Segment 61– Many Spoken Variations But Only One Written Language
Have you ever read the 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning novel - The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck? In our modern day, where culture and language intersect, this novel has taken me back to a time when distant travels were just a few miles beyond a town wall...
...where people who share the same country and culture, could have such vast differences, yet the same basic needs. I recently downloaded it on Kindle and am thoroughly enjoying this timeless classic. The Chinese region is vast, and the spoken languages have such variety. There are over 55 ethnic minorities living in China in addition to the dominant Han Chinese.
There are so many dialects (Putonghua - standard Mandarin, Shanghainese, Hokkien, Cantonese, Hakka, Chaozhou, etc.) that spoken communication can prove difficult. While there may be many spoken variations, only one written language is common – comparable to a time in Europe, where Latin was the common written language among the scholarly people despite the local language of the country.
Chinese is written in kanji or Chinese characters. Chinese was originally written in traditional Chinese characters, and was the written language used since the days of the Emperors – a language of gentlemen and scholars. However, after the 1950’s, with the creation of the People’s Republic of China, the written language was “simplified” in an effort to educate the general population in a common written language – a simplified version of traditional Chinese characters. The traditional characters were changed to make writing easier to learn. Simplified Chinese characters are used today in mainland China and Singapore.
Differences in language is experienced through pronunciation and its verbal form. For example, the Chinese spoken in Hong Kong is Cantonese, it is written in the same way as in standard Chinese (Mandarin), however using traditional characters. The pronunciation or verbal form is Cantonese, so it can only be clearly understood by someone familiar with Cantonese. There are differences in vocabulary and grammar as well.
Chinese characters are ideograms rather than phonograms. Therefore, they contain no rules related to pronunciation. Each character is pronounced in ways unique to each dialect. However, regardless of the dialect spoken by the individual, Chinese is written in the manner of standard Chinese (Mandarin) - whether simplified or traditional Chinese characters.
There is no one generic Chinese language in China. The Chinese region is diverse as well as its people and its languages. It is through the written language that unity is found.
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This article was written by Rachanee Thevenet, Co-Founder of HT Localization. Rachanee is an Asian-American expat living in Spain with her family. She loves all things international including food, art, literature, culture, languages and people. She has years of professional product marketing expertise and global expansion experience.
HT Localization, LLC. is a worldwide translation & localization agency providing a full range of professional language translation services, including social media localization, marketing translations, website translations, software localization, eLearning materials, documentation translations, etc. With locations in the US, Spain, France, Zambia & Thailand, and coverage across all languages and most industries, HT Localization is well positioned to provide around the globe services for all translation needs.
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