Languages
Chinese is the world’s most spoken native language, spoken by over 1.3 billion people around the globe as their first language. There are various Chinese dialects each with unique characteristics and pronunciation – most notably Standard Mandarin used in schools and government offices.
Min, Xiang, Hakka and Guomin are also languages recognized by the Chinese government and have their roots in Classical Chinese and other ancient influences. Although these varieties have their own distinct flavours they cannot be considered standard Chinese as recognized by its government.
As these varieties have different writing systems, it can be challenging for speakers of them to understand one another – this is particularly evident with regards to the Southwestern Min variety.
Most Chinese words are composed of native morphemes, though a significant proportion have been borrowed from other languages through transcription with Chinese characters whose pronunciation matches that of their source tongues.
Romanization has also become a critical process in Chinese, helping incorporate many foreign words such as Israel (Yi Se Lie Yiselie), Paris (Ba Li Bali), and tea (Hokkien (Min Nan) te) into the language.
Chinese is tonal language with four main tones (Level, rising, high rising and falling). These tones determine meaning and create homophones like „ten” and’real”, which may be pronounced differently by different speakers. This has led to numerous homonymies such as „ten” and’real”.
Chinese is distinguished from English by being monosyllabic; that is, words and word elements are composed of one syllable with no markers to indicate parts of speech or inflections. This feature creates a clear distinction from English which contains many multi-syllabic words with multiple meanings and connotations markers to indicate parts of speech or inflections.
As such, it is vital to understand the phonetics of a language. A few key features to keep in mind include:
Tone, Parts of Speech and Inflection
Chinese is distinguished by tones which separate words into individual syllables – similar to modern Japanese. This allows speakers to quickly identify the correct meaning of words or phrases spoken aloud.