Talk:Languages of China
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Untitled[edit]
The languages of modern Chinese nationalities belong to six families: That looks suspicious to me. There are several Tai-Kadai languages, which are generally classed as an independent family, and what about the various hill-tribes? We could always hedge with "at least" something, but it'd be nice to be sure. Markalexander100 07:41, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- good idea, add "at least". I got the figure 6 from a semi-official PRC website. --Menchi 07:51, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Finally got round to it. Markalexander100 04:45, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- It's 'cause the orthodox position among Chinese linguists is that Tai-Kadai is somehow a subgroup of Sino-Tibetan. Non-Chinese linguists tend to disagree. - Mustafaa 05:03, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I see the same problem with the Miao-Yao languages as Markalexander100 saw with Tai-Kadai. The resources I am familiar with treat Miao-Yao as a separate family, too. Is it mostly the Chinese linguist orthodoxy to consider them Sino-Tibetan? Could someone with more exhaustive knowledge please address this? Scalasaig (talk) 09:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
Editorial comment on article in article[edit]
§ Someone has inserted the following words into the article:
- Calling that a single language is politically sensitive; it contains many dialects, some mutually intelligible but others so distinct (at least in their spoken forms) that elsewhere in the world they might be treated as different languages.
§ That is an editorial comment, a book reviewer's comment. A critique of an article does not belong in an article. If something is wrong about an article it should be discussed here and then the article should be fixed.
§ Furthermore, the sentence is not clear. Did the author mean to say that calling "that" a single language is politically insensitive? Or does it mean that the question of whether two varieties of language get called two dialects of one language or get called two languages is a politically sensitive issue?
§ For the aforesaid reasons, I have moved the sentence out of the article so that it can be discussed properly. P0M 18:32, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- They're obviously languages in the linguistic sense, just as Frisian or Swiss German is a language (while containing variously many dialects in the technical sense of the word). A good way to put it is that they have traditionally been called dialects in English. There have been many improvements in linguistics in the 20th century in many areas; no reason to cling to outdated terminology in the case of Chinese languages. 84.227.226.225 (talk) 01:22, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Banknotes![edit]
Hi! Does anyone know what the languages are, that appear on Chinese banknotes? I've been able to identify Tibetan, but none of the others... Reg, Muhamedmesic 02:36, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Uyghur language and Zhuang language both appear. - Mustafaa 16:48, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that the Manchurian language appears as well, but I am not an expert.
- The minority languages on Chinese banknotes are Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang. Uyghur is written in the Arabic-Persian script (K̡ona Yezik̡) that was re-introduced in the 1980s; Zhuang is written in the 1957 spelling system on older banknotes (e.g. Cuŋƅgoƨ Yinƨminƨ Yinƨhaŋƨ for "Bank of China"), on newer banknotes the orthography reformed in 1986 is used (e.g. Cunghgoz Yinzminz Yinzhangz). The Manchus are one of the largest officially recognised national minorities of China, but they don't speak Manchurian any more and use Chinese instead. Babelfisch 02:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
- Is Manchurian language the right word? I though Manchuria was a place but the language name is Manchu language.--Tricia Takanawa (talk) 16:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Official Languages[edit]
Which of the languages have official status? -- Zntrip
Hello eveyone I am so stunned about this chinese language and so should you.Stay on WiKIPEDIA The Free Encyclopesia it will always have what you need so stay on active and sign up for WiKIPEDIA and stayon for more info or data —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.155.121.227 (talk) 22:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Every language could have official status theoretically, the Government's Work Report provided five other languages, Mengol, Tibet, Uyghur, Kazakh, Chosun.--刻意(Kèyì) 06:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
What is going on[edit]
Is anybody watching what is happening to this article more closely than I? It appears that a couple of anonymous editors have deleted a large list that originally followed the words:
- The following languages have traditionally had written forms that do not involve Chinese characters (han zi):
Hopefully these changes are not being made maliciously. P0M 04:28, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
- I'm fairly sure that was vandalism- I've reverted to the previous version. Well spotted! Mark1 10:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
=ns/112.2.254.147|112.2.254.147]] (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Census data for spaekers of language of PRC[edit]
Are there Census data for spaekers of language of PRC? Where I get it? For example quanty of miao language by Chna census? It is strange that 12 ethnics depopulated in 2000-2010. Why? Mistake in census? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaiyr (talk • contribs) 17:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Languages of china[edit]
Rajmaan (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Esperanto movement
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CYqFKrihrgMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CYqFKrihrgMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA207#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA372#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA382#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA383#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA385#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA386#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA409#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA453#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA466#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA491#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA503#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA510#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA516#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=okhrBBmnHVQC&pg=PA528#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=1I2o7YevS5oC&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q&f=false
Chapter 4 Bilingual Loyalty
http://books.google.com/books?id=GSvujoe8kVAC&pg=PT94#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rajmaan (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
http://big5.ce.cn/gate/big5/cathay.ce.cn/history/200908/11/t20090811_19756527.shtml
http://ebook.taaze.tw/do/preview/preview.aspx?oid=11100133463&f=pdf
Language policy in China[edit]
Southern Chinese Dialects as a Medium for Reconciliation within Greater China Mary S. Erbaugh Language in Society Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1995), pp. 79-94 Published by: Cambridge University Press Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4168582
21:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
The ethnic groups of China[edit]
The Languages of China are the languages that are spoken by China's 56 recognized ethnic groups. -- the current opening sentence of the lede.
are there any unrecognized ethnic groups? do they speak? do they only speak the languages spoken by other recognized ethnic groups? Do you see the problem with the opening sentence yet? If not, please see any of the languages of English. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 23:17, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
- Agreed, it is a pretty strange sentence. Obviously what is meant is any established ethnic group in China. 84.227.226.225 (talk) 01:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
Foreign relations and the bureau of translation in the ming dynasty[edit]
Talk:Ryukyuan_languages#Chinese_records_on_Ryukyu_language
A separate article on the Ming dynasty bureau of translation (Siyiguan) should be created, I have secondary and primary sources here. The primary sources will go into wikisource, which will be linked to the wikipedia article.
The Chinese article on Siyiguan
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/会同四译馆
Chinese–Barbarian Dictionary
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/华夷译语
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/华夷译语
http://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/華夷譯語
https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/華夷譯語
http://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&res=1893
Author: (明)火原潔撰
Book contributor: 北京大學圖書館
Looks like Thai or Shan
華夷譯語(一)
天文門
https://archive.org/details/02076757.cn
華夷譯語(二)
通用門
緬甸館譯語
Burmese
https://archive.org/details/02076758.cn
No idea
華夷譯語(三)
百夷
天文門
https://archive.org/details/02076759.cn
No idea
華夷譯語(四)
百夷館
天文門
https://archive.org/details/02076760.cn
Persian
華夷譯語(五)
(明)火原潔 撰：華夷譯語(五)《回回館雜字》，會同四譯館。
https://archive.org/details/02076761.cn
Persian
華夷譯語(六)
(明)火原潔 撰：華夷譯語(五)《回回館雜字》，會同四譯館。
https://archive.org/details/02076762.cn
高昌館來文
https://archive.org/details/02076763.cn
I assume this is Tibetan
譯文備覽
https://archive.org/details/02076764.cn
Jurchen_language#Ming_Dynasty_Jurchen_dictionaries
Page xix
http://books.google.com/books?id=Smk_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=jCxPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA168#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 168
http://books.google.com/books?id=cqc8VqybPI0C&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/lt/rb/601/601PDF/aisin.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=dJd_uwAACAAJ
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/jurchen.htm
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chinese-iranian-ix
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chinese-iranian-viii
http://books.google.com/books?id=WbgRAQAAMAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=7WpJAQAAIAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=pZbiZwEACAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=NYFBtTUZFxEC&pg=PA395#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=-9_coC0dptgC&pg=PT91#v=onepage&q&f=false
Siyi guan College of Translators and Thai language
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ka6jNJcX_ygC&pg=PA149#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=aU5hBMxNgWQC&pg=PA198#v=onepage&q&f=false
Chinese and salar language primers of persian and arabic.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ciShtCrJijIC&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://93.17.52.30/crlao/recherche.php?terme=522&kwrefs=oui
http://books.google.com/books?id=J28qAAAACAAJ&source=gbs_similarbooks
http://doktori.btk.elte.hu/lingv/apatoczky/diss.pdf
http://www.for.aichi-pu.ac.jp/museum/pdf/takekoshi43.pdf
http://w3.uniroma1.it/santangelo/sao_file/ming_qing_yanjiu.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?id=BwuSpFiOFfYC&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=xrGAXH_ne4IC&pg=PA1042#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/editorial.php?issue=005
Ghiyāth_al-dīn_Naqqāsh#Shahrukh.27s_embassy.27s_travel_to_China
Rajmaan (talk) 06:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Minorities Spoken and written languages[edit]
In Medieval Europe, people spoke their local languages among themselves such as Italian, French, Castilian, while not writing them down and using them as literary languages until much later. They wrote in Latin as their literary language.
In the same way, the some minorities in Chna do not have an alphabet for their own language. They only speak their language orally, and use the Chinese or another major language like Uyghur to write.
The Yugur people only speak their language orally, and use the Chinese language to write.
The Tajiks of Xinjiang only speak their language orally, and use the Uyghur language to write.
http://books.google.com/books?id=oWc2I03-UQIC&pg=PA39#v=onepage&q&f=false
The Salar people only speak their language orally, and use the Chinese language to write.
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/127Traditions842.html
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/127Traditions9610.html
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/216T5228T11320.html
http://traditions.cultural-china.com/en/42T1565T2822.html
Rajmaan (talk) 06:35, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Government policies were in favor of Uyghurs when Persian language was abolished in Tajik schools in 1954.
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chinese-iranian-ix
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chinese-iranian-viii
number of speakers?[edit]
So how much is each language spoken in China? There is no mention about that. Demographics of the People's Republic of China#Languages has this: Over 70% of the Han ethnic group are native speakers of the Mandarin group of dialects, but there is no year and no source for that section at all. 212.50.203.198 (talk) 16:43, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Why is {{Asia in topic|Languages of}}2 used? Languages of Asia has this: Template:Languages of Asia, and therefore, as far as I know, the "topic" template need not to be used... 212.50.203.198 (talk) 16:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
- I also would like to see a list of languages in China with the number of speakers for each. Something similar to the table at Languages with official status in India#Languages with official status in India or even the table of first, second and third-language speakers at Languages of India#Multilingualism. Dirac66 (talk) 00:11, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Languages of China in census[edit]
Why there is no census statistics for Languages of China--Kaiyr (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Opening[edit]
The opening paragraph of this article states that
The predominant language in China, which is divided into seven major dialect groups, is known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ). and its study is considered a distinct academic discipline in China.[4] Hanyu, or Han language, spans eight primary dialect groups, that differ from each other morphologically and phonetically to such a degree that dialects from different regions can often be mutually unintelligible.
This is not only incorrect in linguistic terms, it's also misleading and has a Chinese nationalist POV agenda behind it. These 'dialect groups' are in fact at least languages, perhaps even groups of languages, and 'can often be' should be 'are'. The fact that it is "considered a distinct academic discipline in China" is not relevant, and the idea that they are all varieties of the same language is 100% NPOV - this is a linguistic topic, not a political one, and this is not up to the standards of Wikipedia. Oh, and seven groups or eight? This lead says both. 阝工巳几千凹父工氐 (talk) 07:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
French and German listed as minority languages?[edit]
Somebody needs to verify this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.183.6.63 (talk) 11:58, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
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lede clarification[edit]
hello, I find the lede a bit confusing. ``The predominant language in China, which is divided into seven major language groups (classified as dialects by the Chinese government for political reasons), is known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ) ....`` For the sake of clarity, put `Hanyu` nearer the beginning. `The predominant language in China, Hanyu (Chinese) is divided into....``
Then, ``Hanyu, or Han language, spans eight primary varieties.`` Drop ``or Han language`` - that`s what we`re talking about. But is it 7? or 8?
Then, ``The languages most studied and supported by the state include Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang.`` This article is not about languages studied or supported by the state, it`s about the languages of China. So if these are the major languages in China, say so. And is `Chinese` the same as `Han`?
And then: is Mandarin Chinese the same as Han? Is it one of the 7 major language groups/dialects or one of the 8 primary varieties? If it's mentioned in the lede its relevance should be obvious or stated. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
No section on sign langauges[edit]
Chinese Sign Language and Tibetan Sign Language are in the info box, but there's no section on sign languages in the article. There are articles on those sign languages, so it might be useful for someone to quickly add it. --Gacorley (talk) 21:27, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't find Tewchou dialect in Guangdong region! 58.97.218.113 (talk) 10:21, 22 September 2023 (UTC)