Give yourself a big pat on the back right now. Yup, right now — before you even begin to utter one iota of Chinese. If you don’t do it now, you may be too shocked later on when it sinks in that you’ve taken on a language that has hundreds (yes, hundreds) of dialects — each one mutually incomprehensible to speakers of the other ones. Practically every major town, and certainly every province, in China has its own regional dialect that folks grow up learning (see Table 1-1). Of the seven major dialects, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, and Cantonese are the ones you may have heard of before.
And then there’s Mandarin, dialect of the masses. Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people on earth than any other language today. Pretty much a quarter of humanity uses it, given China’s immense population. So just why was this particular dialect chosen to become the official dialect taught in all schools throughout China, regardless of whatever additional dialects people speak at home or in their communities?
With only four tones, Gu.nhua (gwan hwah; Mandarin; literally: the language of the officials, who were also known as Mandarins) has served as the hybrid language of China since the 15th century, because it was based on the educated speech of the region around Beijing. Instead of referring to it as Gu.nhua, mainlanders in China now call it Put.nghua (poo toong hwah; the common language). People in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and in overseas Chinese communities call it Guoyu (gwaw yew; the national language). You may also hear it referred to as Zh.ngwen (joong one; the language of the Chinese people) and Hanyu (hahn yew; the language of the Han people), because the Chinese have often referred to themselves as descendants of the Han dynasty (206 BCE to 220 CE), one of the golden eras of Chinese history. Because Chinese is the language of ethnic Chinese and China’s minority groups, the more all-encompassing term Zh.ngwen is preferred.
Table 1-1 Major Chinese Dialects Dialect Pronunciation Region Where Spoken Put.nghua / Guoyu (Mandarin) poo toong hwah / gwaw yew North of the Yangzi River, but taught in schools everywhere; official language of the People’s Republic of China and spoken all over Taiwan Wu woo Shanghai, southeastern Anhui, and much of Zhejiang Xi.ng shyahng Hunan Gan gahn Jiangxi, southern Anhui, and southeastern Hubei Keji. (Hakka) kuh jyah Scattered parts of eastern and southwestern Guangxi and in northern Guangdong (Canton) Yue (Cantonese) yweh Southeastern Guangxi, Guangdong (Canton), and Hong Kong Min meen Fujian, southern Zhejiang, northeastern Guangdong, Hainan, and Taiwan
The term Put.nghua (literally: the common language) is used to refer to Mandarin in the People’s Republic of China, and the term Guoyu (literally: the national language) is the term used for Mandarin in Taiwan. If you simply say Hanyu (the language of the Han people), however, you can use it anywhere.
