What exactly does “The Chinese language” mean? Does it mean Mandarin, or are other langs like Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew included?
What exactly does “The Chinese language” mean? Does it mean Mandarin, or are other langs like Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew included?
Maybe we can say it’s more like saying a French person from one region speaks Languedoc and one from another speaks Provencal. Yes, there are multiple languages in France with origins there, but there’s massive institutional weight thrown behind a standard one, and the variation is, as I understand it, almost completely gone in France, and mostly being maintained or slightly declining in China?
without being familiar with the linguistic landscape in France that sounds like a fair comparison. contrary to what a lot of Western chauvinists love to claim, linguistic diversity is quite celebrated in China. One such example I am familiar with is the effort to try and revitalise 上海话 in the last decade or so. Although of course I’m sure there has been erosion of some dialects as well, an unfortunate aspect of nation building, increasing education, and creating economic opportunity for people throughout the nation is that some small dialects will become less useful for younger generations with internal migration and so forth.
When first considering learning Chinese, “Shanghainese” caught my interest, because apparently they only use two tones? Tones didn’t turn out to be so bad. That is cool it is being promoted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNSWuNuOwRk This is a really interesting talk about the topic. Unfortunately no English subtitles but suitable for an intermediate learner. Also the powerpoint slides have English so that’s useful. Speaker is Nathan Rao of the Teatime Chinese podcast. A great podcast for listening practice!