+

Introduction to Chinese Languages

Sim Tze Wei 沈志偉simtzewei@mail.soasalumni.org

+After following this presentation, you will be able to understand why…

Chinese is NOT just one language.

+Table of Content

Chapter 1: Spoken Languages

Chapter 2: The Similarities and Differences between Chinese Languages

Chapter 3: Classical Chinese (The Latin of East Asia)

Chapter 4: The Replacement of Classical Chinese with Mandarin Chinese

Chapter 5: The Chinese Writing System

Summary: How Chinese languages were taught in schools: the historical change

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Chapter 1: Spoken Languages

+Linguistic Diversity in China

Each Chinese language sounds very different and they have different grammatical rules.

We can compare the diversity of Chinese languages to the Germanic or Latin branch of European languages.

They share some lexical and grammatical features with each other, but are roughly as similar only as English is to Swedish or Portuguese is to Romanian.

+Linguistic Diversity in China

+

Chapter 2: The Similarities and Differences between Chinese Languages

+Similarities in Vocabularies

Sometimes, some Chinese languages share the same vocabularies. These vocabularies have the same root.

They sound similar (but not exactly the same) throughout China. Therefore they can share the same characters.

An Analogy:

House (English) and Haus (German) have the same root so they can share the same character.

+Imagine these different pronunciations represented by just one character…

FR: L’ histoire du système d’ ecriture chinois

CA: La història del sistema d’ escriptura xinesa

ES: La historia del sistema de escritura china

PT: A história do sistema de escrita chinês

IT: La storia del sistema di scrittura cinese

史 之 字

Latin

EN: The history of the Chinese writing system

DE: Die Geschichte des Chinesischen Schreibsystems

SV: Det kinesiska skriftsystemets historia

Germanic

+Differences in Vocabularies

However, there are many words that do not share the same root.

The word ‘male’ is ‘nan’ in Mandarin Chinese but ‘cha po’ in Hokkien Chinese. It has one syllable in Mandarin but two syllables in Hokkien. Therefore, they cannot share the same character.

The Mandarin speakers created the character ‘ 男’ to mean ‘male’ whereas the Hokkiens created two characters ‘ 查甫’ to mean the same thing.

An analogy:

Train (English) and Bahn (German) have different roots so cannot share the same character.

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People speaking different Chinese languages do not necessary understand each other. Mandarin speakers do not understand what ‘cha po/ 查甫’ (in Hokkien) means and Hokkien speakers do not understand what ‘nan/ 男’ (in Mandarin) means.

Owing to the fact that Mandarin language is the official written language of China, everyone in China is trained to recognise ‘ 男’ (in Mandarin) but not ‘ 查甫’ (in Hokkien).

+Grammatical Differences

Noun Modifier

Hen

ke bo Hokkiengai la Cantonese

gà mái Vietnamese

chicken female Meaning in English

Guest

lang kheh Hokkienyan hak Cantonese

người khách Vietnamese

person guest Meaning in English

Modifier Noun

Henmu ji

female chicken

Guestke ren

guest person

Northern Languages Southern Languages

The Southern Chinese languages

more closely resemble

Vietnamese than the Chinese

languages in the north!

How come?

+Grammatical Differences

  Subject Verb Adverb

Cantonese Koei hoei sin

Thai khao pai gornEnglish He eats first.

 Subjec

t Adverb Verb

Mandarin Ta xian qu

meaning He/she first goEnglish He goes first.

Northern Languages Southern Languages

Indirect

object

Direct object

Mandarin gei wo fan chi

meaning Give me rice eat

English (Someone) gives me rice to eat.

Direct object

Indirect

objectHokkien hoo png goa chiah

Cantonese bei faan ngo sik

Thai hai khao rao ginmeaning give rice me eat

English (Someone) gives me rice to eat.

+Tai-Kadai and Austro-asiatic Substratum in Southern Chinese

Many of the early Southern states (first millennium B.C) mentioned in Chinese history […] were actually Tai kingdoms. These kingdoms were Sinified and gradually swallowed up by the expanding Chinese civilisation.

Most of the local Tai people became Chinese themselves through cultural and linguistic assimilation.

One ethnographer has estimated that at least 60 percent of the Cantonese people must be descended from an aboriginal Tai-speaking population.

The Tai people shifted to speak Chinese but there are still remnants of Tai influences in southern Chinese languages.

+

Chapter 3:Classical Chinese(The Latin of East Asia)

+Classical Chinese: the Latin of East Asia Classical Chinese is an archaic language believed to resemble the

spoken language of the inhabitants along the Yellow River, thousands of years ago.

It was the lexifier for many Asian languages. It provided vocabularies to Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and all other Chinese languages. This is why these East Asian languages share many common vocabularies.

Its grammatical structure is different from any Chinese languages spoken today.

It was the officially recognised written language in China until 1919.

Before 1919, the use of spoken language in writing was not encouraged. The government only promoted Classical Chinese.

People in East Asia read Classical Chinese text in their own accent and with their own pronunciations.

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異口同聲Different-mouth-same-voice

(Unanimous)

Yi Kou Tong Sheng(Mandarin)

Dị Khẩu Đồng Thanh

(Vietnamese)Yi Hau Thung Seng

(Cantonese)

이구동성I Gu Dong

Seong(Korean)

いくどうせいI Ku Do Sei

(Japanese)

I Khau Tong Siann(Hokkien)

An Example of Classical Chinese Text

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Chapter 4: The Replacement of Classical Chinese with Mandarin Chinese

+Mandarin was promoted as the ‘new Latin’ in 1919

It is not easy to learn an archaic written language.

Instead of using an archaic language when writing, Mandarin was promoted as the official written language in 1919 and Classical Chinese was abolished.

Mandarin was promoted because its speakers are the largest linguistic group in China.

The Mandarin language of Beijing (Beijing hua) was chosen as the official language.

+ It is important to note that people in East Asia had been reading Classical Chinese text in their own accents and their own pronunciations for thousands of years.

After Classical Chinese was replaced by Mandarin Chinese in 1919, people in non-Mandarin speaking regions of China carried on the same tradition.

They read Mandarin Chinese text in their own pronunciations as if they were reading Classical Chinese text. (See page 22 for more elaboration)

This continued until 1956 when the state council announced that everyone in China should read Mandarin Chinese text in Beijing’s pronunciation.

Due to political separation, Hong Kong wasn’t affected by this ruling and people in Hong Kong continue to learn/read Mandarin Chinese text in Cantonese pronunciation to this day. (See page 24 for more elaboration)

English He had a meal before work.Mandarin 他先吃了飯才工作。

Ta xian chi le fan cai gong zuo.Mandarin text read in Cantonese pronunciation

Taa sin hek liu faan coi gung zok.

Cantonese Keoi sik zo faan sin zi zou je.

佢食咗飯先至做嘢。

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Many Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghaiese people etc. continue to write in their own languages, with distinctive sets of characters and grammatical rules (in blue), but these written languages are not recognised by the government and therefore have no official status.

These written languages only appear in unofficial publications such as comics, newspapers, magazines or TV programmes.

The Mandarin of Beijing (in green) with its own sets of characters and grammatical rules is the only widely recognised written language in China.

English He had a meal before work.Mandarin 他先吃了飯才工作。

Ta xian chi le fan cai gong zuo.Mandarin text read in Cantonese pronunciation

Taa sin hek liu faan coi gung zok.

Cantonese Keoi sik zo faan sin zi zou je.

佢食咗飯先至做嘢。

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‘ 他先吃了飯才工作’ (Mandarin text) makes no sense in Cantonese but it can still be pronounced by a Cantonese speaker.

‘ 佢食咗飯先至做嘢’ (Cantonese text) makes no sense in Mandarin but it can still be pronounced by a Mandarin speaker.

NOTE: Due to the fact that Chinese characters are logographic (just symbols), people from different linguistic groups can pronounce

characters of other languages . They can have a rough guess of the pronunciations of a different language based on characters from their

own language.

Mandarin Text CantoneseText

他先吃了飯才工作 佢食咗飯先至做嘢Mandarin Pronunciation

Ta xian chi le fan cai gong zuo.

Qu shi zuo fan xian zhi zuo ye.

Cantonese Pronunciation

Taa sin hek liu faan coi gung zok.

Keoi sik zo faan sin zi zou je.

This makes no sense to a Mandarin speaker’s

ear because it is

Cantonese text read in Mandarin

pronunciationThis makes no sense to a

Cantonese speaker’s ear because it is Mandarin text read in Cantonese pronunciation.

+ Many people speak their local language as well as Beijing’s Mandarin (the official language).

When they read text written in their own language, they pronounce it in their own language.

When they read text written in Mandarin, they pronounce it in Mandarin.

A Wikipedia article written in

Shanghaiese.

A Wikipedia article written in Mandarin.

Shanghaiese people read the

Shanghainese language with Shanghainese pronunciation.

Shanghaiese people read the Mandarin

language with Mandarin

pronunciation.

+The peculiar linguistic phenomenon in Hong Kong

People in Hong Kong read both Mandarin and Cantonese texts with the Cantonese pronunciation. (See the 2nd bullet point on page 17 for the explanation.)

A Wikipedia article written in Cantonese.

A Wikipedia article written in Mandarin.

People in Hong Kong read the Cantonese

language with Cantonese

pronunciation.

People in Hong Kong read the Mandarin

language with Cantonese

pronunciation.

Note: When writing an official document in Mandarin, people in Hong Kong write in a language which does not resemble

how they speak.

+The Summary of the Historical Changes

  Before 1919 1919-1956 After 1956Written

LanguageClassical Chinese Mandarin Mandarin

Pronunciation Local pronunciation

Local pronunciation

Beijing's Mandarin

  Before 1919 1919-1956 After 1956Written

LanguageClassical Chinese Mandarin Mandarin

PronunciationLocal/

Cantonese pronunciation

Local/Cantonese

pronunciation

Local/Cantonese

pronunciationThe Rest of China

Hong Kong

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Chapter 5: The Chinese Writing System

+The Chinese Writing System

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Neither Mandarin nor Cantonese were written several hundred years ago.

Classical Chinese was the only written language.

The written forms of Mandarin and other Chinese languages were created later on.

The classical Chinese characters serve as a resource to the modern Chinese languages.

+ Chinese characters were mainly used to write classical Chinese before 1919.

Chinese characters in their early formation period were mainly pictographic and ideographic, based on the drawing of concrete images.

However, it is difficult to represent abstract concepts by creating characters on these principles.

This lead to the prevalence of “phono-semantic compounds" (compound characters formed by other new characters for its sound).

The coinage of phonetic and semantic parts become an important strategy for the people in east Asia to create new characters.沖

Chong(to

flush)

氵(water)

中Zhong

(middle)

+Chinese character classification

Category Percentage of characters

Phono-semantic compounds 82%

Ideographic compounds 13%

Pictographic 4%

Ideographic Less than 1%

Pictographic: 木 (tree), 刀 (knife), 日 (sun), 月 (moon)

Ideographic: 刃 (blade), 上 (on top), 下 (below)

Ideographic compounds: 明 (bright), 好 (good)

Phono-semantic compounds: 侍 (serve), 時 (time), 功 (power), 空(empty)

+A case in point: Japanese

The vocabularies of the local languages that have different roots from classical Chinese could not/hardly be written with the Chinese characters.

Therefore, the Japanese language uses 3 different type of scripts at the same time: Kanji 漢字 , Hiragana ひらがな , Katakana カタカナ

Kanji 漢字 is generally used to write words that have their roots in classical Chinese.

Hiragana ひらがな is generally used to write word that originated in Japan.

Katakana カタカナ is generally used to write words that originated from outside Japan and China.

However, in some other parts of east Asia, people make use of several classical Chinese characters to create new phono-semantic

characters for local use.

+Japanese

+ Vietnamese Chữ Nôm text

Vietnamese functional words that are local to Vietnam are

written smaller.

The vocabularies that have the

same root with the classical

Chinese are written bigger.

However, in some other parts of east Asia, people make use of several classical Chinese characters to create new phono-semantic characters

for local use.

+Cantonese text in the 14th century

+Vernacular written forms are invented

Classical Chinese

之 乎 者 也

Mandarin Chinese

的 嗎 了 呢

Hokkien Chinese

兮 啊 了 咧

Cantonese Chinese

嘅 咩 咗 哩

The original meaning of this character, in Classical Chinese is the circular target of a dartboard. This word was

randomly taken from classical Chinese, by the Mandarin speakers, to represent the sound ‘de’ in Mandarin that

means something else.

The Cantonese speakers created this character by combining 口 (mouth) + 左 (left) to mean ‘already’.

+ When did people start to write Mandarin?

Written Mandarin has been developing since the 6th century. By the 9th century, it was used to record folk stories and mythologies.

This development led to the birth of some famous literary works such as Journey to The West ( 西遊記 ), Outlaws of the Marsh ( 水滸傳 ), Dream of the Red Chamber ( 紅樓夢 ) etc.

+When did people start to write in other Chinese languages?

The first written Cantonese was recorded in a genre of song books known as ‘wooden fish books’ ( 木魚書 ) from around 1368 to 1644.

The first written vernacular Hokkien publication was published in 1566 in a Southern Opera script called Nai Keng Ki( 荔鏡記 ).

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Summary:The historical changes of how Chinese languages were taught in schools

+Classical Chinese was taught in schools before 1919

These forms which resemble the real spoken languages were not recognised by the

government and were regarded as ‘vulgar’

Mandarin Hokkien Cantonese

Zhang lang

蟑螂

Kat Choah

蟉蠽

Gaat Zaat

曱甴

Language taught in schools before 1919

Example: Cockroach

蜚蠊 (Classical Chinese)Mandarin pronunciation

Hokkienpronunciation

CantonesePronunciation

Pronunciations taught in schools

Fei lian Pui liam Fei lim

+ From 1919 to 1956

After the New Cultural Movement in 1919

Classical Mandarin Hokkien Cantonese

Writtenform

蜚蠊 蟑螂 蟉蠽 曱甴

Language taught in schools from 1919 to 1956

Cockroach

蟑螂 (Mandarin)Mandarin Pronunciation

HokkienPronunciation

CantonesePronuciation

Pronunciations taught in schools

Zhang lang Chiunn long Zeong longMandarin was taught in

Cantonese pronunciations.

Mandarin replaced classical Chinese as the national

language.

+Current situation

The language taught in schools after 1956

Cockroach

蟑螂 (Mandarin)Throughout mainland China since 1956

Taiwan since year 2001

Hong Kong since 1919

Pronunciations taught in schools

Zhang lang Kat Choah 蟉蠽(not Chiunn Long)

Zoeng long (not Kaat Zaat 曱 )The Taiwanese government

implemented the teaching of Hokkien as a second

language Native vocabularies are taught in

schools.

Hong Kong government policy supports the

continued teaching of Mandarin vocabularies with Cantonese pronunciation.

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The End.