Mandarin and Dialects Dialects n n n There

Mandarin and Dialects 普通话与方言

Dialects n n n There are many, many dialects in China. Generally speaking, every city has its own dialect. In some rare situations, even within a city there are different dialects spoken in different parts of the city. All dialects share the similar words, sentence structures and grammar. Basically the major difference is pronunciation. But pronunciation varies from area to area so dramatically that people from difference areas are usually not intelligible to each other. Mandarin probably has fewest tones – only 4. There are 9 tones in Fujian dialect, 7 in Cantonese, and 5 or 6 in some other tones.

Mandarin n n Since people can’t communicate with each other speaking dialects, mandarin becomes a necessary tool that every Chinese needs to master. Mandarin is the official language of China and the standard way to speak Chinese. It’s used in formal situations, on TV and at schools. Throughout history, mandarin keeps changing. For a very long time, mandarin was based on Luoyang dialect. Modern mandarin, based on Beijing dialect, is a young language, which appeared in late Qing Dynasty, which means it has a history of less than 300 years.

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Ethnolinguistic Areas of China