Varieties of Chinese & Standard Chinese

Language Family and "Dialects"
The Chinese language is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family (han4zang4 yu3xi4 汉藏语系) and may be referred to in Mandarin by any of several terms, including zhong1wen2 中文, zhong1yu3 中语, zhong1guo2hua4 中国话, han4yu3 汉语, hua2yu3 华语, or hua2wen2 华文. Chinese includes a range of mutually incomprehensible geographical varieties, which therefore from a purely linguistic standpoint could all be called different languages, but due to emphasis on the cultural and historical unity of China are usually referred to as dialects (fang1yan2 方言). To choose middle ground between the terms "language" and "dialect," DeFrancis and Mair have chosen to translate fang1yan2 方言 as regionalect and topolect, respectively. However, going in the other direction, fang1yan2 方言 is the standard translation for "dialect." Furthermore, linguists often note that even as used in Europe, the terms language and dialect often do not reflect mutual comprehensibility as much as feelings with regard to historical, cultural, or ethnic unity or independence. The principal difference is that in Europe the main tendency has been to call linguistically similar varieties "languages" if they belong to groups asserting their political or ethnic differences, whereas in China, the emphasis on unity has been to call linguistically rather different varieties merely "dialects." In both arenas, socio-political reality and implications are significant factors. Indeed a commonly cited definition often attributed to Max Weinreich, is that "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." At any rate, suffice it to say that the major geographical varieties of Chinese are at least as different as major languages of Europe.

Major Geographic Varieties of Chinese
Some of the major geographical varieties of Chinese include Mandarin (in the sense of dialect group with about 850 million speakers, called Bei3fang3hua4 北方話 or guan1hua4 官话--this of course includes Beijing dialect, Bei3jing1hua4 北京话), Wu (Wu2yu3 吴语,which includes Shanghainese Shang4hai3hua4 上海话), Cantonese (Yue4yu3 粤语, more specifically for Canton itself, Guang3dong1hua4 广东话), Hakka (Ke4jia1yu3 客家语, Xiang (Xiang1 湘), Min (Min3yu3 闽语which includes Taiwanese, Tai2wan1hua4 台湾话), and Gan (Gan4 赣). Maps of regional dialect groupings with further links can be found at Wikipedia's articles entitled Chinese Language and Spoken Chinese, and an outline of their place in the broader picture at Sino-Tibetan language family. According to the numbers in the Wikipedia article on Chinese language, Mandarin, with about 850 million speakers is by far the largest dialect group, followed by Wu, with about 90 million, Cantonese, with about 80 million, Min at 50 million, Xiang and Hakka at 35 million each, and Gan at 20 million.

Some Historical Varieties of Chinese
Broad historic phases of Chinese are referred by the terms Old Chinese (shang4gu3 han4yu3 上古汉语) stretching from the Shang Dynasty (shang1chao2 商潮) to the Former Han (qian2han4 前汉 or Western Han xi1han4 西汉), Middle Chinese (zhong1gu3 han4yu3 中古汉语), and Modern Chinese (xian4dai4 han4yu3 汉语). The term classical Chinese (gu3wen2 古文 or gu3dian3 han4yu3 古典汉语) is used to refer to Chinese writing from the Zhou Dynasty to the end of the Han Dynasty. The term literary Chinese (wen2yan2wen2 文言文 or simply wen2yan2 文言) is used to refer to the linguistically conservative form, or register, of written Chinese used from the end of the Han Dynasty until early modern times when it gave way to vernacular Chinese (bai2hua4 白话), based largely on the modern spoken language. The largely logographic nature of the writing system, which did not have to be pronounced in the same way to be understood, and the classical literary education of all civil servants ensured by the civil service examination system helped to keep literary Chinese around for a long time, but in the meanwhile the differences between Chinese dialects were growing, as was the difference between the written and the spoken language. It should also be noted, that despite the large geographic differences in Chinese, it was principally only the standard language, used and spread throughout the country by civil servants, or officials also known to us as Mandarins, that was committed to writing.

Mandarin as a Dialect Group & as Standard Chinese
Mandarin is a term that has at least two different meanings. On the one hand, Mandarin (see Mandarin Linguistics and Mandarin Dialects) refers to the largest dialect group of Chinese, and on the other hand it is often used to refer to Standard Chinese. As a dialect group, Mandarin is spoken over vast stretches of China, in most of the north and the west, by about 850 million people and is by far the largest dialect group. While some of this scale may include somewhat more recently sinicized regions of China, which may therefore have somewhat less linguistic diversity than the sheer scale suggests, there is still room for very considerable variation from the Standard Mandarin that we study. This variation is most likely not just limited to phonology, but could include items of lexicon, grammar, and sociolinguistic factors.

A Couple of Mandarin Dialect Group Differences from other Chinese Dialect Groups

One of the most notable phonological characteristics of the Mandarin dialect group is its historical loss of syllable final consonants other than "n" or "ng." Other final consonants, such as "p," "t," "k," or "m," are present not only in other Chinese dialect groups, but also in modern day pronunciations of words in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese based on the pronunciations of Chinese characters of in many cases, more than a thousand years ago. A look at romanized signs in almost any Chinatown will show many such final consonants, reflecting as they so often do, Cantonese or other non-Mandarin dialects.

The loss of most final consonants in Mandarin has had a major effect also on the lexicon, that has further differentiated Mandarin from other dialect groups. Older forms of Chinese and other dialects are noted for a high frequency of single syllable words. The loss or merger of final consonants that used help to distinguish many formerly single syllable words in Mandarin has produced large numbers of homophones instead. Among modern Chinese dialects, Mandarin therefore has the largest number of words of at least two syllables. Some are produced by combining two characters of similar or complementary meaning and some others by the addition of an element such as "zi" (子, a simple noun suffix).

Some Mandarin Dialect Group Internal Variability

Not all varieties of Mandarin are readily mutually comprehensible. Phonologically, vowel and consonant values may vary. Diphthongs such as "ai," "ei," "ao," "ou," may be pronounced as single vowels (monopthongs), without the vowel glide. Speakers of some Mandarin dialects (and some non-Mandarin dialects) lack the retroflex initials "zh," "ch," "sh," & "r," (pinyin values) replacing the first three with "z," "c," "s," and values such as "z" or "w" for "r." See the Wikipedia articles cited for more.

Middle Chinese had 4 tones (ping 平 "even," shang 上 "rising," qu 去"departing," ru 入 "entering"), as do most regional subdialects of modern Mandarin (yin1ping2 阴平, yang2ping2 阳平, shang4 上, qu4 去, that we usually just call tones one to four) . The relationship between the two is more complex than either the mutual existence of four tones or the similarity in the Chinese names for the tones might suggest. Tables in the Wikipedia article on Mandarin Dialects indicate that an interaction between the Middle Chinese (MC) tones and the type of MC initial consonant produced the Modern Mandarin tone categories. The first three MC tones split and regrouped somewhat depending on MC initial. The final MC tone was redistributed to the other tone categories in different ways in different regional dialects of Mandarin, although it was actually preserved as a fifth tone (ru 入) principally in the Jianghuai regional dialect.

Just because most Mandarin dialects have four tone categories, by no means indicates that the tonal contour of each of the categories is universally that of the idealized Standard Mandarin tonal contours we have studied. In the same way there is regional variation in the pronunciation of consonants and vowels, an additional table in Mandarin Dialects article gives a sobering idea of just how different those contours can be in different parts of the Mandarin dialect group area.

Mandarin as Standard Chinese--Modern Standard Mandarin, MSM

Mandarin as a standard language is referred to differently in different places. In the People's Republic of China, it is called pu3tong1hua4 普通话 or "common speech", in Taiwan it is called guo2yu3 国语 (written 國語 in Taiwan) or "national language," and Singapore has adopted more neutral hua2yu3 华语 or "Chinese (lit., language of the Chinese people)." The term guan1hua4 官话 or "language of the officials (mandarins)" reflects the historical role of the Mandarins, or civil servant bureaucracy, in spreading and establishing a more or less standard form of Chinese. Geographically, Modern standard Chinese is based largely on the educated Chinese of Beijing, although Nanjing and other historical capitals of China have also played a role in the development of the modern standard.

The term "Parisian French" suggests the important role that a capital can play in defining a national language standard, but the existence of Cockney in the middle of London is a reminder that socioeconomic and educational factors, among others, also play a role. The media also play an increasingly important and evolving role in defining language standards, in addition to literature and education. The standard German of Germany, though largely based on northern dialects, is not identical with that of any particular place and is said to owe a lot to the language of the stage (Bühnensprache). For the UK, the prestigious Received Pronunciation (RP), is sometimes called the Queen's English and sometimes BBC English, although these days at any rate, accents on the BBC exhibit more diversity. The central and regional media of the PRC and of Taiwan undoubtedly provide models of Standard Mandarin which one can compare with the supposedly standard Mandarin one is supposed to be taught in school or which one may have been told others spoke locally.

Differences in Standard Mandarin occur in many forms. For writing, mainland China uses simplified characters (jian3ti3zi4 简体字), whereas Taiwan uses traditional characters (fan2ti3zi4 繁体字, or officially in Taiwan zheng4ti3zi4 正体字). In terms of the spoken language, although some use of final vocalic "r" (er2hua4 儿化) is found in the media and the HSK vocabulary tests, the extensive use of this feature found in Beijing is thought be a feature of local Beijing dialect. Other regional phonological and vocabulary influences may flavor people's attempts to speak Standard Mandarin. For some examples for Taiwan, see the references in the sociolinguistics section of the Wikipedia article on Taiwanese Linguistics and in the pronunciation section of the Wikipedia article on Taiwanese Mandarin.

A number of differences in vocabulary between the mainland and Taiwan are reported in the Taiwanese Mandarin article, in a few pages at the back of the Langenscheidt Concise Chinese-English Dictionary, and a small number in a list at Yellow Bridge (http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/mandarin-differences.php).