Английская Википедия:Chinese language

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Chinese (Шаблон:Zh or Шаблон:Zhi) is a group of languagesШаблон:Efn spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China. Approximately 1.3 billion people, or around 16% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language.

Файл:WIKITONGUES- Ying speaking Henan Chinese.webm

Ying, a speaker of Henan Chinese

Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family.Шаблон:Efn Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese).Шаблон:Sfnp These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with the other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin, Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan (though these are unintelligible with mainstream Hakka). All varieties of Chinese are tonal to at least some degree, and are largely analytic.

The earliest Chinese written records are oracle bone inscriptions dating from the Shang dynasty Шаблон:Circa. The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period, Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun, a rime dictionary, recorded a compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua, based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin.

Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore, and one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters, largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of Simplified characters has been promoted by the government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas. Traditional characters are also in use in mainland China, despite them not being the first choice in daily use. For example, practising Chinese calligraphy requires the knowledge of traditional Chinese characters.

Classification

Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family, together with Burmese, Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif.Шаблон:Sfnp Although the relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones.Шаблон:Sfnp Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear.Шаблон:Sfnp A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated.Шаблон:Sfnp

History

Шаблон:Main The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty. As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate a unified standard.Шаблон:Sfnp

Old and Middle Chinese

Шаблон:Further The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to Шаблон:Circa, during the late Shang.Шаблон:Sfnp The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts of the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching.Шаблон:Sfnp Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters.Шаблон:Sfnp Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids.Шаблон:Sfnp Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese.Шаблон:Sfnp Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles.Шаблон:Sfnp

Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by the Qieyun rime book (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Шаблон:Lang constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system.Шаблон:Sfnp These works define phonological categories, but with little hint of what sounds they represent.Шаблон:Sfnp Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese, borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence.Шаблон:Sfnp The resulting system is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics.Шаблон:Sfnp

Classical and vernacular written forms

Шаблон:Main The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia: as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while the written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese. Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period. Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with the May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919.

Rise of northern dialects

After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital.Шаблон:Sfnp The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language.Шаблон:Sfnp Together with the slightly later Menggu Ziyun, this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects.Шаблон:Sfnp

Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety.Шаблон:Sfnp Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known as Шаблон:Zhi.Шаблон:Sfnp For most of this period, this language was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect.Шаблон:Sfnp By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court.Шаблон:Sfnp

In the 1930s, a standard national language, Шаблон:Zhi, was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation, the National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it Шаблон:Zhi.Шаблон:Sfnp The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan.Шаблон:Sfnp Because of their colonial and linguistic history, the language used in education, the media, formal speech, and everyday life in Hong Kong and Macau is the local Cantonese, although the standard language, Mandarin, has become very influential and is being taught in schools.Шаблон:Sfnp

Influence

Файл:Tripitaka Koreana.jpg

The Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the Chinese Buddhist canon

Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han empire in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for a millennium. The Four Commanderies were established in northern Korea in the first century BCE, but disintegrated in the following centuries.Шаблон:Sfnp Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese.Шаблон:Sfnp Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as the language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam.Шаблон:Sfnp Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese.Шаблон:Sfnp

Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud, the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations. Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into the Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies.Шаблон:Sfnp This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in JapaneseШаблон:Sfnp and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean.Шаблон:Sfnp

Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in a similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages.Шаблон:Sfnp Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries.Шаблон:Sfnp The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half the words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines.Шаблон:Sfnp

Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters, but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until the late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji, and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea (although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters (called hanja) is still required), and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of former French colonization, Vietnamese switched to a Latin-based alphabet.

Examples of loan words in English include 'tea' from Hokkien Шаблон:Zhi, 'dim sum' from Cantonese Шаблон:Zhi, and 'kumquat' from Cantonese Шаблон:Zhi.

Varieties

Файл:Map of sinitic languages cropped-en.svg

Range of dialect groups in China proper and Taiwan according to the Language Atlas of ChinaШаблон:Sfnp

Jerry Norman estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese.Шаблон:Sfnp These varieties form a dialect continuum, in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though the rate of change varies immensely.Шаблон:Sfnp Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain. In parts of South China, a major city's dialect may only be marginally intelligible to close neighbours. For instance, Wuzhou is about Шаблон:Convert upstream from Guangzhou, but the Yue variety spoken there is more like that of Guangzhou than is that of Taishan, Шаблон:Convert southwest of Guangzhou and separated from it by several rivers.Шаблон:Sfnp In parts of Fujian the speech of neighbouring counties or even villages may be mutually unintelligible.Шаблон:Sfnp

Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects are spoken.Шаблон:Sfnp The vast majority of Chinese immigrants to North America up to the mid-20th century spoke the Taishan dialect, from a small coastal area southwest of Guangzhou.Шаблон:Sfnp

Grouping

Шаблон:Pie chart Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials:Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

• Mandarin, including Standard Chinese, the Beijing dialect, Sichuanese, and also the Dungan language spoken in Central Asia
• Wu, including Shanghainese, Suzhounese, and Wenzhounese
• Gan
• Xiang
• Min, including Fuzhounese, Hainanese, Hokkien and Teochew
• Hakka
• Yue, including Cantonese and Taishanese

The classification of Li Rong, which is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups:Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

• Jin, previously included in Mandarin.
• Huizhou, previously included in Wu.
• Pinghua, previously included in Yue.

Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan, Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan, and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong.Шаблон:Sfnp

Standard Chinese

Шаблон:Main Шаблон:See also Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called Шаблон:Zhi) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it is called either Шаблон:Zhi or Шаблон:Zhi). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.

Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example, a Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called Шаблон:Zhi), Hakka, or an Austronesian language. A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong, Cantonese is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau.

Nomenclature

The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form.Шаблон:Sfnp Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu and so on as "dialects" because the mutual unintelligibility between them is too great.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language.Шаблон:Sfnp

There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with a central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity.Шаблон:Sfnp

The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is Шаблон:Zhi, whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called Шаблон:Zhi.Шаблон:Sfnp

Because of the difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect,Шаблон:Sfnp lect, vernacular,Шаблон:Sfnp regional,Шаблон:Sfnp and variety.Шаблон:SfnpШаблон:Sfnp

Phonology

Файл:Edmund Yeo - voice - ch 150127 1828.wav

A man speaking Mandarin with a Malaysian accent

Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system; and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules.

The structure of each syllable consists of a nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong, diphthong, or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant, or consonant + glide; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone. There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where the nasal sonorant consonants Шаблон:IPA and Шаблон:IPA can stand alone as their own syllable.

In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals Шаблон:IPA, Шаблон:IPA, Шаблон:IPA, the retroflex approximant Шаблон:IPA, and voiceless stops Шаблон:IPA, Шаблон:IPA, Шаблон:IPA, or Шаблон:IPA. Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only Шаблон:IPA, Шаблон:IPA, and Шаблон:IPA.

The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which is only about an eighth as many as English.Шаблон:Efn

Tones

All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words.Шаблон:Sfnp A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese.

A very common example used to illustrate the use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable Шаблон:Transliteration. The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: Шаблон:Chinese tones

Examples of the Standard Mandarin tones

Character	Gloss	Pinyin	Pitch contour
Шаблон:Zhi	'mother'	Шаблон:Transliteration	high, level
Шаблон:Zhi	'hemp'	Шаблон:Transliteration	high, rising
Шаблон:Zhi	'horse'	Шаблон:Transliteration	low falling, then rising
Шаблон:Zhi	'scold'	Шаблон:Transliteration	high falling
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Gcl.Шаблон:Gcl	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Midsize

In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be "checked tones" and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such:Шаблон:Sfnp

Examples of the Standard Cantonese tones

Character	Gloss	Jyutping	Yale	Pitch contour
Шаблон:Zhi	'poem'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	high, level; high, falling
Шаблон:Zhi	'history'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	high, rising
Шаблон:Zhi	'assassinate'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	mid, level
Шаблон:Zhi	'time'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	low, falling
Шаблон:Zhi	'market'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	low, rising
Шаблон:Zhi	'yes'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration	low, level

Grammar

Chinese is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme, the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that a morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free, such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of the more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic Шаблон:Em, especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonological attrition: sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including the tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English.Шаблон:Efn

Most modern varieties have the tendency to form new words through polysyllabic compounds. In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in Шаблон:Zhi from Шаблон:Zhi; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to a corresponding increase in the number of homophones. As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as Шаблон:Transliteration in Standard Chinese:

Character	Gloss	Шаблон:AbbrШаблон:Efn	Cantonese
Шаблон:Zhi	'ten'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration
Шаблон:Zhi	'actual'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration
Шаблон:Zhi	'recognize'	Шаблон:Transliteration | Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration
Шаблон:Zhi	'stone'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration
Шаблон:Zhi	'time'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration
Шаблон:Zhi	'food'	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Transliteration

In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced Шаблон:Transliteration. As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only the first one, Шаблон:Zhi, normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of

Word	Pinyin	Gloss
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	'actual-connection'
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	'recognize-know'
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	'stone-head'
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	'time-interval'
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	'foodstuff'

respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable is specifically meant.

However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, Шаблон:Zhi alone, and not Шаблон:Zhi, appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. Although many single-syllable morphemes (Шаблон:Zhi) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as Шаблон:Zhi, which more closely resembles the traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese Шаблон:Transliteration can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more.

Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi.

All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages: they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in the form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence.Шаблон:Sfnp In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections—it possesses no tenses, no voices, no grammatical number,Шаблон:Efn and only a few articles.Шаблон:Efn They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood. In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi.

Chinese has a subject–verb–object word order, and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words, another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction, pronoun dropping and the related subject dropping. Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences.

Vocabulary

The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for a Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language.

Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian, a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions, and is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms and names of political figures, businesses and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries.

The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary, the 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian, records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai, a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific and technical terms.

The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian, an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words.

Loanwords

Like many other languages, Chinese has absorbed a sizable number of loanwords from other cultures. Most Chinese words are formed out of native Chinese morphemes, including words describing imported objects and ideas. However, direct phonetic borrowing of foreign words has gone on since ancient times.

Some early Indo-European loanwords in Chinese have been proposed, notably Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and perhaps also Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi.Шаблон:Efn Ancient words borrowed from along the Silk Road during the Old Chinese period include Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. Some words were borrowed from Buddhist scriptures, including Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi. Other words came from nomadic peoples to the north, such as Шаблон:Zhi. Words borrowed from the peoples along the Silk Road, such as Шаблон:Zhi, generally have Persian etymologies. Buddhist terminology is generally derived from Sanskrit or Pāli, the liturgical languages of northern India. Words borrowed from the nomadic tribes of the Gobi, Mongolian or northeast regions generally have Altaic etymologies, such as Шаблон:Zhi, the Chinese lute, or Шаблон:Zhi, but from exactly which source is not always clear.Шаблон:Sfnp

Modern borrowings

Шаблон:See also Modern neologisms are primarily translated into Chinese in one of three ways: free translation (calques), phonetic translation (by sound), or a combination of the two. Today, it is much more common to use existing Chinese morphemes to coin new words to represent imported concepts, such as technical expressions and international scientific vocabulary, wherein the Latin and Greek components usually converted one-for-one into the corresponding Chinese characters.Шаблон:Efn The word 'telephone' was initially loaned phonetically as Шаблон:Zhi (Shanghainese Шаблон:Transliteration Шаблон:IPA)—this word was widely used in Shanghai during the 1920s, but the later Шаблон:Zhi, built out of native Chinese morphemes, became prevalent.Шаблон:Efn Other examples include

Шаблон:Zhi	'television'
Шаблон:Zhi	'computer'
Шаблон:Zhi	'mobile phone'
Шаблон:Zhi	'Bluetooth'
Шаблон:ZhiШаблон:Efn	'blog'

Occasionally, compromises between the transliteration and translation approaches become accepted, such as Шаблон:Zhi from Шаблон:Zhi + Шаблон:Zhi. Sometimes translations are designed so that they sound like the original while incorporating Chinese morphemes (phono-semantic matching), such as Шаблон:Zhi for the video game character 'Mario'. This is often done for commercial purposes, for example Шаблон:Zhi for 'Pentium' and Шаблон:Zhi for 'Subway'.

Foreign words, mainly proper nouns, continue to enter the Chinese language by transcription according to their pronunciations. This is done by employing Chinese characters with similar pronunciations. For example, 'Israel' becomes Шаблон:Zhi, and 'Paris' becomes Шаблон:Zhi. A rather small number of direct transliterations have survived as common words, including Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. The bulk of these words were originally coined in Shanghai during the early 20th century, and later loaned from there into Mandarin, hence their Mandarin pronunciations occasionally being quite divergent from the English. For example, in Shanghainese Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi sound more like their English counterparts. Cantonese differs from Mandarin with some transliterations, such as Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi.

Western foreign words representing Western concepts have influenced Chinese since the 20th century through transcription. From French, Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi were borrowed for 'ballet' and 'champagne' respectively; Шаблон:Zhi was borrowed from Italian Шаблон:Lang; 'coffee'. The influence of English is particularly pronounced: from the early 20th century, many English words were borrowed into Shanghainese, such as Шаблон:Zhi and the aforementioned Шаблон:Zhi. Later, American soft power gave rise to Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. Contemporary colloquial Cantonese has distinct loanwords from English, such as Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. With the rising popularity of the Internet, there is a current vogue in China for coining English transliterations, for example, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. In Taiwan, some of these transliterations are different, such as Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi for 'blog'.

Another result of English influence on Chinese is the appearance in of so-called Шаблон:Zhi spelled with letters from the English alphabet. These have appeared in colloquial usage, as well as in magazines and newspapers, and on websites and television:

Шаблон:Zhi 'third generation of cell phones'	←	Шаблон:Zhi	+	G; 'generation'	+	Шаблон:Zhi
Шаблон:Zhi 'IT circles'	←	IT	+	Шаблон:Zhi
Шаблон:Zhi 'Cost, Insurance, Freight'	←	CIF	+	Шаблон:Zhi
Шаблон:Zhi 'e-home'	←	e; 'electronic'	+	Шаблон:Zhi
Шаблон:Zhi 'wireless era'	←	W; 'wireless'	+	Шаблон:Zhi
Шаблон:Zhi 'TV-watchers'	←	TV; 'television'	+	Шаблон:Zhi

Since the 20th century, another source of words has been kanji: Japan re-molded European concepts and inventions into Шаблон:Lang-ja, and many of these words have been re-loaned into modern Chinese. Other terms were coined by the Japanese by giving new senses to existing Chinese terms or by referring to expressions used in classical Chinese literature. For example, Шаблон:Zhi; Шаблон:Lang-ja in Japanese, which in the original Chinese meant 'the workings of the state', narrowed to 'economy' in Japanese; this narrowed definition was then reimported into Chinese. As a result, these terms are virtually indistinguishable from native Chinese words: indeed, there is some dispute over some of these terms as to whether the Japanese or Chinese coined them first. As a result of this loaning, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese share a corpus of linguistic terms describing modern terminology, paralleling the similar corpus of terms built from Greco-Latin and shared among European languages.

Writing system

Файл:XingshuLantingxv.jpg

"Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion" by Wang Xizhi, written in semi-cursive style

The Chinese orthography centers on Chinese characters, which are written within imaginary square blocks, traditionally arranged in vertical columns, read from top to bottom down a column, and right to left across columns, despite alternative arrangement with rows of characters from left to right within a row and from top to bottom across rows (like English and other Western writing systems) having become more popular since the 20th century. Chinese characters denote morphemes independent of phonetic variation in different languages. Thus the character Шаблон:Zhi is pronounced as Шаблон:Transliteration in Standard Chinese, Шаблон:Transliteration in Cantonese and Шаблон:Transliteration in Hokkien, a form of Min.

Most written Chinese documents in the modern time, especially the more formal ones, are created using the grammar and syntax of the Standard Chinese variants, regardless of dialectical background of the author or targeted audience. This replaced the old writing language standard of Literary Chinese before the 20th century. However, vocabularies from different Chinese-speaking areas have diverged, and the divergence can be observed in written Chinese.

Meanwhile, colloquial forms of various Chinese language variants have also been written down by their users, especially in less formal settings. The most prominent example of this is Written Cantonese, which has become quite popular in tabloids, instant messaging applications, and on the internet amongst Hong-Kongers and Cantonese-speakers elsewhere.

Because some Chinese variants have diverged and developed a number of unique morphemes that are not found in Standard Mandarin (despite all other common morphemes), unique characters rarely used in Standard Chinese have also been created or inherited from archaic literary standard to represent these unique morphemes. For example, characters like Шаблон:Zhi and Шаблон:Zhi are actively used in Cantonese and Hakka, while being archaic or unused in standard written Chinese.

The Chinese had no uniform phonetic transcription system for most of its speakers until the mid-20th century, although enunciation patterns were recorded in early rime books and dictionaries. Early Indian translators, working in Sanskrit and Pali, were the first to attempt to describe the sounds and enunciation patterns of Chinese in a foreign language. After the 15th century, the efforts of Jesuits and Western court missionaries resulted in some Latin character transcription/writing systems, based on various variants of Chinese languages. Some of these Latin character based systems are still being used to write various Chinese variants in the modern era.

In Hunan, women in certain areas write their local Chinese language variant in Nüshu, a syllabary derived from Chinese characters. The Dungan language, considered by many a dialect of Mandarin, is nowadays written in Cyrillic, and was previously written in the Arabic script. The Dungan people are primarily Muslim and live mainly in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia; many Hui people, living mainly in China, also speak the language.

Chinese characters

Файл:8 strokes of 永-zh.svg

Шаблон:Zhi is often used to illustrate the eight basic types of strokes of Chinese characters

Each Chinese character represents a monosyllabic Chinese word or morpheme. In 100 CE, the famed Han dynasty scholar Xu Shen classified characters into six categories: pictographs, simple ideographs, compound ideographs, phonetic loans, phonetic compounds and derivative characters. Only 4% were categorized as pictographs, including many of the simplest characters, such as Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, Шаблон:Zhi, and Шаблон:Zhi. Between 80% and 90% were classified as phonetic compounds such as Шаблон:Zhi, combining a phonetic component Шаблон:Zhi with a semantic component of the radical Шаблон:Zhi, a reduced form of Шаблон:Zhi. Almost all characters created since have been made using this format. The 18th-century Kangxi Dictionary classified characters under a now-common set of 214 radicals.

Modern characters are styled after the regular script. Various other written styles are also used in Chinese calligraphy, including seal script, cursive script and clerical script. Calligraphy artists can write in Traditional and Simplified characters, but they tend to use Traditional characters for traditional art.

There are currently two systems for Chinese characters. Traditional characters, used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, and many overseas Chinese speaking communities, largely takes their form from received character forms dating back to the late Han dynasty and standardized during the Ming. Simplified characters, introduced by the PRC in 1954 to promote mass literacy, simplifies most complex traditional glyphs to fewer strokes, many to common cursive shorthand variants. Singapore, which has a large Chinese community, was the second nation to officially adopt simplified characters, although it has also become the de facto standard for younger ethnic Chinese in Malaysia.

The Internet provides practice reading each of these systems, and most Chinese readers are capable of, if not necessarily comfortable with, reading the alternative system through experience and guesswork.

A well-educated Chinese reader today recognizes approximately 4,000 to 6,000 characters; approximately 3,000 characters are required to read a mainland newspaper. The PRC defines literacy amongst workers as a knowledge of 2,000 characters, though this would be only functional literacy. School-children typically learn around 2,000 characters whereas scholars may memorize up to 10,000. A large unabridged dictionary like the Kangxi dictionary, contains over 40,000 characters, including obscure, variant, rare, and archaic characters; fewer than a quarter of these characters are now commonly used.

Romanization

Файл:Gwoyu.svg

Шаблон:Zhi written in traditional and simplified forms, followed by various romanizations

Romanization is the process of transcribing a language into the Latin script. There are many systems of romanization for the Chinese varieties, due to the lack of a native phonetic transcription until modern times. Chinese is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries in the 16th century.

Today the most common romanization standard for Standard Mandarin is Hanyu Pinyin, introduced in 1956 by the PRC, and later adopted by Singapore and Taiwan. Pinyin is almost universally employed now for teaching standard spoken Chinese in schools and universities across the Americas, Australia, and Europe. Chinese parents also use Pinyin to teach their children the sounds and tones of new words. In school books that teach Chinese, the pinyin romanization is often shown below a picture of the thing the word represents, with the Chinese character alongside.

The second-most common romanization system, the Wade–Giles, was invented by Thomas Wade in 1859 and modified by Herbert Giles in 1892. As this system approximates the phonology of Mandarin Chinese into English consonants and vowels–it is largely an anglicization, it may be particularly helpful for beginner Chinese speakers of an English-speaking background. Wade–Giles was found in academic use in the United States, particularly before the 1980s, and until 2009 was widely used in Taiwan.

When used within European texts, the tone transcriptions in both pinyin and Wade–Giles are often left out for simplicity; Wade–Giles's extensive use of apostrophes is also usually omitted. Thus, most Western readers will be much more familiar with Beijing than they will be with Шаблон:Transliteration (pinyin), and with Шаблон:Transliteration than Шаблон:Transliteration (Wade–Giles). This simplification presents syllables as homophones which really are none, and therefore exaggerates the number of homophones almost by a factor of four.

For comparison:

Comparison of Mandarin romanizations

Characters	Wade–Giles	Pinyin	Meaning
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	China
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Taiwan
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Beijing
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Taipei
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Sun Yat-sen
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Mao Zedong
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Chiang Kai-shek
Шаблон:Zhi	Шаблон:Transliteration	Шаблон:Lang	Confucius

Other systems include Gwoyeu Romatzyh, the French EFEO, the Yale system (invented for use by US troops during World War II), as well as distinct systems for the phonetic requirements of Cantonese, Min Nan, Hakka, and other varieties.

Other phonetic transcriptions

Chinese varieties have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries. The 'Phags-pa script, for example, has been very helpful in reconstructing the pronunciations of premodern forms of Chinese.

Zhuyin (colloquially bopomofo), a semi-syllabary is still widely used in Taiwan's elementary schools to aid standard pronunciation. Although zhuyin characters are reminiscent of katakana script, there is no source to substantiate the claim that Katakana was the basis for the zhuyin system. A comparison table of zhuyin to pinyin exists in the zhuyin article. Syllables based on pinyin and zhuyin can also be compared by looking at the following articles:

• Pinyin table
• Zhuyin table

There are also at least two systems of cyrillization for Chinese. The most widespread is the Palladius system.

As a foreign language

Файл:Chinese Language Training at CASA.PNG

Yang Lingfu, former curator of the National Museum of China, giving Chinese language instruction at the Civil Affairs Staging Area in 1945

With the growing importance and influence of China's economy globally, Standard Chinese instruction has been gaining popularity in schools throughout East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Western world.

Besides Mandarin, Cantonese is the only other Chinese language that is widely taught as a foreign language, largely due to the economic and cultural influence of Hong Kong and its widespread usage among significant Overseas Chinese communities.

In 1991 there were 2,000 foreign learners taking China's official Chinese Proficiency Test, called Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), comparable to the English Cambridge Certificate, but by 2005 the number of candidates had risen sharply to 117,660 and in 2010 to 750,000.

The current iteration of the HSK exams is termed HSK 2.0, with the release of HSK 3.0 still undefined despite being announced by the Chinese Ministry of Education in March 2021. The new HSK system is thought to be in response to criticism of the current HSK levels not matching with the CEFR levels (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), contrary to the Chinese Ministry of Education's claims.

See also

• Chengyu
• Chinese characters
• Chinese computational linguistics
• Chinese exclamative particles
• Chinese honorifics
• Chinese language law
• Chinese numerals
• Chinese punctuation
• Chinese word-segmented writing
• Classical Chinese grammar
• Han unification
• Languages of China
• North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics
• Protection of the Varieties of Chinese

References

Sources

• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Citation
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Citation
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite book
• Шаблон:Cite journal
  • Шаблон:Cite press release

Further reading

• Шаблон:Cite web On the history of the standardization of Mandarin as the Chiense primary national dialect.
• Шаблон:Citation
• Шаблон:Citation
• Шаблон:Citation
• Шаблон:Cite magazine
• Шаблон:Cite book

External links

• Classical Chinese texts – Chinese Text Project
• Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks; Шаблон:Webarchive at the Ohio State University with hundreds of links to Chinese related web pages