Annotated Bibliography: Language In Mainland China

Mandarin Chinese

Jennifer Sung

University of Cincinnati

Language in Mainland China

With over 1.35 billion people, China is now the world’s most populated country. Its diverse population as well as its countless influences has made it home to roughly 1500 spoken dialects split into seven dialect groups: Mandarin (847.8 million first-language speakers), Wu (77.2 million), Min (71.8 million), Yue (60 million), Jin (45 million), Xiang (36 million), Hakka (30.1 million), Gan (20.6 million), Huizhou (4.6 million), and Pinghua (2 million) (Wikipedia, 2015).

In many parts of China, multiple dialects and languages are acknowledged and spoken. In and around the Guangdong province, for example, both Mandarin and Cantonese are equally prominent.

He trained his armies to be the best, so that he could easily conquer all of the states not yet under his rule. Once he had all of China under his power, Emperor Qin pursued his aspirations to unify all; he standardized the monetary system, measurement system, and the written language system. Emperor Qin’s goal of homogenizing China was intended to create one standardized system, and a written language which the people of his land could use to easily communicate with each

Schools all around the world from Europe, to the United States of America, to Australia, now offer courses in Mandarin Chinese, to broaden peoples’ languages and allow them to communicate with the economic superpower of China. Multilingual people are becoming more marketable across the globe compared to monolingual people. As it’s spoken fluently by almost everyone in Mainland China and Taiwan, the appeal to the Chinese language is continuing to increase as the Chinese job market increases.

In Asia, standard Mandarin is even seen as a lingua franca. A lingua franca is a common language that ties speakers of other native languages together. Mandarin works as this lingua franca in the way that it ties people together from countries such as China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan together, even though their home countries may have different languages. This common standard language allows businesses across these countries to communicate easily. As this lingua franca, Mandarin is growing more as a second-language. The indigenous languages of these variously cultured people still remain intact and in use, and the standard language just allows them to communicate amongst each