What does “speak Chinese” mean? More than a Chinese language, there is Chinese languages. A family of 200 to 300 languages, depending on the estimates and classifications of languages and dialects, which brings together 1,4 billion speakers ... or one in five people worldwide!
Follow us to the confines of the Middle Kingdom, a gigantic territory made up of rice fields, hills, mountains, lakes, traditional villages and large modern cities. Let's discover together what unites (and disunites) the Chinese languages!
Mandarin: unification through language
By abuse of language, we often use the term Chinese to denote Mandarin. With around one billion speakers, it is not only the first Chinese language but also the most widely used language in the world.
Unlike India, also renowned for its multilingualism, China opted for a policy of linguistic unification in the XNUMXth century. Where regional languages continue to animate conversations on the Indian subcontinent, Mandarin has established itself nationally in China. The country only recognizes one official language: standard mandarin. It is a codified version of Mandarin, itself based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Mandarin is also ...
