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111Period 4: Speaking and writingObjectives To learn to speak and write languages To talk about English as a global language To write about the Chinese languageProceduresSpeaking about which is the best variety of English to learnThis is a list of varieties of the English language. Dialects are varieties differing in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar not to be confused with the regional accents of English speakers, which mark speakers as members of groups by their various pronunciations of the standard language. British Isles English English Highland English Mid Ulster English Scottish English Welsh English Irish English United States American English California English Hawaiian English Southern American English Spanglish/Chicano English Canada Canadian English Newfoundland English Quebec English Oceania Australian English New Zealand English Asia Hong Kong English Indian English Malaysian English Philippine English Singaporean English Sri Lankan English Other countries Bermudian English Caribbean English Jamaican English Liberian English Malawian English South African English Miscellaneous Basic English Commonwealth English International English Plain English Simplified English Special English Standard English International English or World English Commonwealth English North American English Mid-Atlantic English South Asian English East Asian English Europe/ European English British English (BrE) Received Pronunciation (Queens English, BBC English) England (English English EngEng) Northern English ishesBenglish (Bengali English) Chinglish (Chinese English) Danglish (Danish English) Dunglish (Dutch English) Englog (Filipino English) Engrish (Japanese English) Finglish (Finnish English) Franglais (French English) Hinglish (Hindi English) Hunglish (Hungarian English) Konglish (South Korean English) Manglish/Malaysian Colloquial English (Malaysian English) Runglish (Russian English) Serblish (Serbian English) Singlish (Singaporean English) Spanglish/Nuyorican (Spanish English) Swenglish (Swedish English) Taglish (Filipino English) Tanglish (Tamil English) Tinglish/Thailish (Thai English) Vinish (Vietnamese English) Yeshivish (Yeshiva English) Yinglish (Yiddish English)Talking about English as a global languageBecause English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a global language. While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalize populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto). A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called language deaths and linguicides around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.Writing about the Chinese languageWe are Chinese, speaking Chinese. But how much do we know about it? Now we shall go on to look for some information and produce a short article about the Chinese language.The Chinese language (汉语,华语, or 中文) forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. About one-fifth of the people in the world speak some form of Chinese as their native language, making it the language with the most native speakers. The terms Chinese language and Chinese can both refer to spoken Chinese or written Chinese. Spoken Chinese is tonal. Regional variation between different variants/dialects is comparable to that of, for instance, the Romance language family; many variants of spoken Chinese are different enough to be mutually incomprehensible (see Is Chinese a language or family of languages? below). For spoken Chinese, there are between six and twelve main regional groups (depending on classification scheme), including Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujianese and Hakka. However, variants of spoken Chinese almost always use the same written form (with occasional dialect-specific characters, such as in Cantonese). Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, united Chinese writing in the 3rd century BC by setting standard written forms for which there had previously been many regional variations. Before the 20th century, the common written form was Literary Chinese (Classical Chinese), which no one spoke as a mother tongue. In the early 20th century, the baihuawen movement pushed the birth of the new written form, Vernacular Chinese, based on Mandarin. In the meantime, dialect-specific characters have developed primarily in Cantonese, but also occasionally in other dialects. The Chinese language, spoken in the form of Standard Mandarin, is the official language of the Peoples Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore (together with English, Malay, and Tamil), and one of six official languages of the United Nations (together with English, Arabic, French, Russian, and Spanish). Spoken in the form of Standard Cantonese, Chinese is one of the official languages of Hong Kong (together with English) and of Macau (together with Portuguese). Among Chinese diaspora, Cantonese is the most common language one can hear in Chinatowns, thanks to early immigrants from Southern China. However, the rise of Northern and Taiwanese immigrants has led to the increase in the use of Mandarin and various Min dialects. Chinese (written) language written in Chinese characters. The terms and concepts used by Chinese to separate spoken language from written language are different from those used in the West, because the political and social development was different in China compared to Europe. Whereas Europe fragmented into smaller nation-states after the fall of the Roman Empire, whose identities were often defined by language, China was able to preserve cultural and political unity through the same period, and maintained a common written language throughout its entire history, despite the fact that its actual diversity in spoken language has always been comparable to that of Europe. As a result, Chinese makes a sharp distinction between written language (文) and spoken language (语). The concept of a distinct and unified combination of written and spoken forms of language is therefore much stronger in the West than in China.Closing down by talking about spoken ChineseWhat spoken Chinese do you speak? How many spoken Chineses are there in China?There are many subdivisions of Chinese (languages or dialect groups) within Chinese. The traditionally recognized seven main groups are (in order of population size): Mandarin 北方 or 官话 (Beijing dialect, shown in the map as divided into East and West groups, but also includes the Jianghuai and Huguang areas depicted in the map) Wu 吴 (Shanghainese and Old Suzhou dialect) Cantonese 粤 (Guangzhou dialect) Min Family 闽, further divided into 5 to 7 subdivisions, all mutually unintelligible. Xiang 湘 (Changsha dialect) Hakka 客家 (Moi-yen/Meixian dialect) Gan 赣 (Nanchang dialect) In parentheses above are the culturally dominant or representative dialects of each language or dialect group today. Chinese linguists have recently distinguished 3 more groups from the traditional seven: Jin 晋 from Mandarin Hui 徽 from Wu Pinghua 平话 from Cantonese There are also many smaller groups that are not yet classified, such as: Danzhou dialect, spoken in Danzhou, on Hainan Island; Xianghua (乡话), not to be confused with Xiang (湘), spoken in western Hunan; and Shaozhou Tuhua, spoken in northern Guangdong. See List of Chinese dialects for a comprehensive listing of individual dialects within these large, broad groupings. There is also Standard Mandarin, the official standard language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China, and Singapore. Standard Mandarin is based on the Beijing dialect, which is the dialect of Mandarin as spoken in Beijing, and the governments intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. It is therefore used in government, in the media, and in instruction in schools. There is much controversy around the terminology used to describe the subdivisions of Chinese: some people call Chinese a language and its subdivisions dialects, while others call Chinese a language family and its subdivisions languages. Although Dungan is very closely related to Mandarin, not many people consider it Chinese, because it is written in Cyrillic and spoken by people outside China who are not considered Chinese in any sense. It is common for speakers of Chinese to be able to speak several varieties of the language. Typically, in southern China, a person will be able to speak Standard Mandarin, the local dialect, and occasionally a more general regional dialect, such as Cantonese. Such polyglots frequently code switch between Standard Mandarin and the local dialect, depending on the situation. A person living in Taiwan, for example, may commonly mix pronunciations, phrases, and words from Standard Mandarin and Taiwanese, and this mixture is considered socially appropriate under many circumstances. In Hong Kong, it is not unusual for people to speak Cantonese and English, and sometimes Mandarin. In the sense that the written language is based on Standard Mandarin and the dialects are mostly spoken but not written, the situation in China is a complex and interesting case of diagnosis. 111
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