Some Knowledge about Chinese Dialects

Spoken Chinese can be divided into five main dialectical groups, of which Mandarin is only one. Yue (which includes Cantonese), Min, Wu and Hakka make up the other four, covering more than 200 individual smaller dialects. Some of these dialects are limited to very small geographical areas, while others have speakers all across the country and beyond (like Mandarin itself).

Some people suggested that the Chinese dialects are really different languages. In practical terms they ought to be treated as such ; in some universities in the North America, for example, Cantonese is offered alongside the standard language in Asian language departments. But the question of what constitutes a language and what make a dialect may not be answered in an absolute way with clear defination; nonetheless, it is important to keep in mind that the differences among the Chinese dialects are very considerable.

We often hear that Mandarine & Cantonese are described as “dialects” of one single language called Chinese. But some suggest that the only single “Chinese” language that exists is on paper, in the sense that all of its varieties have the same writing system, where each word has its own symbol / character that stays the same from one Chinese “dialect” to another. Cantonese and Mandarin, for example, are more different than Italian & Spanish when spoken. “I,” “you,” and “he” in Mandarin are wǒ, nǐ, and tā, but in Cantonese they are, respectively, ngóh, léih, and kéuih. Do you still think they are just dialects? A Mandarin-speaker can no more “adjust” to Cantonese than a Swede could “adjust” to German.

According to some of the historical linguists, the Chinese language is rather more like a language family than a single language made up of a number of regional forms. The Chinese dialectal complex is in many ways analogous to the Romance language family in Europe. To take an extreme example, there is probably as much difference between the dialects of Peking and Chaozhou as there is between Italian and French ‘ the Hainan Min dialects are as different from the Xian dialect as Spanish is from Rumanian. in this complex situation, we would consider them more like "varieties of one language" instead of "dialects".

Cantonese (粵語 or 廣東話) is primarily used in the Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. Most Chinese communities in Australia, Europe, North America, and other parts of the world also use Cantonese as their primary language. But in recent years, the number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese people living abroad has rapidly increased as more Northern Chinese are Taiwanese immigrants playing a larger and more active role in the global culture and economics.