TRANSLATE FROM / TO CHINESE

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SOME FACTS

Chinese, subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, which is also sometimes grouped with the Tai, or Thai, languages in a Sinitic subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan language stock. Chinese comprises a number of variants; those that are mutually unintelligible are considered separate languages by some linguists but are classed among the many dialects of Chinese by others.

Forms of Chinese

The most widespread form of Chinese is Mandarin, which may be regarded as modern standard Chinese. It has several dialects and is spoken as a first language by some 835 million people in central and N China, as well as Taiwan, claiming more native speakers than any other language. An additional 100 million speak it as a second language. Originally the language of the court at Beijing during the imperial period, Mandarin was then called kuan hua [official speech]. After the Nationalists seized control in 1911, the name was changed to kuo yu [national tongue]. The Communist government adopted and simplified the Beijing dialect of Mandarin as the basis for a national language, renaming it putonghua [generally understood speech]. Mandarin in its various forms is spoken by about 70% of the population of China. It is the official language of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan and is employed as one of the official languages of the United Nations.

Other leading forms of Chinese include Wu, the tongue of about 65 million people in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provs.; Fukienese or Northern Min, with some 50 million speakers distributed in Fujian prov., Taiwan, and SE Asia; Cantonese or Yue, spoken by over 65 million persons residing in Guangxi and Guangdong provs., Hong Kong, SE Asia, and the United States; Hakka or Kejia, the language of about 35 million in Guangdong and Jiangxi provs.; and Amoy-Swatow or Southern Min, the mother tongue of 15 million living in Fujian and Guangdong provs., Taiwan, and the South Pacific.

Grammar, Pronunciation, and Vocabulary

The various forms of Chinese differ least in grammar, more in vocabulary, and most in pronunciation. Like the other Sino-Tibetan languages, Chinese is tonal, i.e., different tones distinguish words otherwise pronounced alike. The number of tones varies in different forms of Chinese, but Mandarin has four tones: a high tone, a rising tone, a tone that combines a falling and a rising inflection, and a falling tone.

Chinese (again, like other Sino-Tibetan languages) is also strongly monosyllabic. Chinese often uses combinations of monosyllables that result in polysyllabic compounds having different meanings from their individual elements. For example, the word for “explanation,” shue-ming, combines shue (“speak”) with ming (“bright”). These compounds can embrace three and even four monosyllables: shuo-ch'u-lai, the word for “describe,” is made up of shuo (“speak”), ch'u (“out”), and lai (“come”). This practice has greatly increased the Chinese vocabulary and also makes it much easier to grasp the meaning of spoken Chinese words.

The elements of Chinese tend to be more grammatically isolated than connected, because the language lacks inflection to indicate person, number, gender, case, tense, voice, and so forth. Suffixes may be used to denote some of these features. For example, the suffix -le is a sign of the perfect tense of the verb. Subordination and possession can be marked by the suffix -te. The position and use of a word in a sentence may determine its part of speech and its meaning.

The Chinese Writing System

The Chinese writing system developed more than 4,000 years ago; the oldest extant examples of written Chinese are from the 14th or 15th cent. B.C., when the Shang dynasty flourished. Chinese writing consists of an individual character or ideogram for every syllable, each character representing a word or idea rather than a sound; thus, problems caused by homonyms in spoken Chinese are not a difficulty in written Chinese. The written language is a unifying factor culturally, for although the spoken languages and dialects may not be mutually comprehensible in many instances, the written form is universal.

Traditionally, the characters are written in columns that are read from top to bottom and from right to left, or in horizontal lines that read from left to right. The Chinese characters, although universal to all dialects, have proved to be an obstacle to mass literacy, for one needs to know at least several thousand characters to read a newspaper and even more to read literary works. In an attempt to deal with this problem, the People's Republic of China in 1956 introduced simplifications of commonly used characters. This was intended as a transitional phase until a workable alphabet could be devised and adopted.

Also in 1956 an alphabet based on Roman letters (Pinyin) was developed in mainland China. Its purpose, however, was the phonetic transcription of Chinese characters rather than the replacement of them. Since alphabetic writing requires a standardized spoken language, the local differences in the pronunciation of Chinese present a serious obstacle to the development of a satisfactory alphabet. The Chinese government has made a great effort to standardize the pronunciation of Mandarin, which is essentially a spoken language, and to have it adopted throughout China. The Beijing dialect of Mandarin was chosen because it was already the most widely used.

The literary language of Chinese differs greatly from the spoken form. Known as wenyen, the literary language is the same for all variants of Chinese as far as vocabulary, grammar, and the system of writing are concerned, but pronunciation differs locally according to the dialect. Under Nationalist leadership a movement began in 1917 to employ the popular, everyday speech (called paihua) in literature insead of wenyen. Since 1949, under the Communists, paihua has been used for all writing, including governmental, commercial, and journalistic texts as well as literary works.

CHINESE: a language of China
SIL code: CHN
ISO 639-1: zh
ISO 639-2(B): chi
ISO 639-2(T): zho

Population 867,200,000 in China (1999), 70% of the population, including 8,602,978 Hui (1990 census). Other estimates for Hui are 20,000,000 or more. 1,042,482,187 all Han in China (1990 census). Population total all countries 874,000,000 first language speakers, 1,052,000,000 including second language speakers (1999 WA).

Region Covers all of mainland China north of the Changjiang River, a belt south of the Changjiang from Qiujiang (Jiangxi) to Zhenjiang (Jiangsu), Hubei except the southeastern corner, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, the northwestern part of Guangxi, and the northwestern corner of Hunan. Also spoken in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Laos, Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, Mongolia, Philippines, Russia (Asia), Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, Viet Nam.

Alternate names MANDARIN, GUANHUA, BEIFANG FANGYAN, NORTHERN CHINESE, GUOYU, STANDARD CHINESE, PUTONGHUA
Dialects HUABEI GUANHUA (NORTHERN MANDARIN), XIBEI GUANHUA (NORTHWESTERN MANDARIN), XINAN GUANHUA (SOUTHWESTERN MANDARIN), JINGHUAI GUANHUA (JIANGXIA GUANHUA, LOWER YANGZE MANDARIN).

Classification Sino-Tibetan, Chinese.
Comments Wenli is a literary form. Written Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect, but has been heavily influenced by other varieties of Northern Mandarin. Putonghua is the official form taught in schools. Hezhouhoua is spoken in the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture and Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of southern Gansu Province, and in neighboring areas in Qinghai Province. The grammar is basically Altaic or Tibetan, while the vocabulary and phonology is basically Northwestern Mandarin, or a relexified variety of Tibetan. More investigation is needed. Putonghua is inherently intelligible with the Beijing dialect, and other Mandarin varieties in the northeast. Mandarin varieties in the Lower Plateau in Shaanxi are not readily intelligible with Putonghua. Mandarin varieties of Guilin and Kunming are inherently unintelligible to speakers of Putonghua. Taibei Mandarin and Beijing Mandarin are fully inherently intelligible to each other's speakers. The Hui are non-Turkic, non-Mongolian, Muslims who speak Mandarin as first language. Hui is a separate official nationality. The Hui correspond ethnically to 'Khoton', 'Hoton', or 'Qotong' in Mongolia, 20,000 Muslim Chinese in Taiwan, and the Hui in Thailand. Several hundred Chinese Jews in Kaifeng city, Henan Province are largely assimilated to the Han or Hui Chinese, and speak Mandarin. They are officially recognized. Investigation needed: intelligibility with varieties in Loess Plateau in Shaanxi, varieties in Guillin and Kunming. Official language. Dictionary. Grammar. SVO, SOV. If literate, they read Chinese. A few read Arabic. Chinese characters. Official language taught in all schools in Han China and Taiwan. Hui: agriculturalists (rural), traders (urban). Traditional Chinese religion, Buddhist, Muslim (Hui), Jewish, Christian, secular. Bible 1874-1983.

Also spoken in:
Brunei Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 15,000 in Brunei, 29.7% of ethnic Chinese (1979).
Comments Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Indonesia (Java and Bali) Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 460,000 speakers (1982 CCCOWE).
Comments Of the five to six million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia (1979 CCCOWE; 5,500,000 in 1976 or 4% of total population according to United Nations), 65% (3,500,000 to 4,000,000) speak Indonesian in the home, 35% (2,000,000) speak 5 Chinese languages in the home. Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Malaysia (Peninsular) Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 417,070 in Malaysia (1970 census).
Comments Speakers are primarily urban, in business. Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Mongolia Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 35,000 in Mongolia (1993 Johnstone), including 2,000 Qotong (1982 estimate).

Alternate names HOTON, QOTONG, HUI-ZU, HUI, XUI, NORTHERN CHINESE, MANDARIN, HYTAD

Comments Bilingualism in Halh Mongolian. Literacy rate in second language: High in Halh or Mandarin. Those who are traditionally Sunni Muslim in China (Hui) are known as 'Qotong' (Hoton) in Mongolia, 'Dungan' in Kyrgyzstan, 'Hui' in Thailand. The majority of Chinese in Mongolia are not Muslim. Distinct from Khoton (Hoton) of Mongolia. Secular, Maoism, Confucian, Muslim. Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Philippines Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 500 to 600 or 0.1% of Chinese population, including Chaochow dialect of Min Nam (1982 CCCOWE). All ethnic Chinese are 53,273 (1990 censu), or 1.3% of the population (1993 Johnstone).
Comments Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Singapore Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 201,000 speakers, 7.9% of population, and 880,000 second language users (literate in Mandarin) in Singapore (1985 estimate).
Alternate names HUAYU, GUOYU
Comments Increasing use. 44% also use other Chinese varieties at home; 12% use English at home. National language. Taught in schools. Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Taiwan Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 4,323,000 in Taiwan (1993), 20.1% of the population. Spoken as a second language by over 15,000,000.
Alternate names KUOYU, MANDARIN, PUTONGHUA, GUOYU
Dialects TAIBEI MANDARIN.
Comments Fully inherently intelligible with Putonghua in China, but intelligible with Benjing dialect with some difficulty. Nearly all mother tongue speakers in Taiwan speak with Min-influenced grammar and various degrees of Min-influenced pronunciation. Many of the educated strive to cultivate standard pronunciation. Grammatical differences of the Taiwan variety often appear in writing. Many of the 30 to 50 year-old generation in Taiwan are also fluent in Taiwan Min. National language. Putonghua taught in all schools. Traditional Chinese, Buddhist, Christian, Secular. Bible 1874-1983. See main entry under China.

Thailand Language name CHINESE, MANDARIN
Population 5,880 in Thailand, .1% of the Chinese population in Thailand (1984 estimate).
Dialects HO (HAW, CIN HAW, YUNNANESE, WESTERN MANDARIN, HUI, HUI-TZE, HWEI, PANGHSE, PANTHA, PANTHE, PATHEE).
Comments Chinese folk religion; Hui: Muslim. Bible 1874-1983.

Chinese Language Internet Users

There are two versions of Chinese (GB and Big5). Both are the same language, and they are pronounced the same and written with (more or less) the same characters. GB (Mandarin Chinese) is the encoding of simplified version of Chinese used in Mainland China and Singapore, while Big5 is the encoding of old (traditional) version of Chinese that are still popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities.

Chinese-speakers live in most every country, but the highest concentration outside of China is in the U.S.:

China. Population 1,273 million (2000 est.; CIA)
Gross Domestic Product: US$ 4.5 trillion (2000 est.; CIA)
GDP per capita : US$ 3800 (2000 est., CIA)

Taiwan. Population 22.2 million
Gross Domestic Product : US$357 billion (1999 est.; CIA)
GDP per capita: US$16,100 (1999 est., CIA)

Hong Kong. Population 7.1 million
Gross Domestic Product : US$158 billion (1999 est., CIA)
GDP per capita : US$23,100 (1999 est., CIA)

U.S. There are 1.3 million Chinese-speakers living in the U.S. (according to the U.S.Census Bureau, 1990 census). A more recent figure is 2 million.