Languages of China

There are several hundred languages in the People's Republic of China. The predominant language is Standard Chinese, which is based on Beijingese, but there are hundreds of related Chinese languages, collectively known as Hanyu (, 'Han language'), that are spoken by 92% of the population. The Chinese (or 'Sinitic') 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 speakers of different Chinese languages are taught to write in Mandarin (written vernacular Mandarin) at school and often do to communicate with speakers of other Chinese languages. This does not mean non-Mandarin Sinitic languages do not have vernacular written forms however (see written Cantonese). 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, as shown in the banknote of Chinese renminbi.

According to the 2010 edition of Nationalencyklopedin, 955 million out of China's then-population of 1.34 billion spoke some variety of Mandarin Chinese as their first language, accounting for 71% of the country's population. According to the 2019 edition of Ethnologue, 904 million people in China spoke some variety of Mandarin as their first language in 2017.

Standard Chinese, known in China as Putonghua, based on the Mandarin dialect of Beijing, is the official national spoken language for the mainland and serves as a lingua franca within the Mandarin-speaking regions (and, to a lesser extent, across the other regions of mainland China). Several other autonomous regions have additional official languages. For example, Tibetan has official status within the Tibet Autonomous Region and Mongolian has official status within Inner Mongolia. Language laws of the People's Republic of China do not apply to either Hong Kong or Macau, which have Cantonese, Mandarin (both under the umbrella of "Chinese") and English and Cantonese, Mandarin and Portuguese, respectively, as official languages, unlike the mainland.

Spoken languages

The spoken languages of nationalities that are a part of China belong to at least nine families:

thumb|250px|Ethnolinguistic map of China

The Sino-Tibetan family: 19 official ethnicities (including the Han and Tibetans)
The Tai–Kadai family: several languages spoken by the Zhuang, the Bouyei, the Dai, the Dong, and the Hlai (Li people); 9 official ethnicities.
The Hmong–Mien family: 3 official ethnicities
The Austroasiatic family: 4 official ethnicities (De'ang, Blang, Gin (Vietnamese), and Wa)
The Turkic family: Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Salars, etc.; 7 official ethnicities.
The Mongolic family: Mongols, Dongxiang, and related groups; 6 official ethnicities.

Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) has been promoted as the commonly spoken language for the People's Republic since 1956, based phonologically on the dialect of Beijing, grammatically and lexically on various Mandarin varieties, and stylistically on the writings of Mao Zedong and Lu Xun. In September 1951, the All-China Minorities Education Conference established that all minorities should be taught in their language at the primary and secondary levels when they count with a writing language. Those without a writing language or with an "imperfect" writing language should be helped to develop and reform their writing languages.

The Tibetan Government-in-Exile argues that social pressures and political efforts result in a policy of sinicization and feels that Beijing should promote the Tibetan language more.

Because many languages exist in China, they also have problems regarding diglossia. Recently, in terms of Fishman's typology of the relationships between bilingualism and diglossia and his taxonomy of diglossia (Fishman 1978, 1980) in China: more and more minority communities have been evolving from "diglossia without bilingualism" to "bilingualism without diglossia." This could be an implication of mainland China's power expanding.

In 2010, Tibetan students protested against changes in the Language Policy on the schools that promoted the use of Mandarin instead of Tibetan. They argued that the measure would erode their culture. In 2013, China's Education Ministry said that about 400 million people were unable to speak Mandarin. In that year, the government pushed linguistic unity in China, focusing on the countryside and areas with ethnic minorities.

Mandarin Chinese is the prestige language in practice, and failure to protect ethnic languages does occur. In summer 2020, the Inner Mongolian government announced an education policy change to phase out Mongolian as the language of instructions for humanities in elementary and middle schools, adopting the national instruction material instead. Thousands of ethnic Mongolians in northern China gathered to protest the policy. The Ministry of Education describes the move as a natural extension of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language () of 2000.

In 2024, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping called for wider use of Mandarin by ethnic minorities and in border areas. He stated that it is necessary to guide all ethnic groups in border regions to "continuously enhance their recognition of the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party".

==Study of foreign languages==

thumb|Welcome signs in various languages at [[Beijing Capital International Airport. Front to back: French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and Korean.]]

Indo-European

English

English has been the most widely-taught foreign language in China, as it is a required subject for students attending university.

After the Reform and opening up policy in 1988, English was taught in public schools starting in the third year of primary school. The Economist reported in 2006 that up to one fifth of the population was learning English. Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, estimated that the total English-speaking population in China would outnumber the native speakers in the rest of the world in two decades. In China, English is used as a lingua franca in several fields, especially for business settings, and in schools to teach Standard Mandarin to people who are not Chinese citizens. English is also one of the official languages in Hong Kong, as prescribed by Chapter 1, Article 9 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

German

thumb|A German-language inscription on the [[Christ's Church, Qingdao]]

As of 2015, about 170,000 people have studied the German language in China.

Spanish

Due to growing interest in Latin America within China, about 20,000 people in China have studied the Spanish language as of 2016. As of 2018, there are about 120 Spanish-language departments nationwide.

Portuguese

Interest in Portuguese has increased greatly, due in part to Chinese investment in African nations such as Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. although with government backing since then, interest in it has increased. Macau is used by China as a hub for learning Portuguese and diplomatic and financial ties with Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries. As of 2018, there are about 40 Portuguese-language departments nationwide. For example, Jianwen Foreign Language School, a high school located in the city of Shenzhen, has offered a Russian program since 2011.

Arabic

There have been a growing number of students studying Arabic, due to reasons of cultural interest and belief in better job opportunities. The language is also widely studied amongst the Hui people. In the past, literary Arabic education was promoted in Islamic schools by the Kuomintang when it ruled mainland China.

Esperanto

Esperanto became prominent in certain circles in the early 20th century and reached its peak in the 1980s, though by 2024 its prominence had declined.

Japanese

As of 2012, a little over one million people in China were studying Japanese, and there were 16,752 Japanese-language teachers. Learner motivations included interest in Japan's society and culture.

Korean

There are about 2 million Korean language speakers in China.

Korean language education in China began in the year 1945 at the National Oriental Language College. Some non-Korean families have learned Korean because they expect to attain educational success or to increase their business connections with South Korea.

Languages of China

Spoken languages

Indo-European

English

German

Spanish

Portuguese

Arabic

Esperanto

Japanese

Korean

See also

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading