2 Language

   2.1 Dialect

Although there is only one common written language, there are a great number of different spoken Chinese dialects. These dialects are often so different that people from different regions will be incomprehensible to each other. The dialects can generally be classified into the following groups:

* Data source: David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 1997

Among these, Mandarin is the most widely spoken. It covers all the area north of The Yangtze River and the southwestern part of China to south of The Yangtze. Of course, in this vast area that accounts for about 80% of China, it is only natural that the Mandarin spoken in different locales will also vary.

Wu is also widely spoken in the Lower Yangtze valley to the south, primarily in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Then comes Yue Yu or Guangdong Hua, which is mostly spoken in Guangdong, eastern part of Guangxi and Hong Kong. In overseas Chinese communities, it is called Cantonese.

Minnan Hua is also an important dialect in modern China. It is mainly spoken in coastal Fujian and Taiwan as many Taiwanese are the descendants of early immigrants from Fujian Province.

Hakka is spoken in Northern Guangdong, Southern Fujian and Southern Jiangxi Provinces. It is one of the dialects that is spoken in overseas Chinese communities.

The map on the right shows the regions where the different dialects are spoken (Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 1997 edition) .

   2.2 Simplified and Traditional Characters

Currently, there are two main versions of Chinese: Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese is the result of reducing some strokes from the traditional characters to make it simpler to remember and write.
Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China and Singapore and Traditional Chinese is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities.

   2.3 Useful Chinese words