What are the 7 Chinese languages?

In general, dialects can be roughly classified into one of the seven large groups: Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang, and Yue (Cantonese). Each language group contains a large number of dialects.

What are the 3 types of Chinese language?

However, the written language can be further subdivided into three forms: simplified, traditional, and informal slang or phonetic. There is also a form called “pin-yin” which is the Chinese language transcribed using a roman spelling.

How many sinitic languages are there?

Sino-Tibetan languages, group of languages that includes both the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages. In terms of numbers of speakers, they constitute the world’s second largest language family (after Indo-European), including more than 300 languages and major dialects.

What are the top 5 languages spoken in China?

The 10 main Chinese varieties

  1. Standard Mandarin. Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, commonly referred to as Putonghua 普通话 (Pǔtōnghuà) in mainland China and Guoyu 国语 (Guóyǔ) in Taiwan, is China’s predominant language.
  2. Min Chinese.
  3. Wu Chinese.
  4. Cantonese (Yue)
  5. Jin Chinese.
  6. Gan Chinese.
  7. Hakka (Kejia) Chinese.
  8. Xiang Chinese.

What are the top 2 languages spoken in China?

The two best-known and most-spoken variants of Chinese are Mandarin and Cantonese. These two languages are not mutually intelligible, so they cannot be called dialects.

Is Cantonese or Mandarin older?

What may surprise people is that Cantonese is actually older than Mandarin. Cantonese is approximately 2000 years old and belongs to the Yue family of Chinese languages (粵語) spoken in southeast China. The term Cantonese comes from Guangzhou, aka Canton, the capital of the Guangdong province in China (pictured above).

Why are Chinese called Sinitic?

The Bai languages, whose classification is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic; otherwise Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a common writing system, and usage of the term “Sinitic” may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct …

What is the proto language of Chinese?

prehistoric Chinese is known as Proto-Sinitic (or Proto-Chinese). The oldest historic language of China is called Archaic, or Old, Chinese (8th–3rd centuries bce), and that of the next period up to and including the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce) is known as Ancient, or Middle, Chinese.