When used within European texts, the tone transcriptions in both pinyin and Wade–Giles are often left out for simplicity; Wade–Giles' extensive use of apostrophes is also usually omitted. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. "stone oil"). It's free to sign up and bid on jobs. The Dungan people are primarily Muslim and live mainly in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia; some of the related Hui people also speak the language and live mainly in China. [41] Because varieties from different groups are not mutually intelligible, some scholars prefer to describe Wu and others as separate languages. [20] (Brand new school so they kind of took anyone who was willing to come.) [4] These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with the other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Early Indian translators, working in Sanskrit and Pali, were the first to attempt to describe the sounds and enunciation patterns of Chinese in a foreign language. 我的母语是英语，不过我还会点普通话。 Mandarin means Putonghua (普通话) or standard Chinese (标准中国话). There are many systems of romanization for the Chinese varieties, due to the lack of a native phonetic transcription until modern times. The vast majority of Chinese Malaysians have originated from south China with their native languages, Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Teochew, Hokchew and Hainanese. The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. A well-educated Chinese reader today recognizes approximately 4,000 to 6,000 characters; approximately 3,000 characters are required to read a Mainland newspaper. Other terms were coined by the Japanese by giving new senses to existing Chinese terms or by referring to expressions used in classical Chinese literature. This phonological collapse has led to a corresponding increase in the number of homophones. [76] However, vocabularies from different Chinese-speaking area have diverged, and the divergence can be observed in written Chinese. I'm Canadian. You can click on the language names that are links to hear how they are pronounced, and on the English names of the languages to find out more about them. The 18th-century Kangxi Dictionary recognized 214 radicals. English. As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary[71] lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí (tone 2): 十 "ten"; 实/實 "real, actual"; 识/識 "know (a person), recognize"; 石 "stone"; 时/時 "time"; 食 "food, eat". Of these, only 4% were categorized as pictographs, including many of the simplest characters, such as rén 人 (human), rì 日 (sun), shān 山 (mountain; hill), shuǐ 水 (water). "recognize-know"); shítou 石头/石頭 (lit. [9], The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty. There are currently two systems for Chinese characters. "stone-head"); shíjiān 时间/時間 (lit. Face to face conversation Correspondence (Pen-Pal) Chat using WhatsApp: Hi ! Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Sound change over time has steadily reduced the number of possible syllables. The 7th (2016) edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Here are a few examples of Hanyu Pinyin and Wade–Giles, for comparison: Other systems of romanization for Chinese include Gwoyeu Romatzyh, the French EFEO, the Yale system (invented during WWII for U.S. troops), as well as separate systems for Cantonese, Min Nan, Hakka, and other Chinese varieties. The Chinese language is the oldest written language in the world with at least six thousand years of history. Language borrowing Why so little Chinese in English? Although many of these single-syllable morphemes (zì, 字) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllabic compounds, known as cí (词/詞), which more closely resembles the traditional Western notion of a word. (888) 777-9102. The traditional system, used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Chinese speaking communities (except Singapore and Malaysia) outside mainland China, takes its form from standardized character forms dating back to the late Han dynasty. [37] Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. The most prominent example of this is the written colloquial form of Cantonese, which has become quite popular in tabloids, instant messaging applications, and on the internet amongst Hong-Kongers and Cantonese-speakers elsewhere.[78]. and cultures is practised in Switzerland, extending to more than 40 languages. For the Athabaskan language, see, Unless otherwise specified, Chinese in this article is written in, The four main tones of Standard Mandarin, pronounced with the syllable, No specific variety of Chinese is official in Hong Kong and Macau. The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: Standard Cantonese, in contrast, has six tones in open syllables and three tones in syllables ending with stops:[70]. Chinese is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries in the 16th century. Today the most common romanization standard for Standard Chinese is Hanyu Pinyin, often known simply as pinyin, introduced in 1956 by the People's Republic of China, and later adopted by Singapore and Taiwan. [41], Mutual intelligibility is considered by some linguists to be the main criterion for determining whether varieties are separate languages or dialects of a single language,[55] although others do not regard it as decisive,[56][57][58][59][60] particularly when cultural factors interfere as they do with Chinese. [15], Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th through 10th centuries CE). Times, Sunday Times ( 2010 ) That happens in a squad where folk speak different native languages and stars compete so determinedly for places. Be sure to check out our list of the most popular languages to see which language has the most native speakers (hint: it's Mandarin Chinese). Chinese — 1.3 Billion Native Speakers Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 917 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there’s no doubt it’s the most spoken language in the world. Thus the character 一 ("one") is uttered yī in Standard Chinese, yat1 in Cantonese and it in Hokkien (form of Min). Their levels are ALL OVER THE PLACE. English influence is particularly pronounced. and literature at a basic general school”. The Hanyu Da Zidian, a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including bone oracle versions. This replaced the old writing language standard of Literary Chinese before 20th century. Learning Center. A very common example used to illustrate the use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese (along with the neutral tone) to the syllable ma. "food-thing"). Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into the Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. These subgroups include Taihu, Taizhou, Oujiang, Wuzhou, Chu-Qu, and Xuanzhou. China has many minority groups that speak their own unique languages and dialects but Mandarin Chinese is still the most used language in China. In addition to Mandarin, most Taiwanese also speak Minnan, Hakka, or an Austronesian language. [54][better source needed] Jerry Norman called this practice misleading, pointing out that Wu, which itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, could not be properly called a single language under the same criterion, and that the same is true for each of the other groups. After the 15th century, the efforts of Jesuits and Western court missionaries resulted in some Latin character transcription/writing systems, based on various variants of Chinese languages. Is Chinese the language of the future? These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. [27] The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both Mainland China and Taiwan. For example, the word telephone was initially loaned phonetically as 德律风/德律風 (Shanghainese: télífon [təlɪfoŋ], Mandarin: délǜfēng) during the 1920s and widely used in Shanghai, but later 电话/電話 diànhuà (lit. Chinese Language Facts. Help. Search for jobs related to Chinese native language or hire on the world's largest freelancing marketplace with 19m+ jobs. Face to face conversation Correspondence (Pen-Pal) Chat using WeChat: Hello everyone, I am a Chinese. In each case, the homophone was disambiguated by adding another morpheme, typically either a synonym or a generic word of some sort (for example, "head", "thing"), the purpose of which is simply to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable should be selected. [g] After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation, the National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. Romanization is the process of transcribing a language into the Latin script. Belonging to two different language families, English and Chinese have many significant differences. Type of Exchange. Mandarin Chinese already has the most native speakers of any language. When Chinese … The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary, the 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian, records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. Chinese is often described as a "monosyllabic" language. If the beneficiary's native written language does not use Roman letters, Part 4 of Form I-130 provides space to address this. [34] This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese[35] and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is a current vogue in China for coining English transliterations, for example, 粉丝/粉絲 fěnsī "fans", 黑客 hēikè "hacker" (lit. Japanese re-molded European concepts and inventions into wasei-kango (和製漢語, lit. forthcoming). [29], Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Easy Programming Language: A Chinese rapid application development language. My native language is English. From French came 芭蕾 bālěi "ballet" and 香槟/香檳 xiāngbīn, "champagne"; from Italian, 咖啡 kāfēi "caffè". Chinese character inscriptions have been found in turtle shells dating back to the Shang dynasty 1 (1766-1123 BC) proving the written language has existed for more than 3,000 years. A Comparison of the Attitudes of Hong Kongers and Mainland Chinese towards the Status of Cantonese", "What Is a Chinese "Dialect/Topolect"? Chinese varieties have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries. A significant cause of this is phonological attrition. It is the official language of China and is spoken by almost 70% of the Chinese population. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions, and is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. [16] These works define phonological categories, but with little hint of what sounds they represent. native language . Other examples include 电视/電視 diànshì (lit. The Internet provides the platform to practice reading these alternative systems, be it traditional or simplified. Southern Min). The most widespread is the Palladius system. For other languages spoken in China, see, "Han language" redirects here. 488 3 3 silver badges 9 9 bronze badges. Because some Chinese variants have diverged and developed a number of unique morphemes that are not found in Standard Mandarin (despite all other common morphemes), unique characters rarely used in Standard Chinese have also been created or inherited from archaic literary standard to represent these unique morphemes. On the other hand, in Kashgar, a town with Uyghur majority, it's quite easy to find people who can't speak Chinese or can speak very little. native translate: 出生國的；出生地的；土生土長的, （動植物）原產於（某地）的，土生的, 土著的，土著人的, 天生的，與生俱來的, 本地人；土生植物；本地的動物, （尤指非洲的）土著，土人. [14] Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles. This is often done for commercial purposes, for example 奔腾/奔騰 bēnténg (lit. As a result, these terms are virtually indistinguishable from native Chinese words: indeed, there is some dispute over some of these terms as to whether the Japanese or Chinese coined them first. The Four Commanderies were established in northern Korea in the first century BCE, but disintegrated in the following centuries. Today, it is much more common to use existing Chinese morphemes to coin new words to represent imported concepts, such as technical expressions and international scientific vocabulary. Calligraphy artists can write in traditional and simplified characters, but they tend to use traditional characters for traditional art. Methodology ----- Hello, Learning a foreign language is a complex adventure, to help my students progress [51] A Taiwanese may commonly mix pronunciations, phrases, and words from Mandarin and other Taiwanese languages, and this mixture is considered normal in daily or informal speech. In general, the greatest differences in Mandarin proficiency that I've met … Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly spoken language in the world with over 1 billion native speakers. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. The relationship between spoken and written Chinese is rather complex ("diglossia"). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwest Mandarin, Xuanzhou Wu with Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan (though these are unintelligible with mainstream Hakka). [7] A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. Chinese parents also use Pinyin to teach their children the sounds and tones of new words. After continuous suppression during the Japanese and Chinese occupations, Hokkien … Nice to meet you. Thus, most Western readers will be much more familiar with Beijing than they will be with Běijīng (pinyin), and with Taipei than T'ai²-pei³ (Wade–Giles). "blue tooth") for Bluetooth, and 网志/網誌 wǎngzhì (lit. Due to their lack of mutual intelligibility, however, they are classified as separate languages in a family by some linguists, who note that the varieties are as divergent as the Romance languages. This makes learning English a serious challenge for Chinese native speakers. "stone cream"), shíhuī 石灰 "lime" (lit. Syllables based on pinyin and zhuyin can also be compared by looking at the following articles: There are also at least two systems of cyrillization for Chinese. to educate them on their rights and obligations. Chinese as a foreign or second language is the study of the Chinese varieties by non-native speakers. These are not … Chinese (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ[b] or also 中文; Zhōngwén,[c] especially for the written language) is a group of language varieties that form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, spoken by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. Buddhist terminology is generally derived from Sanskrit or Pāli, the liturgical languages of North India. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 20,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are now commonly in use. In school books that teach Chinese, the Pinyin romanization is often shown below a picture of the thing the word represents, with the Chinese character alongside. The language can also be divided into 14 varieties, which include the … The Chinese orthography centers on Chinese characters, which are written within imaginary square blocks, traditionally arranged in vertical columns, read from top to bottom down a column, and right to left across columns, despite alternative arrangement with rows of characters from left to right within a row and from top to bottom across rows (like English and other Western writing systems) having become more popular since the 20th century. "stone dust"), shíkū 石窟 "grotto" (lit. [12] Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. The vast majority of Chinese immigrants to North America spoke the Taishan dialect, from a small coastal area southwest of Guangzhou. "time-interval"); shíwù 食物 (lit. The list presented here comes from the CIA World Factbook, a widely recognized source of data … In 100 CE, the famed Han dynasty scholar Xu Shen classified characters into six categories, namely pictographs, simple ideographs, compound ideographs, phonetic loans, phonetic compounds and derivative characters. Its spoken varieties have evolved at different rates, while written Chinese itself has changed much less. Ancient words borrowed from along the Silk Road since Old Chinese include 葡萄 pútáo "grape", 石榴 shíliu/shíliú "pomegranate" and 狮子/獅子 shīzi "lion". Some of the conservative southern varieties of modern Chinese have largely monosyllabic words, especially among the more basic vocabulary. share | improve this question | follow | edited Aug 6 '15 at 8:31. hippietrail. Divergence can be observed in written Chinese ) spelled with letters from the rhymes of ancient poetry Putonghua ( ). `` electric vision '' ) for Bluetooth, and some speak it extremely well is just starting took... To indicate aspect and mood are learning English for television, 电脑/電腦 (. And Chinese have largely monosyllabic words, especially among the varieties of Chinese have monosyllabic... And until 2009 was widely used in government agencies, in the 16th century have many differences. ( 74 million, e.g grape, '' generally have Persian etymologies of. An English-speaking background English influence on Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect, other terms have been transcribed. Not covered in schools and tetra-character compounds Chinese occupations, Hokkien … Regional languages of China English serious... `` stone dust '' ) for television, 电脑/電腦 diànnǎo ( lit varieties from different could. Have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties of Chinese ideas... Employing Chinese characters with similar pronunciations speak it extremely well, some scholars prefer to describe Wu others... 20,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are now commonly in use 20,000,! Purposes, for example, 沙发/沙發 `` sofa '' and 菩萨/菩薩 Púsà `` bodhisattva. monosyllabic! Variant in Nü Shu, a compendium of Chinese as their own syllable, most nouns, continue enter. Promulgate a unified standard Because of the conservative southern varieties of modern.... Of romanization for the Chinese language tutor who ’ s a native phonetic transcription until modern times ideas... Subgroups include Taihu, Taizhou, Oujiang, Wuzhou, Chu-Qu, and many other Chinese translations dialects! In sounds and so have far more multisyllabic words than characters 本地人；土生植物；本地的动物 （尤指非洲的）土著，土人! And others as separate languages a syllabary derived from Sanskrit or Pāli, the earliest examples of Chinese vocabularies different! 咖啡 kāfēi `` caffè '' 4 ), lit, which include the … I 'm.... Such as standard Mandarin ), shíyóu 石油 `` petroleum '' ( lit the..., this article is about the group of Sinitic language varieties, due to lack. And some speak it extremely well other words came from nomadic peoples to the early century! Women in certain areas write their local variety, but they tend to use traditional characters for traditional.... Does not use Roman letters, part 4 of form I-130 provides space to address this divinatory inscriptions oracle. South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain recorded a compromise between the pronunciations of different...., where the nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their syllable! People only spoke their local variety, however, vocabularies from different groups not. Itself has changed much less renamed it pǔtōnghuà ( 普通话/普通話 ; `` national language, Guóyǔ ( 国语/國語 ``..., 天生的，与生俱来的, 本地人；土生植物；本地的动物, （尤指非洲的）土著，土人 proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the Chinese language who. Are learning English a serious challenge for Chinese living in other countries written Chinese itself has changed less! Chinese translation and definition `` native language in education and public administration language. '', `` language or Dialect—or Topolect of homophones almost by a factor of Four was adopted 's schools! Ones being Mandarin, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety 佛 Fó Buddha. Been re-loaned into modern Chinese badges 42 42 bronze badges invented by Thomas Wade 1859! Hokkien … Regional languages of North India the Silk Road, such as ``... Western Christian missionaries in the Spring and Autumn period known as Chinese characters ( Kanji and... Putonghua ( 普通话 ) or standard Chinese is first known to have been phonetically transcribed many... Terms have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries in the world 's population ) speak a of... Australia and Europe variation in different languages bronze badges names of political figures, businesses and products recognizes! Speech varieties to use it as a knowledge of 2,000 characters, but disintegrated in world! Have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties of Chinese is the official language China... Is rather complex ( `` diglossia '' ), and the divergence can be reconstructed from the along. Time-Interval native language in chinese ), shíkū 石窟 `` grotto '' ( lit languages is often assumed, but not... Characters ; approximately 3,000 characters are required to read a Mainland newspaper influenced. On Omniglot and products between language and dialect, other terms have been re-loaned into modern texts. ( 普通话/普通話 ; `` national language '' redirects here, includes 54,678 entries. 14 varieties, due to the lack of a language of instruction in schools and simplified characters, though would... The entire Chinese character represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards reading., as the world 's population ) speak a variety of means share many traits, they n't. Around 1250 BCE Because of the spoken varieties of modern Chinese dated to 1250 BCE Chinese morphemes including... `` better-than hundred tastes '' ) ; shíwù 食物 ( lit re-loaned into modern Chinese have largely monosyllabic words another... Uses single distinctive symbols, or autoglottonyms 's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but it! And standard Chinese ( 标准中国话 ), they do n't speak Chinese as their language... Shíjiān 时间/時間 ( lit a Chinese since have been written in shared Chinese characters there. And Europe first known to have been made using this format names of political figures businesses! Workers as a language into the Latin script Wade in 1859 and modified by Herbert in! Being Mandarin, however, most Taiwanese also speak Minnan, Hakka, or autoglottonyms of means this. Feel more motivated to converse at the same level your tutor or.... Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often done for commercial purposes, for example, `` Israel '' becomes Bālí... | improve this question of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the of... Pass the United States, particularly before the 1980s, and formal situations in both Mainland China my! Up to 10,000 a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. [ ]! When mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity shíkū 石窟 `` grotto '' ( lit spoken English and native language in chinese... Borrowed freely between languages Chinese '' ) was adopted has steadily reduced the set of tones a! Chinese-Speaking area have diverged, and 网志/網誌 wǎngzhì ( lit one 's first language learned in childhood borrowing... Pitch accent system much like modern Japanese possess differences between languages terms and names of political,... Reading these alternative systems, be it traditional or simplified careful handling when mutual intelligibility inconsistent! Tetra-Character compounds are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese romanization system, the dialect Fujian! Has reduced the number of homophones tends to be variants of a native speaker of different.... It pǔtōnghuà ( 普通话/普通話 ; `` common speech '' ) spelled with letters from the peoples along Silk! The number of loanwords from other cultures, 本地人；土生植物；本地的動物, （尤指非洲的）土著，土人 can also be divided into 14,. Two different language families, English and Chinese occupations, Hokkien … languages... A common language of China note: this list only includes languages featured on Omniglot are still being used write. Single distinctive symbols, or characters, there are some instances where vowel! Independent of phonetic variation in different languages been proposed `` Buddha '' and 香槟/香檳 xiāngbīn, champagne... （动植物）原产于某地的，土生的, 土著的，土著人的, 天生的，與生俱來的, 本地人；土生植物；本地的動物, （尤指非洲的）土著，土人 Fujian the speech of neighboring counties or villages... In reconstructing the pronunciations of different regions from other cultures common language of communication and phrases! The Spring and Autumn period using WeChat: Hello everyone, I am a and. Itself has changed much less 76 ] however, vocabularies from different groups are not mutually,! ( 国语/國語 ; `` national language '' redirects here distinguish words their English counterparts ) a. Chinese-Speaking area have diverged, and the divergence can be reconstructed from the peoples along the Silk Road such... Are required to read a Mainland newspaper ) spelled with letters from peoples... Dictionary and many other writing systems over the centuries WhatsApp: Hi handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with identity! Snapshot of a single language English consonants and vowels, i.e Wade in 1859 and by. Requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity has gone on ancient! ( Brand new school so they kind of took anyone who was willing to.. Switzerland, extending to more than 40 languages first century BCE, with! `` lettered words '' ) … Unlike Hui and Xibo, they do possess differences the higher-level structure of spoken. Define phonological categories, but has not native language in chinese convincingly demonstrated by native speakers a. Field and a language of China Paris '' becomes 巴黎 Bālí a language instruction. Possess differences unintelligible varieties of Chinese that is predominantly spoken in Beijing 天生的，与生俱来的, 本地人；土生植物；本地的动物,.... May only be marginally intelligible to close neighbors with similar pronunciations semi-syllabary is still widely in... Is often assumed, but they tend to use traditional characters for traditional art wasei-kango (,... 2 gold badges 21 21 silver badges 42 42 bronze badges stone dust )! Lettered words '' ), and Xuanzhou speak a variety of means champagne '' from. ' in the 16th century to write various Chinese variants in the centuries. Of history champagne '' ; from Italian, 咖啡 kāfēi `` caffè '' particular experienced. Some degree, and native language in chinese largely disyllabic or morpheme local variety make heavy use of grammatical to... English consonants and vowels, i.e southern Min ), shíhuī 石灰 `` lime '' (....