Chinese is a group of languages 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.
Standard Chinese is a modern standardized form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republican Era (1912‒1949). It is designated as the official language of mainland China and a major language in the United Nations, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is largely based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. Hong Kong written Chinese, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the Cantonese reading of characters.
There are several hundred languages in China. The predominant language is Standard Chinese, which is based on Beijingese, but there are hundreds of related Chinese languages, collectively known as Hanyu, that are spoken by 92% of the population. The Chinese languages are typically divided into seven major language groups, and their study is a distinct academic discipline. They differ as much from each other morphologically and phonetically as do English, German and Danish, but meanwhile share the same writing system (Hanzi) and are mutually intelligible in written form. There are in addition approximately 300 minority languages spoken by the remaining 8% of the population of China. The ones with greatest state support are Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang.
Chinese Filipinos are Filipinos of Chinese descent with ancestry mainly from Fujian province, but are typically born and raised in the Philippines. Chinese Filipinos are one of the largest overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Chinese immigration to the Philippines occurred mostly during the Spanish colonization of the islands between the 16th and 19th centuries, attracted by the lucrative trade of the Manila galleons; and subsequently during the 20th century, from American colonial times, through the post-independence era to Cold War, to the present. In 2013, according to older records held by the Senate of the Philippines, there were approximately 7.9 thousand ethnic Chinese within the Philippine population, while Filipinos with any Chinese descent comprised 22.8 thousand of the population. However, the actual current figures are not known since the Philippine census does not usually take into account questions about ethnicity. Accordingly, the oldest Chinatown in the world is located in Binondo, Manila founded on December 8, 1594.
The Speak Mandarin Campaign is an initiative by the Government of Singapore to encourage the Chinese Singaporean population to speak Standard Mandarin Chinese, one of the four official languages of Singapore. Launched on 7 September 1979 by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and organised by the Promote Mandarin Council, the SMC has been an annual event promoting the use of Mandarin.
Taiwanese Mandarin, Guoyu, known colloquially as Huayu, is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien, commonly called Minnanyu, Southern Min, or Hokkien. This language has had a significant influence on Mandarin as spoken on the island.
The languages of Taiwan consist of several varieties of languages under the families of Austronesian languages and Sino-Tibetan languages. The Formosan languages, a geographically designated branch of Austronesian languages, have been spoken by the Taiwanese indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Owing to the wide internal variety of the Formosan languages, research on historical linguistics recognizes Taiwan as the Urheimat (homeland) of the whole Austronesian languages family. In the last 400 years, several waves of Han emigrations brought several different Sinitic languages into Taiwan. These languages include Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, and Mandarin, which have become the major languages spoken in present-day Taiwan.
Malaysian Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 马来西亚华语; traditional Chinese: 馬來西亞華語; pinyin: Mǎláixīyà Huáyǔ; Wade–Giles: Ma3-lai2-hsi1-ya4 Hua2-yü3) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Malaysia by ethnic Chinese in Malaysia. Today, Malaysian Mandarin is the lingua franca of the Malaysian Chinese community.
There are many romanization systems used in Taiwan. The first Chinese language romanization system in Taiwan, Pe̍h-ōe-jī, was developed for Taiwanese by Presbyterian missionaries and promoted by the indigenous Presbyterian Churches since the 19th century. Pe̍h-ōe-jī is also the first written system of Taiwanese Hokkien; a similar system for Hakka was also developed at that time. During the period of Japanese rule, the promotion of roman writing systems was suppressed under the Dōka and Kōminka policy. After World War II, Taiwan was handed over from Japan to the Republic of China in 1945. The romanization of Mandarin Chinese was also introduced to Taiwan as official or semi-official standard.
The Chinese Television System Inc. is a terrestrial television station in Taiwan and was founded in 1971. Recent milestones of the network are in sports events, including having the distinction to offer exclusive coverage of the 2017 Universiade, which was held in Taipei. This included airing the opening and closing ceremonies, plus major games, and it enabled its YouTube channel with several options to watch the rest of the games. Due to recent interest in soccer in Taiwan triggered by the success of its national team, it also bought the rights to broadcast on its free-to-air waves the 2018 FIFA World Cup for all matches from the round of 16 to the end of the tournament, thereby becoming the only channel which offered an event often reserved to cable TV channels.
Singaporean Mandarin is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken natively in Singapore. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil.
Bopomofo, also called Zhuyin (zhùyīn), occasionally Mandarin Phonetic Symbols, is a Chinese transliteration and writing system for Mandarin Chinese and other related languages and dialects. More commonly used in Taiwanese Mandarin, it may also be used to transcribe other varieties of Chinese, particularly other varieties of Mandarin Chinese dialects, as well as Taiwanese Hokkien. Consisting of 37 characters and five tone marks, it transcribes all possible sounds in Mandarin.
Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin, commonly known as Singdarin or Singnese, is a Mandarin dialect native and unique to Singapore similar to its English-based counterpart Singlish. It is based on Mandarin but has a large amount of English and Malay in its vocabulary. There are also words from other Chinese languages such as Cantonese, Hokkien and Teochew as well as Tamil. While Singdarin grammar is largely identical to Standard Mandarin, there are significant divergences and differences especially in its pronunciation and vocabulary.
Hokkien is a variety of Chinese. It is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is also referred to as Quanzhang, from the first characters of the urban centers of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.
The Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language is the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s standardized test of proficiency in ROC Standard Chinese for non-native speakers such as foreign students. It is administered by the Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP). The committee is under the direction of Taiwan's Ministry of Education. The test was formerly known as the TOP or Test Of Proficiency-Huayu.
The Chinese Culture University Mandarin Learning Center is a sub-division of Chinese Culture University, the largest institute of continuing education in Taiwan. The MLC is one of several satellite campuses of Chinese Culture University, located in the Daan District of Taipei City, with an enrollment of over 1000 foreign students in its Mandarin training program every year.
Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings are usually used in loanwords, names, literary works, and in formal settings, while colloquial/vernacular readings are usually used in everyday vernacular speech.
Standard Singaporean Mandarin is the standard form of Singaporean Mandarin. It is used in all official Chinese media, including all television programs on Channel 8 and Channel U, various radio stations, as well as in Chinese lessons in all Singapore government schools. The written form of Chinese used in Singapore is also based on this standard. Standard Singaporean Mandarin is also the register of Mandarin used by the Chinese elites of Singapore and is easily distinguishable from the Colloquial Singaporean Mandarin spoken by the general populace.
The Chinese Language Standardisation Council of Malaysia, abbreviated Yufan is the body charged with regulating the use of the Chinese language in Malaysia under Ministry of Education (Malaysia)
Protection of the varieties of Chinese refers to efforts to protect the continued existence of the varieties of Chinese in Mainland China and other places against pressure to abandon these languages and use Standard Chinese. The Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China has proclaimed to be taking active measures to protect ten varieties of Chinese. However, a large majority of the citizens of China speak a dialect of Mandarin Chinese, a standardized form of which has been enforced and promoted by the government of China for the last sixty years. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China calls on the government to promote Putonghua as the common tongue of the nation, but this policy has caused conflict to a certain extent with plans to preserve local varieties of Chinese. Education and media programming in varieties of Chinese other than Mandarin have been discouraged by the governments of the People's Republic of China, Singapore, and Taiwan. Teaching the varieties of Chinese to non-native speakers is discouraged by the laws of the People's Republic of China in favor of Putonghua. The Guangdong National Language Regulations are a set of laws enacted by the Guangdong provincial government in the People's Republic of China in 2012 to promote the use of Standard Mandarin Chinese in broadcast and print media at the expense of the local standard Cantonese and other related dialects. It has also been labelled a "pro-Mandarin, anti-Yue" legislation.
