# Chinese Language Questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 3, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846 "2004-11-03T21:07:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/1 "2004-11-03T21:07:59Z")
What is or is not a language/dialect in China seems to be somewhat in dispute, but the CIA factbook lists the following: Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, and Hakka dialects. Are all of the above written using the standard “Chinese Characters” (hànzi)? Do any of the other national minority languages use hanzi? What other kinds of written script are used in China? And finally, are the terms Mandarin and Cantonese offensive to native speakers? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/2 "2004-11-03T21:53:52Z")
I’ll answer part of the question. If you look closely at [Chinese paper money](http://www.chinatoday.com/fin/mon/) , you can see 6 different scripts in use: Chinese, the Latin alphabet, and 4 other scripts, see, for example, on the botton right hand corner of the second (righthand) pictures of the old 100 yuan and 50 yuan notes. One of those is Arabic, I think, but I’m not sure what the others are. ---
**Author:** ![charizard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charizard/32/4166_2.png) [@charizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charizard)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/3 "2004-11-03T23:19:57Z")
China is a patchwork of languages and cultures, to a degree that’s hard to imagine for the rest of us. In our terms, the dialects of China could rightly be called different languages, in that one “dialect” is completely incomprehensible to the speaker of another “dialect”. And there are WAY more than the ones listed - in many areas there different dialects just from one village to the next. The reason that they can somewhat be grouped together as dialects of the same language is that they use the the same writing system, where the characters are based on meaning rather than sound. So speakers of two different dialects cannot talk with each other, but they can \*write \* to each other (!) The exact usage of the writing differs a bit between dialects (due to grammatical differences in the underlying language, etc.), but is really remarkable consistent across the country, all things considered. China also has a number of non-han minorities, who speak completely different languages and use different writing systems. And, the terms \*Mandarin \* and \*Cantonese \* are proper (English) terms for the two major dialects - nothing offensive about them. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/4 "2004-11-03T23:27:21Z")
> [@charizard](#): > > China is a patchwork of languages and cultures, to a degree that’s hard to imagine for the rest of us. > > In our terms, the dialects of China could rightly be called different languages, in that one “dialect” is completely incomprehensible to the speaker of another “dialect”. And there are WAY more than the ones listed - in many areas there different dialects just from one village to the next. > > The reason that they can somewhat be grouped together as dialects of the same language is that they use the the same writing system, where the characters are based on meaning rather than sound. So speakers of two different dialects cannot talk with each other, but they can \*write \* to each other (!) Thanks for the clarifications. Do all those languages/dialects which I listed use chinese characters in their written form? ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/5 "2004-11-04T00:19:08Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > One of those is Arabic, I think, but I’m not sure what the others are. The scripts on the Chinese bills are: Roman (Chinese, pin-yin) Mongolian Tibetan Arabic (Uygur) Roman (Zhuang) ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/6 "2004-11-04T11:27:46Z")
Also Chinese characters are used on the currency. Most Chinese dialects can be written in chinese characters. It’s tough for native speakers though to switch from a mainland newspaer to a HK newspaper to a Taiwan newspaper (assume they are all in simplified characters) owing to differring vocabularies. Not impossible but tough. Most of the dialects are mutually incomprehensible, and that’s without considering the non-Han Chinese minority languages like Tibetan, Miao, Mongolian, etc. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/7 "2004-11-04T11:32:34Z")
Most linguists consider Cantonese and Mandarin to be different languages, not dialects, not least because of their mutual incomprehensibility. “A language is a dialect with an army.” ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/8 "2004-11-04T13:03:05Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Are all of the above written using the standard “Chinese Characters” (hànzi)? Yes, to the extent they’re written. Most Chinese people are literate, but some dialects simply are very rarely written - speakers will, essentially, do their writing in Mandarin. In most other dialects, large portions of the vocabulary just don’t have characters associated with them. Some dialects, in contrast, do have full-fledged written forms, and while there are slight differences in grammar, and significant ones in vocabulary, the basic writing system is the same. > [@](#): > > Do any of the other national minority languages use hanzi? Probably a few do so; certainly most of them, however, use Roman characters or another alphabetic writing system. Hanzi are, generally, terrible for writing any language besides Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/9 "2004-11-04T15:23:55Z")
Thanks **Excalibre** , you explained things really well. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2004, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/10 "2004-11-04T16:47:35Z")
Let me give a couple of links to Ethnologue. Ethnologue is a good (but, yes, less than perfect, I know that) reference site about the languages of the world. If you have questions about the world’s languages, Ethnologue is a good place to start. Here’s the page for the Sino-Tibetan language family: [http://www.ethnologue.com/show\_family.asp?subid=872](http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=872) As you can see, there are 14 different and mutually incomprehensible languages that are part of the Chinese branch of this family (and one of them isn’t even spoken in China). Roughly speaking, they are no closer than the languages of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family (English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Yiddish, Afrikaans, Frisian, etc.). Each of these languages has its own dialects. As has been said before, Mandarin and Cantonese should properly not be called “dialects” of Chinese. They are languages, each with their own set of mutually comprehensible dialects. Here is the page for the languages of China: [http://www.ethnologue.com/show\_country.asp?name=China](http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=China) Many of the languages of China are unrelated to the Chinese languages. ---
**Author:** ![SmHodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@SmHodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmHodge)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/11 "2004-11-05T01:51:30Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Probably a few do so; certainly most of them, however, use Roman characters or another alphabetic writing system. Hanzi are, generally, terrible for writing any language besides Chinese. Hey, on that note, in my Chinese class we have American cites, for example, let’s take Washington, transcribed into hanzi. In hanzi 华盛顿. Does _anyone_ use this in China? Or would I just see it as “Washington?” ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/12 "2004-11-05T03:31:11Z")
> [@SmHodge](#): > > Hey, on that note, in my Chinese class we have American cites, for example, let’s take Washington, transcribed into hanzi. In hanzi 华盛顿. Does _anyone_ use this in China? Or would I just see it as “Washington?” Yes, that’s how you would read “Washington” in a Chinese text. This is a general comment on learning languages, but the www is a terrific resource when it comes to checking actual usage. Strictly IMO, I find that the most difficult thing when reading (or trying to read) Chinese is figuring out what transliterations actually refer to. _Hua… sheng… dun… ?_ ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/13 "2004-11-05T04:36:16Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Here is the page for the languages of China: > > [http://www.ethnologue.com/show\_country.asp?name=China](http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=China) > > Many of the languages of China are unrelated to the Chinese languages. Holy crap, that’s the mother lode. Xie xie. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/14 "2004-11-05T10:52:57Z")
Question for the Chinese language experts… Suppose two Chinese people meet somewhere else in the world. They don’t know each other. One speaks Cantonese, the other Mandarin. Do they “test the waters” by a standard phrase of some sort so they know if they will be able to converse in Chinese? Or would say the Cantonese speaker merely say a line and the Mandarin speaker be forced to say in English or whatever “sorry, but I speak Mandarin.”? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/15 "2004-11-05T10:59:33Z")
**BobLibDem** : Suppose two European people meet somewhere else in the world… 😉 **Dan Blather** : What does ‘Xie xie’ mean? **Anyone with knowledge** : Did any of the `Chinese’ languages develop an alphabetic writing system independently of European influence? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/16 "2004-11-05T11:06:02Z")
I see your point but if a Czech and a Frenchman meet say in Africa, they aren’t going to know each other’s nationality. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I thought that a Chinese person can instantly tell by the face whether another person is Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. I had a Japanese roommate in college that told me that he could tell. Another anecdote- a high school teacher of mine saw the movie Tora Tora Tora with a Japanese friend. His friend chuckled and said “what are all these Chinese people doing here?” ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/17 "2004-11-05T11:14:15Z")
**BobLibDem** : Like **Derleth** said, an Italian and a Spaniard meet each other… **Derleth** : _Xie xie_ means “thanks”. There is a fairly recent (1913) phonetic system for writing Chinese that isn’t based on European alphabets: the _Zhùyīn fúhào_ better known as [Bopomofo](http://www.romanization.com/tongyong/mps2.gif). I don’t think it’s used much outside of Taiwan nowadays as Pin-Yin romanization is the official phonetic script in the mainland. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/18 "2004-11-05T11:24:32Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I see your point but if a Czech and a Frenchman meet say in Africa, they aren’t going to know each other’s nationality. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I thought that a Chinese person can instantly tell by the face whether another person is Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. I had a Japanese roommate in college that told me that he could tell. Another anecdote- a high school teacher of mine saw the movie Tora Tora Tora with a Japanese friend. His friend chuckled and said “what are all these Chinese people doing here?” Okay, that post slipped by… First of all, it’s not true that you can tell someone’s nationality by their faces. Your teacher’s friend was bullshiting. _Tora! Tora! Tora!_ was shot by a joint American-Japenese team, and all the Japenese roles are played by Japanese actors directed by a Japanese director (Kinji Fukasaku). There are certain phenotypes that are definitely more common amongst certain populations but Chinese and Japanese and Koreans don’t look more different than French and Dutch and Germans. Furthermore, people underestimate just how multi-cultural China really is. In the countryside, outsiders (Chinese and foreigners alike) stick out like sore thumbs but in large cities you find people comming from all sorts of places. Take a look at [this man.](http://www.frankossen.com/Bearded_Uygur_-_Xinjiang.jpg) Does he look Chinese to you? (I’ll admit that’s a slightly extreme example, but you _do_ run into people who look like that. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/19 "2004-11-05T11:26:59Z")
Aargh… Apologies for the triple post, the link above doesn’t like hot-linking. [Try this](http://www.fotograf.net/halukuygur/images/portfolyo/103.jpg). Different man, same point. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846/20 "2004-11-05T11:34:20Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Question for the Chinese language experts… > > Suppose two Chinese people meet somewhere else in the world. They don’t know each other. One speaks Cantonese, the other Mandarin. Do they “test the waters” by a standard phrase of some sort so they know if they will be able to converse in Chinese? Or would say the Cantonese speaker merely say a line and the Mandarin speaker be forced to say in English or whatever “sorry, but I speak Mandarin.”? I was in the middle of France with China Wife sick and needing food (ironically she’s the French speaker and I’m not) and lost me trying to find some food. Saved when I say a Chinese restaurant. Go in and ask “do you speak Mandarin?” “Of course” was the reply although they were from HK. From my own experience and watching my Chinese wife, you just ask “do you speak Mandarin?” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-language-questions/272846.md?page=2)