Beijing says 400 million Chinese cannot speak Mandarin

Post by redditmigrant » Fri, Sep 06, 2013, 5:51 PM UTC

kyllo wrote: post #38

newsign wrote: post #37

India is also in similar situation where many dont speak Hindi - its like a Britain or American cant speak English ... being multi dialect/language country shouldn't be an excuse of not being able to speak the national language - i guess past and present government is to be blamed...

That's because Hindi is no-one's native language, it's an artificial language that was invented by a committee. Mandarin is almost the same situation, except that it is very very close to the native language of Beijing and Northeast China. So it's almost like they're forcing the entire country to learn Beijing dialect.

Post by jamesli » Fri, Sep 06, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

abayer wrote: post #34

mmorris wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a linguist, per se, but my understanding is that there is no formal definition (or even agreement) on what constitutes a separate language versus a separate dialect. Rather, a number of factors are taken into consideration (including political factors), and the distinction is almost always debatable. While it is desperate for citations, it looks like the Wikipedia article supports that: http://en.wikipedia.o…

Ok, then the linguists I read tend to be splitters rather than lumpers. =) This is particularly drama-prone in re: the Chinese languages/dialects due to the tendency for Beijing to attempt to cast all speakers of Chinese languages as in fact speakers of a single language, as part of their attempts to create a single unified Han identity. But in the end, I really believe that if it weren't for the common written langu…

Post by taway2012 » Fri, Sep 06, 2013, 6:18 PM UTC

jamesli wrote: post #19

Many people think Mandarin and Cantonese are basically the same language, or Cantonese is an accent of Mandarin. It is understandable since the majority of early Chinese immigrants were from Canton Province (or Guangdong Province), where Cantonese is the dominant language. Cantonese is a dialect, with very different sound system, although it shares the same writing system with Mandarin. The difference between their s…

Post by zasz » Fri, Sep 06, 2013, 6:21 PM UTC

taway2012 wrote: post #45

jamesli wrote: post #19

Many people think Mandarin and Cantonese are basically the same language, or Cantonese is an accent of Mandarin. It is understandable since the majority of early Chinese immigrants were from Canton Province (or Guangdong Province), where Cantonese is the dominant language. Cantonese is a dialect, with very different sound system, although it shares the same writing system with Mandarin. The difference between their s…

Hmm, if Cantonese is as different from Mandarin as Spanish is from English, why do you still call it a "dialect" of Mandarin?

Post by jamesli » Fri, Sep 06, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #25

jamesli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Keep in mind that there are many dialects of Mandarin and what this ministry is referring to is the fact that people do not speak the Beijing dialect well, which is the national standard." Strictly speaking, 1) there are many dialects of Chinese, not Mandarin. 2) the language many Beijing people speak is not a dialect. It is an accent. Cantonese is a dialect. Wu Chinese is a dialect. Beijing Chinese is an accent. It…

What is the reality of Wu on the ground in Shanghai? Do you hear both Mandarin and Wu often, or mostly just one? Which one? I assume everybody can actually speak and understand Mandarin?