinese written, Chinese spoken

Chinese languages

Seven great modern spoken Chinese languages are generally distinguished:

  1. the Mandarin (官话/官話/Guānhuà, “language of official” or 北方話/北方话/Běifāng huà, “spoken about North”), spoken in north and south-east about the continental China. It is the language most spoken in the world (approximately 800 million speakers);

    1. the standard Mandarin (汉语/漢語/hànyǔ, overall or 普通话/普通話/pǔtōnghuà, as a Popular republic of China, or 国语/國語/guóyǔ, in Republic of China), is the standardized alternative of Mandarin and the official language of the China, Taiwan and Singapore. It is also very widespread with the Vietnam and the Kampuchea;
  2. the wu (吴语/吳語/wúyǔ), spoken with Shanghai, in the Jiangsu and the Zhejiang (approximately 90 million speakers);
  3. the Cantonese (粤语/粵語/yuèyǔ), spoken in the provinces about the Guangdong and the Guangxi, with HongKong, Macao, in Southeast Asia and by certain Chinese of overseas (approximately 80 million speakers);
  4. the gan (赣语/贛語/gànyǔ), spoken in the province about the Jiangxi (approximately 20 million speakers);
  5. the Hakka (客家话/客家話/kèjiāhuà), in the northern part of the Guangdong, the Fujian and with Taiwan (approximately 35 million speakers);
  6. the min (闽语/閩語/mǐnyǔ), in the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and to Taiwan (approximately 50 million speakers):
    1. the group Minnan (or hokkien ) includes/understands, inter alia, the Taiwanese, the teochew and the Haïnanais,
    2. the group Minbei
  7. the Xiang (湘语/湘語/Xiāngyǔ), spoken in the province about the Hunan (approximately 35 million speakers).

Certain linguists distinguish sometimes 3 other important languages:

  1. the jin (晋语/晉語/jìnyǔ), distinguished from the Mandarin;
  2. the today (徽语/徽語/huīyǔ), distinguished from Wu;
  3. the ping (平话/平話/pínghuà), distinguished from Cantonese.

See list of the Chinese languages The antiquated Chinese , from which these languages result, was not a Langue with tons, and was strongly distinguished from the modern languages by its typology on the phonological level as on the morphological level. The Chinese languages are related with the languages Tibéto-Burmese are.

But there also exists of other groups more reduced and not classified yet, such as for example: the Dialect Danzhou, spoken with Danzhou, on the island of Haïnan; Xianghua (乡话), not to confuse with Xiang (湘), spoken in the west about the Hunan; and Shaozhou tuhua, spoken in north Guangdong. The Language doungane, spoken in Central Asia, is very related with the Mandarin. However, one generally does not regard it always as " Chinese, " because written into Cyrillic and spoken by the Peuple Doungane out of China and which are considered as a Chinese Overseas on no level. Refer you with Liste of the Chinese languages for a complete listing of these languages resulting from greater groups

Writings

The Chinese languages are generally written by means of the Sinogramme S; they evolved/moved during the centuries, differing sometimes slightly between Taiwan and HongKong and were simplified in the remainder of the Popular republic of China in 1949.

There exists also a code of Chinese writing exclusively used by women, the Nüshu , used in an area where, formerly, the women did not have the right to write.

Transcriptions

See also: Romanisation of the Chinese languages, Cyrillisation of the Chinese languages, Arabisation of the Chinese languages

Several systems of Transcription are used for the Cantonese and the Mandarin:

Common grammatical features

Contrary to a spread idea, the grammar of the Chinese languages is not uniform from one language to another. If these languages share many common points, to know one of them does not allow however to read the others (except Mandarin, on which the standardized written language is based). Each one has its Phonologie, its Syntaxe, its own use of the characters (a character in a given Chinese language will not inevitably have the same direction in another), even of the characters which are clean for him (for the moment, only those of the Cantonese seem accessible in the usual character sets).

One can however note the principal common points between these languages, which make it possible to establish a Chinese typology:

  • they all are tonal (see Langue with let us tons);
  • they are with monosyllabic tendency: in these languages, the fundamental unit of direction and sound (or Morphème) is the Syllabe (what does not mean that all the words are monosyllabic, far from there);
  • they are insulating: the Morphème S are invariable and know any type of agreement (neither nominal inflection, nor Conjugaison), from where importance of syntax (the word order is paramount);
  • they use temporal particles Aspect modal O and : the verb is brought up to date by means of particle S most of the time postverbal which informs about time, the aspect, the Mode of lawsuit and the mode of the verb;
  • in addition to these particles, there exists very many postverbal suffixes informing about the localization of the lawsuit, its possibility, its success, etc
  • these languages make use of “classifying” named specifying , morphemes being placed between a determinant (conclusive, numeral adjective) to indicate the semantic Classe to which a term belongs (class of the long and flat objects, class of the animals, pairs, divisions of a work of poetry, etc);
  • in the majority of the cases, they are languages SVO. One however notes an important tendency to Topicalisation.

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