What are the two major dialects in China?

What are the two major dialects in China?

The official dialect of China is Mandarin, also call “Putonghua”. More than 70% of the Chinese population speaks Mandarin, but there are also several other major dialects in use in China: Yue (Cantonese), Xiang (Hunanese), Min dialect, Gan dialect, Wu dialect, and Kejia or Hakka dialect.

Which Chinese dialect is the oldest?

Hokkien
The oldest Chinese dialect, Hokkien.

What is the most common Chinese dialect?

Mandarin
China/Official languages

What dialect did ancient Chinese speak?

Mandarin (traditional Chinese: 官話; simplified Chinese: 官话; pinyin: Guānhuà; lit. ‘official speech’) was the common spoken language of administration of the Chinese empire during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Can Chinese read old Chinese?

So, in conclusion: people of Chinese descent outside of China can read Chinese throughout most of history; people of Chinese descent inside of China can’t read it as well unless they specifically study it; deciphering it gets harder and harder the older you get, until about 222 BC when it becomes nigh impossible …

Is Mandarin or Cantonese harder?

Mandarin is easier to learn Cantonese is seen to be more difficult because it has from 6 to 9 tones, each of which signify different things (while Mandarin only has 4 tones). In addition, because of its greater prevalence, it is easier to find Mandarin study materials than Cantonese study materials.

Which Chinese dialect is closest to Middle Chinese?

3 Answers

• cantonese (and several southern dialects/languages) is highly correlated to middle chinese, which was used in 唐 dynasty.
• cantonese still has 入聲 (entering tone), while mandarin lost it.

Is Hokkien from ancient Chinese?

The Origin of Hokkien Language and Culture “Hokkien originated from Old Chinese (上古汉语), around 300 AD [during the] Jin (晋) Dynasty,” says Michael Jow, a Hokkien language activist and founder of Hokkien Language Meetup in Singapore.

How many different dialects are there in China?

Updated February 12, 2019. There are many Chinese dialects in China, so many that it is hard to guess how many dialects actually exist. 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).

Is the Mandarin language a dialect of Chinese?

In fact, Mandarin itself is only a dialect—albeit a widespread one—of the overarching language group of “Chinese,” which itself comes from the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.

Which is the official language of China today?

The following is a brief overview of today’s major Chinese dialects: The official tongue of China, mainly based on the Beijing dialect.

Which is the second most common dialect of Chinese?

Spoken in the coastal area around Shanghai, the Wu has over 80 million native speakers, and is the second-most common variety of Chinese. Grammatically, Wu dialects can be rather complex; for instance, the pronoun for “we” is different when it includes the hearer (e.g., “me and you”) from when it does not (e.g., “me and them”).