Talk:Chinese language/Archive 3

Names of Standard Mandarin

There's a notable omission in the section about names for Standard Mandarin. In northern China they distinctly refer to Standard Mandarin as Hànyǔ (汉语) (Han language) as much as they say Putonghua.

And the distinction that Standard Mandarin is based on Beijing Dialect is critically important indeed. It is not identical to it. (I wish I could remember specific examples... I was told many.)

In many regions in northern China, they also call the local language "location speech", for example, Tianjinhua (天津话), the dialect/speech of Tianjin. (The latter is also called 儿话, er2hua4, because of its strong propensity to stick the retroflex R at the end of a lot of words -- they say Tianjinhuar, 天津话儿.)

I'm speaking from personal experience here; HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAILEE WAZ HERE=] I lived in Tianjin for three years, and I now speak Tianjinhuar. ;)

Kaerondaes 09:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I removed the number of H letters in HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAILEE WAZ HERE=] to prevent page stretching. Allerion (talk) 16:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Coding of Chinese scripts

I'm missing an overview, or a Wikipedia reference to, the different coding standards used for Chinese script, like Big5, GB and so on, which of these relate to Unicode etc. -- Egil 28 June 2005 10:58 (UTC)

An encoding is a set of data points with character forms assigned to them. As such GB is distinct from Big5 in that the characters that correspond in the other set are placed at different data points. The characters in GB are mostly simplified characters, but they have traditinal character forms. The Big5 characters are traditional characters. If one compare the characters in GB and Big5, one also finds that there are GB characters which cannot be found in Big5, and the same can be said of Big5 characters that don't appear in GB, even taking into account the simplfied-traditional equivalent characters.

Unicode on the other hand tries to contain all the characters of GB and Big5 simultaneously, including those from non-Chinese encodings. Consequently, if one converts between GB and Unicode, there is no loss of information. Likewise Big5 <-> Unicode, but GB<-/->Big5 is always a lossy conversion.

Dylanwhs 28 June 2005 15:34 (UTC)

Thanks, this is all excellent. But if would be really nice if the article had an section that covered this, or alternatively a cross reference to a smaller article about coding of Chinese characters in general. -- Egil 28 June 2005 18:10 (UTC)

It's all here: Chinese character encoding. -- ran (talk) June 28, 2005 20:23 (UTC)

Excellent. I've added it to Related topics. -- Egil 22:25, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Use of Hanja in north korea

Korea/Koreans: North Korea: Chinese characters are not used. They use 100 percent Chosun Language. South Korea: 70 Percent is Korean Hangul whereas 30 Percent is Chinese characters. Koreans view Chinese characters outdated language. ( Chinese characters have influenced Korean language like " Latin" or " Greek"). Past, Present, Future: Koreans will not use Chinese characters. Korean Alphabet system is sufficient. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teacherjj1 (talk • contribs) 08:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The article mentions that hanja's use has been discontinued in north korea. I am not sure that this is true. When I was studying chinese in shanghai, I had 3 north korean classmates (you know, the elite of the nation, sent abroad to learn that power full neighbour that china is). They did tell me that though hanja's usage was limited, it was not abandoned, and that they learned something like 1000 hanja in school. I don't know how accurate that information is, and it might be out of date, since they were all well into their 30's, this may have changed since their school days.

~~I would warrant this as more a cultural motion rather than actual linguistic progression. Take Japan and its Kanji, for instance. While Kanji is still a part of the Japanese language, many of the modern youths have more than not abandoned their use for the easier hiragana forms. Despite this, the Kanji are still used in composition and regarded as a mark of maturity and education.

I know in Korea, there's been some movement away from the traditional Hanja, but it's more or less like the movement in Japan and not officially deemed an artifact of Korea's past. And regardless of whether or not the Hanja is used, the corresponding words are still drawn from those roots, hence worthy of mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 13:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

NK officially embraced Hangul-only for contemporary and popular writing from the start, but retained hanja as a historic academic subject. SK never officially mandated Hangul-only, but recent writing (e.g. most Korean text you find online) has few or no hanja, while older styles (I think older newspapers and literature, please correct me if I'm off) and of course some academic articles use more hanja, though probably still nowhere near the frequency of any Japanese text. But if anything, Koreans' comprehension of hanja is likely to go up from its current low, as economic and cultural ties with China and Japan continue to grow. --JWB (talk) 14:47, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Huh? - Historical phonology

Old Chinese is said to end a *millenium* before Middle Chinese began. So what do you call the Chinese spoken during the Han dynasty?

Qin Dynasty Chinese, Han Dynasty Chinese, Three Kingdoms-era Chinese, etc. -- ran (talk) 14:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The periodisation of Chinese historical phonology is somewhat fuzzy. An article Marjorie Chan's webpage does a good job of dividing Chinese history into periods, but from my own point of view, Old Chinese, Middle Chinese, Recent Chinese, and Modern Chinese, can all be further sub divided into early, mid and late.

Early OC would be the period between Shang and early Zhou. Mid Old Chinese would be from around 771 to the Warring States. Late OC is somewhere Qin to Han, and possinly until the end of the Three Kingdoms.

Early MC would be Jin to the Norther and Southern Dynasty, Mid MC would be somewhere from Sui and Mid Tang. Late MC is from Mid Tang until the end of the Song.

Early Recent Chinese, probably begins in the Yuan Dynasty, and lasts until mid Ming. Mid Recent Chinese, End of the Ming until the end of the QianLong reign of the Qing. Late recent Chinese is from that point until the end of the Qing. and Modern Chinese would be from the end of the Qing until the present.

Dylanwhs 19:00, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Huh? - Shanghainese

Who the heck wrote that Shanghainese has only a 2-tone pitch accent "like modern Japanese"?? Just because you are not a native speaker and can't distinguish the tones doesn't mean they don't exist. Shanghainese along with other Wu dialects are famous for their elaborate tone sandhi system. I will correct that statement. 24.168.131.218 14:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

They really don't exist, even Chinese professors in Shanghai say Shanghainese tones are similar to Japanese pitch accent (see the Chinese excerpt). Shanghainese has 5 citation tones on paper but only two contrastive pitches. "Citation tones" mean little because they are just a historic Chinese linguistic terminology that was developed when Mandarin dialects lost their voiced initials. For example Rusheng in Shanghainese is dependent on the syllable final and vowel length, not on actual tone; and there are Yin-Ru and Yang-Ru which is also generally irrelevant for Shanghainese because Shanghainese has voiced and voiceless consonants. So of the 5 citations tones, you only have distinction between Yin-Ping and "THE REST", hence the statement that there are only 2 REAL semantic tones in Shanghainese. Here is an excerpt from a book on Shanghainese 《上海语言发展史》 written by a Chinese language professor in Shanghai: “声调向重音化倾向进化。上海话的声调从8个合并成5个，实际上只余下一个降调（阴平）和一个平升调，变得十分简单。这使得上海人读声调时，自由变体可以相当宽泛，如降调读成“53”“51”“552”都不影响听感，平升调读成平降升调也不会影响理解。语音随着词汇语法词双音节连调成为主流以后，上海话在吴语中最快进化到“延伸式”连调，后字都失去了独立的声调而弱化粘着，重又向屈折语变化。前字有声调音位的作用，除此以外，只有一高一低或一低一高，上海话语流中的语音词读音已像日语的读法。目前，上海话语的语流中，相对稳定的音位有两类，一类是声母，一类是前字声调，这两类为首的音位对上海话语音正起着重要的稳定作用。值得注意的是，在青年中，有的常用词读成前字都是44，最后一字为低升调的读法”。 - 钱乃荣教授，上海大学，《上海语言发展史》 2001。 Hope that clarifies things. naus 03:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

No, this is true. The tone sandhi in Shanghainese is so extensive that polysyllabic compounds have just two tone patterns, one beginning with High-Low and another beginning with Low-High. It's not a matter of non-native speakers not being able to distinguish the tones of Shanghainese. See Shanghai dialect. -- ran (talk) 16:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Here, I'll paste the entire section from Shanghai dialect:

In polysyllabic words or set phrases, all syllables after the first lose their original tones and are pronounced based on the table below as "neutral" syllables. Even the first syllable that determines subsequent pitches is altered in a polysyllabic word. The patterns vary depending on the number of syllables in the word or set short phrase.

1st syllable original tone	2 syllables	3 syllables	4 syllables	5 syllables
53	55 - 21	55 - 33 - 31	55 - 33 - 33 - 31	55 - 33 - 33 - 33 - 31
	H - L	H - L - L	H - L - L - L	H - L - L - L - L
34	33 - 44	33 - 55 - 31	33 - 55 - 33 - 31	33 - 55 - 33 - 33 - 31
	L - H	L - H - L	L - H - L - L	L - H - L - L - L
13	22 - 44	22 - 55 - 31	22 - 55 - 33 - 31	22 - 55 - 33 - 33 - 31
	L - H	L - H - L	L - H - L - L	L - H - L - L - L
5	33 - 44	33 - 55 - 31	33 - 55 - 33 - 31	33 - 55 - 33 - 33 - 31
	L - H	L - H - L	L - H - L - L	L - H - L - L - L
2	11 - 23	11 - 22 - 23	11 - 22 - 22 - 23 or 22 - 55 - 33 - 31 depending on word	22 - 55 - 33 - 33 - 31
	L - H	L - H - H	L - H - H - H or L - H - L - L	L - H - L - L - L

H = relative high pitch; L = relative low pitch

Notice that these patterns are quite similar to Japanese pitch accent patterns. Tone sandhi of polysyllabic compounds in the Shanghai dialect has attracted the interest of many scholars, who have previously given only careful consideration to the tone of the monosyllable while trying to describe the rules of tone sandhi for polysyllabic compounds. It has been argued that the number of tones of the Shanghai dialect, generally held to be five under previous analyses, can be reduced to only two underlying tone patterns, or tonemes, by recognizing the existence of the phoneme "voiced h" (Xiaowen Shen, University of Tokyo).

-- ran (talk) 16:01, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Does "Shanghainese" even exist?Because my dad went to Shanghai and they said it's basicly Manderin with a Shanghainese accent,like how Texen English and Broklen English just have a different accent but are the same languge. 68.220.174.197 (talk) 15:31, 24 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.220.174.197 (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

There definitely is Shanghainese, and it is very different from Mandarin. Not everyone in Shanghai can speak it these days because there are many migrants from other parts of China, but natives still spoke in when I was in Shanghai, though that was some 10 years ago. Almost all Shanghai natives are billingual in Shanghainese and Mandarin though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.147.80 (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, people in Shanghai still speak Shanghainese, though I know more than several people who have difficulty talking in Mandarin, but are excellent in Shanghainese.--~*Angelstar*~ 02:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelstarstar (talk • contribs)

• I'd like to remind people not only of the reasons stated above, but that there has been a conscious move away from true traditional Shanghainese in modern times, particularly in the present generation. As professors will admit, contemporary Shanghainese is not the same Shanghainese from even just a few decades earlier, the key being the level of difficulty in its tones, as previously implied by the words "elaborate" and "extensive". For instance, the word "eight" and "hundred" at present are the same, but traditionally, there was a very slight, but key difference that made the words unique in pronunciation. Unfortunately, as it is difficult to distinguish and even more difficult to produce in speech, modern Shanghainese merged tones such as the afforementioned numbers. Typically, the difficulty in concept is the true reason behind Shanghainese acknowledgement of simpler tones, like the earlier quote.

On the notes above, modern Shanghai among most urban Chinese communities are "bilingual" native dialect and Mandarin speakers, migrants being a heavy influence on Shanghai's developed Mandarin-speaking population. The latter comment is nearly void at present, with definitions only applicable to elder generations in the city. On the other side of things, foreigners and/or migrants to Shanghai have noted considerable difficulty in learning even simple Shanghainese phrases due to both the "elaborate" and "extensive" tones, as well as, the style of speech itself, which is quicker and much more fluid than most Chinese dialects, such as Mandarin. Chinese people have likened this to Japan, though Japanese have noted Shanghainese to be, at times, more fluid and harder to understand, too.*

• Complete agreement there. Although, that's why I think the last comment was there. Modern Shanghainese is much easier because even the current generation of Shanghainese would find true traditional Shanghainese difficult to replicate so it was simplified. Actually, a lot of Shanghainese of this generation have opted to mixing northern Jiang-bei regional dialect into Shanghainese to make it even easier, albeit not for that purpose.

For foreigners and non-Shanghainese, they relate it to Japanese much the same as the English phrase "It's all Greek to me", where I'm sure Greeks would refute the claim on languages not remotely Greek. Similarly, Japanese have long refuted Shanghainese as being anything like their language. Also of note, Shanghainese is a dialect rich in mixed culture. It started the western loanwords, it is actually traditionally Pudong dialect, which was then mixed into various other dialects, most notibly Ningbo dialect, and is to the day a rapidly evolving dialect due to migrants, foreigners, and global media. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.70.150.54 (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Strange assertion -- no citation, no evidence, no argument?

The current text has:

Not only do they greatly differ in pronunciation, but there is about a 25% to 50% difference in their grammar and vocabulary, a difference notable enough to raise a doubt as to whether all Chinese dialects come from the same language family.

I would dispute these assertions even if I did not know enough Min2 Nan2 yu3 to have some personally acquired data to go on. Where is there any linguist of anywhere near the status of Zhao Yuanren who holds these views? People have been working for generations to trace out the histories of the "family tree" of the languages spoken in China. Some of them, such as the languages native to the aboriginal peoples of Taiwan, have no known connection to the main language family in China (borrowed vocabulary being the only visible connection as far as I know). But for the so-called "dialects of Chinese," nobody in the Chinese field that I know of has ever suggested that they are unrelated. The developmental charts that I've seen show the Min2 languages as being the most remote from the others, and even in those cases there is a clear famiy resemblance. P0M 02:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

I checked the history. The article was changed in mid-August by somebody who never many any other contributions. S/he changed a fair amount, but I deleted only the passage quoted above. P0M 04:58, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

DeFrancis, in The Chinese Language, Fact and Fantasy (1984), cites Xu Shirong 1982 in Wenzi Gaige 2, p.15: "the differences among the regionalects taken as a whole amount, very roughly, to 20 percent in grammar, 40 percent in vocabulary, and 80 percent in pronunciation." This in no way implies, however, that the 'dialects' (the term here being misapplied) are doubted to come from the same language family; the evidence to the contrary is voluminous. Your deletion was entirely appropriate. Dragonbones 04:37, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone archive this very long talk page into several smaller ones?

It is taking an age to load, and it would be nice if someone who know how to, to split it all up. Thanks 19:04, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

DoneP0M 05:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Mandarin Romanization: Pinyin v. Wade-Giles

Is there a Wikipedia standard for the romanization of Mandarin words? I've noticed some Wade-Giles, some Pin-yin--IMHO there should be one standard, either/or rather than both/and. Both are somewhat idiosyncratic; but the Pin-yin system is used in mainland China and is generally the only romanization system taught to students of Mandarin. And confusion would result from mixing the two. For example, "chou" would be prounounced like "joe" in Wade-Giles and like "choe" (ch as in cheese) in Pin-yin; "pei" is pronounced "bay" in Wade-Giles and like "pay" in Pin-yin. I would vote for using Pin-yin exclusively, given its rising popularity. Tawainese & foreigners who learn Mandarin in Taiwan are the only ones who still use Wade-Giles. If a consensus can be reached, I would be willing to help with the effort to standardize all articles that use romanized Mandarin words. 71.69.96.85 03:57, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

We already have a standard, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles). -- ran (talk) 00:02, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

"We usually use Hanyu Pinyin" isn't really a standard -- more of a light suggestion. :) Jiawen 10:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

All foreigners in Taiwan normally have a choice for learning Chinese: 1. Hanyu Pinyin, 2. Zhuyin Fuhao (which the Taiwanese recommend but don't enforce). I don't know of anybody who has used Wade-Giles to learn Chinese, unless they've lived in Taiwan for several decades. Regarding use of Romanization in Taiwan, I have just updated the Chinese Language page to be more accurate. Although the Taipei government (under mayor 馬英九 Ma Ying-jiu (actually I don't remember the English spelling of his name as it is in some other romanization)) has adopted Hanyu Pinyin as the official romanization of every location within Taipei, the city name itself will not change (would be Taibei in Hanyu Pinyin). It is interesting to note that some Taiwanese Romanization finds its way onto street signs. Any other official romanization in Taiwan including personal names primarily for the issuance of passports, will continue to use Tongyong Pinyin only slightly different from Hanyu Pinyin. Glossika 15:24, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

In correct Hanyu Pinyin, it's actually Ma Yingjiu -- no hyphen. Hanyu Pinyin doesn't use hyphens, and only rarely does it use apostrophes. I think Mayor Ma spells his name in the usual pseudo-Wade-Giles used in Taiwan: Ma Ying-jeou. I don't think that's any established romanization system, just "spelling by gut". Jiawen 20:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Minbei, Fuzhou, Mindong

Curious--does anyone know the relationship between Minbei, Fuzhou dialect, and Mindong? Fuzhou seems to be the prestige variant of Mindong; is Mindong/Fuzhou a variant of Minbei or a distinct group...are they mutually intelligible? Thanks! --Dpr 08:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

There are several ways to classify Min. One way is to have just Minbei and Minnan (northern Min and southern Min). In this case, the Fuzhou dialect is in Minbei. Another way, which seems to be more recent, is to have five to seven separate categories of Min. In this case Minbei is restricted to inland Fujian, and Fuzhou is instead found in Mindong (eastern Min).

As for mutual intelligibility -- I have no idea... -- ran (talk) 13:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

As I understand this (but I'm not an expert on this issue at all) all varieties of Min are somewhat mutually intelligible except Mindong, which is not mutually intelligible with the other varities of Min. --Nlu 16:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

My website (1st listing under Google Search "Chinese Dialects") covers the full classification (taxonomy) of Chinese dialects, sourced from publication by China's top linguistics researchers on Chinese dialectology. I have everything translated into English for easier access to western audiences. Fuzhou is classified as follows:

Min > Mindong > Houguan > Fuzhou. Min here can be considered a cover or grouping of closely related languages (similar to the term Scandinavian can be used for Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish). Mindong is the language. Houguan is the dialect. Fuzhou is a location within Houguan dialectal area. Fuzhou also happens to be the largest city speaking Houguan or Mindong for that matter, and is often cited as a representative variety.

The following locations are listed by the Chinese linguists as belonging to the Houguan dialect: Changle, Fuqing, Fuzhou, Gutian, Lianjiang, Luoyuan, Minhou, Minqing, Nanping, Ningde, Pingnan, Pingtan, Yongtai, Youxi. (I provide a Google Earth file at my website for download with these places marked). Jiangsu Educational Press has published a 545-page Fuzhou-Mandarin dictionary.

There is one other dialect within Mindong. It is Funing. The following locations speak this dialect: Fuan, Fuding, Shouning, Xiapu, Zherong, Zhouning.

Northern Min (Minbei), on the other hand, is located further inland, west of Mindong. There are no dialects listed for it and includes the following locations: ChongAn, JianOu, Jianyang, Nandan, Pucheng, Shunchang, Songxi, Taishun, Zhenghe. Jiangsu Educational Press has published a 316-page Jianou-Mandarin dictionary.

Glossika 15:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hainanese should definitely also be in a class of its own. While it does share some similarities with Teochew, the two are not mutually intelligible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.147.80 (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Small Legend

The map legend on this page's map is to small to read. Leon Trotsky 9:35 30 October 2005

"Chinese is considered by natives of China to be a single language"

Someone recently modified the preamble so that the above sentence was included. Making this assertion before clarifying that there is a sharp distinction in the Chinese language between yǔ 語 and wen 文 is misleading and unnecessarily provocative. Since most Chinese presumably don't understand the subtleties of the English word "language", it seems far-fetched to make a claim that (could be construed as implying that) natives of China universally have beliefs relating to a concept in the English language. In any case, the changes I'm about to make are intended to keep the preamble as simple as possible, while being professional and NPOV. Peak 08:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Dubious flowchart

What is the source for the flow-chart showing the relation between dialects, I don't think it is canonical and at best only a theory. I believe it should be taken out.

I agree. -- ran (talk) 18:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It definitely is very sketchy. See Image talk:Chinese language tree.png. It appears to be purely speculative, especially considering the fact that the dialects have influenced each other so profoundly since. For example, Wu and Xiang are shown to have branched away the earliest; but since then Wu and Xiang have been subject to much greater influence from the north while Min has been relatively isolated -- this is why Min is the only group whose phonology has features from before Middle Chinese. (This is why there is a completely different tree here, showing Min splitting off first and everyone else after: [1]) I'm not sure, in fact, where the conclusion that Wu broke off before Min came from (it doesn't seem to make geographical sense), or how Qi managed to become Min (it doesn't make geographical sense either).

So yes, I agree that it should be removed. -- ran (talk) 00:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The language/regional variant/dialect thing again

It seems to me that the description "The identification of the varieties of Chinese as "languages" or "dialects" is a controversial issue. If Chinese is classified as a language rather than a dialect, it is the most widely spoken language in the world" might be improved as follows. The addition of sentences two and three help explain concisely the nature of the controversy: "The identification of the varieties of Chinese as "languages" or "dialects" is a controversial issue. The lack of mutual intelligibility between many of them renders the term “dialects” unacceptable to many scholars, but the term currently persists in the vernacular. However, simply calling them separate languages would obscure the close relationship between them. Chinese may perhaps be thought of as a language family, with a number of mutually unintelligible subdivisions ("regional variants”, “regionalects" or "dialect groups" – for example, Mandarin), within which exist mutually intelligible forms (“dialects”, e.g., Beijing and Nanjing dialects within Mandarin)."

Note that I introduce here the term "regionalect", coined by DeFrancis I believe. I'm interested in feedback on this.

I would also suggest changing the wording "Regional variation between different variants/dialects" to "Regional variation between different variants/dialect groups" because the sentence is a reference to mutual incompatibility, which exists at the level of groups of dialects (Mandarin being one such group), rather than at the level of dialects (e.g., Beijing and Nanjing), which are by definition mutually comprehensible. I consider this a minor clarification.

I have entered the above suggestions on this talk page first, rather than directly in the article, due to the controversial nature of the discussion and the existence of an archived peer review, which I have read. I wish to invite discussion before making the above changes. Dragonbones 05:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Chinese languages are as differentiated as, for example, Dutch and German, Spanish and Italian, or Russian and Polish. If we call the Chinese languages "dialects", we ought to do the same for those European languages. As it stands, however, by using the term "dialect"- or even compromises such as "topolect" or "regionalect"- we are setting up an academic double standard and contributing to a general confusion on the subject.

Indeed, even the page title is misleading: it should be "Chinese Languages", just as we have "European Languages", or else "Chinese Language Sub-family". "Chinese Language" better characterizes Classical Chinese than any modern language.

My understanding is that political pressure from the PRC government and its adherents has sparked this "controversy". If I'm correct in this, then it ought to be dealt with on a separate page including all the viewpoints and variant terminology. This page, however, should be left to a serious discussion of the languages' history and relationships.

As you may have guessed, I'm a big fan of www.pinyin.info, so I don't claim to be wholly unbiased. I am, however, trying to be as objective as a person can be. Ben L. 04:33, 15 May 2006 (Ad-Dawhah)

I also favour the s to indicate the plural, but wiki naming conventions insist on the singular, as I found when a page I created was later changed and redirected to a title without the s. Dylanwhs 18:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

That's not true for the "European Languages" article. Since I don't see and "Asian Languages" article, I take it Wikipedia assumes "Chinese" only refers to a single language; but this isn't true. "Chinese" by itself is fine as an adjective, but at best misleading as a noun. In this sense, Wikipedia is misleading. I realize we are likely treading on the territory of the PRC government... I don't believe knowledge should be manipulated by any government, though. Can I get any support for a vote on changing the name? If this has been discussed before, please provide a link, thanks. Ben L. 09:42, 18 May 2006 (Ad-Dawhah)

Another point on this issue which I consider major is the statement that classification of dialects vs. languages is meaningless to linguists. According to my reading, this is patently untrue (See David Crystal: How Language Works). Distinctions of this kind are useful for organizing languages into progressively larger and larger phyla, which is the work of many macrolinguists. To suggest that all linguists only care "how language is used in a region," is ridiculous and should be removed. It also implies that there is no standard for determining languages vs. dialects, which is also untrue, as mutual intelligibility is a common standard. In all, I find that statement misinformation. 66.58.219.109 19:59, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

on variety of edits -- kaishu, streamlining, radicals etc.

“All modern characters derive from Kaishu.” strikes me as an odd statement. Modern characters ‘’are’’ in their basic form modern 楷 kǎi standard script; they don’t somehow ‘’derive’’ from it; furthermore, the issue of styles is better handled in the next paragraph.

This next part also only mentions kaishu in the context of traditional characters, as if the PRC system weren’t primarily kaishu too. This is confusing. The description ‘streamlining of’ is also odd and has been cut. “There are currently two standards for Chinese characters. One is the traditional system, essentially a streamlined styling of Kaishu, still used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. The other is the simplified system adopted during the 1950s Chinese Cultural Revolution in Mainland China. “

The easiest way to solve the above problems is to strip the references to kaishu out of those two parts, and leave kaishu in the subsequent section on styles. Much cleaner this way, especially since the section is a brief summary..

The misuse of the term ‘radicals’ once again rears its ugly head here: “The simplified system requires fewer strokes to write certain radicals and has fewer synonymous characters. Singapore, which has a large Chinese community, is the first and only foreign country to recognize and officially adopt the simplified characters.” What were simplified were many character components (which may or may not be the radicals, in the sense of dictionary index keys, of those particular characters; and which may or may not be the semantic components (for which the term radical is often misapplied) of those particular characters.

In the translations of calligraphic styles, “caoshu (草書, lit. "grass script" or "haste script")” is rather uncommon. I have generally seen it called cursive, and never haste! We should at least add cursive. Lishu is generally termed clerical script, so I’ve added this.

I’ll deal with the problem of the term 大篆 dàzhuàn shortly.Dragonbones 10:38, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

On dates of oracle bones

On the history, “only dates Chinese characters to the Shang dynasty in 1700 BC” is too specific in terms of centuries, and gives a misimpression that oracle bones were ca. 1700, when they date to perhaps ca. the 14th or 13th to 11th centuries BC. (Reference 1. gives ca. 14th to 11th centuries BC on p.29: 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7. Ref. 2 gives ca. 1500 – 1028 BC on p. 79: DeFrancis, John (1984). The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6. Ref. 3, from an oracle bone specialist, gives ca. 1200-1050 BC -- although the exact chronology is disputed, the oracle bones only run from king Wu Ding to 帝辛 Dì Xīn. Thus, the period of extant OB is not the entire Shāng dynasty, but only its last 150 or so years. Since the exact period is disputed and several reputable scholars give dates as early as the 14th century, I’ve changed “1700” to “14th to 11th”. I’ve added “although this fully mature script implies an earlier period of development.” How long that period must have been is too controversial to specify a period.

I'll dig a bit more to verify these dates, check the dates of the few mid-Shang OB, and so on.

For Yinxu, I added ‘late’ to Shāng dynasty. Dragonbones 10:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

basic rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography

Just now, 24.27.49.75 changed the Chin. Lang. page as follows: - :Jīguāng, zhè liǎngge zì shì shénme yìsi? + :Jīguāng, zhè liǎng ge zì shì shén me yìsi? Why split shenme? This is in violation of the basic rules for pinyin orthography, which specifies that such ci2 should remain together as one word. See for example the rules as reprinted in Appendix 1 of the ABC Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary (ABCC) by DeFrancis, p.1341, and see "shen2me" therein for confirmation. Dragonbones 05:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Jīguāng, zhè liǎngge zì shì shénme yìsi? seems to be correct. LDHan 16:10, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

That is my preference as well, although ABCC splits the 個 ge off like .75 did, which is why I didn't correct it. But I think measure words/classifiers like ge and possessive/adverbial particles like 的地得 look and feel better glued onto the words in front of them. Dragonbones 01:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. An isolated "de", for instance, raises the question whether it is a stand-along word that has lost its tone mark. Students will also pause before the "de" in an inappropriate way unless it is "tied" to the previous syllable. The only possible exception is a fineal "le" when it applies to the entire sentence rather than to a verb that happens to be at the end of the sentence.P0M 01:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Tone marks in names necessary?

I noticed that tone marks were added to names of cities, provinces, dynasties, etc. in the History section, and was wondering if they are necessary, given that many of them have essentially entered the English vocabulary? I thought that one of the style manuals might have mentioned something about this, but I can't seem to find it in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) or Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles). --ian (talk) 16:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I searched the style manual before adding them. I added them on the principle that pinyin needs tones to accurately represent the tonal language, and the tone marks, although perhaps not necessary for recognition by English speakers of words like Beijing, do not IMO detract from the readability of the word either. If there is disagreement on whether it is desirable however, I would suggest establishing a consensus on tonemark style and inserting relevant guidelines to that effect in the above cited locations. If enough other editors object (and I do not yet know that to be the case) then I would recommend a standard parallel to that used for the insertion of Chinese characters: certainly at least those words which do not have a Wiki page (say, on a particular imperial consort named Geng) should have both the tone marks and the Chinese character added, since otherwise it is hard to figure out what the pinyin refers to. And for those which do have their own page, IF they are also common in the English vocabulary (say, Beijing) we would not add the tone marks on other pages unless there was a risk of confusion between two identically spelled words (like the two Jin dynasties); we would add the tones at the beginning of their own (e.g., Beijing's) page. If they do have their own page but are not common in the English vocabulary (say, Xu Shen), then I would advocate a standard slightly more liberal than that on insertion of Chinese characters -- namely, I would argue that we should add pinyin throughout, because it is less intrusive than characters. I think this is a good topic to discuss on the discussion pages of the two locations you cite above, and will copy this to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (China-related articles). Since it is relevant to overall policy on style and not just the Chin. Lang. pages, why don't we continue the discussion there, not here? I'll copy this over...Dragonbones 01:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. People who don't understand them will sail right on by, but they may prevent confusion for users whose vocabulary is large enough to interpret a romanized syllable in more than one way that happens to be appropriate to the context. P0M 01:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Please remember to explain your changes and provide authoritative references

I've noticed a general lack of adherence to this principle on Wiki. Please remember that it will help others respond to your edits in an informed way. Dragonbones 02:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Learning Classical Chinese

This is something that doesn't seem very clear to me, anywhere I read. Say I want to learn the so-called classical chinese to read in the original the works of Lao-Tzu, confucianism, the old poets, and so forth. What exactly will I have to study? Is it the same mandarin language as today? And is the script the same traditional script? posted by 201.50.90.68

Laozi, Menicus, Confusius are written in 文言 Wenyan Classical Chinese which is a diffenrent language than 普通话 Putonghua Mandarin Chinese. --Lie-Hap-Po--

At the time they were writing in older scripts but all the books printed now have converted them for you into the modern script which is called kai3shu1, aka regular or standard script. This is then available in two versions, the simplified graphs in mainland China, and the unaltered, traditional graphs as in Taiwan. When you learn Chinese, one of the first choice points is which of these to learn. Regardless of your choice, you'll be able to buy the classics in either one. As for the language, well, it's a bit like Shakespeare versus Harry Potter... it won't be quite the same, and extra learning is involved to read it. Best of luck! Dragonbones 09:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

You can always seek helps from some of the natives... like me, hehe. There's now a zh-wen template in WP:BBL that indicates those wikipedians who are able to utilize Classical Chinese. -- G.S.K.Lee 07:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I would say the templates are not so good in classical chinese. What is

斯 亦 而 上 如 雅 善  ??? How to read this???--Kfsung 08:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

From the top right, read down, and move left. -- Миборовский 01:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Audio introduction to article

I think it's excellent and very laudible that someone has gone to the trouble of creating an audio intro to this article, but it is read with a hard-to-follow accent (possibly part synthesised?) and thus probably adds little in its current form. I don't have the ability to redo this myself, but could someone else, and/or do you agree that this needs to be revised/removed? Thanks Hongshi 20:46, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The reader is not a native speaker of English. But probably only the visually impaired would receive great benefit from having the passage read aloud, and for that purpose the quality of the recording is adequate. P0M 02:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Potential confusion--Cantonese Phonology.

From the Phonology section, in reference to Cantonese: [quote] There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where the nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. [/quote]

I'm no phonologist, but do have some versing in phonology as do I in Cantonese and Mandarin. It's true that /m/ and /ŋ/ are the only mouth movements in the syllables, but suggesting that a vowel is not used as a nucleus in these examples might lead readers to believe that they are toneless, which they are not. Am I just being oversensitive here?

<spetsz>

The tone is not dependent on the vowel when a syllable is pronounced, so /m/ or /ŋ/ can be pronounced in different tones. This is seen in Hakka where /ŋ₃₁/ means 'five', /ŋ₁₁/ means 'fish', /m₃₃/ is the negating particle, /m₃₁/ an syllable to indicating agreement. Dylanwhs 21:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Introduction of simplified characters

"The other is the simplified system adopted during the 1950s Chinese Cultural Revolution in Mainland China"

The Cultural Revolution began in 1966. Characters first started to be simplified some time before 1949 (see the Chinese character article) and the main changes were initiated pre-Cultural Revolution by the Mao government, hence my change to "The other is the simplified system introduced by the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s" Wsbhopkin 09:18, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Chinese names of other countries

I am not familiar with the Chinese language, but it is my understanding that the Chinese names for many countries have literal meanings in the Chinese language (for example, "Zhongguo" = "middle kingdom", the Chinese word for Germany meaning "moral country", the Chinese word for the United States meaning something along the lines of "gold mountain", and so on. If this is true, then it might be interesting and helpful to have an article along the lines of Meanings of Chinese names of countries.Spikebrennan 20:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of the names are just phonetic, the format is usually: syllable similar to name of country+guo (Chinese for country). Eg the Chinese word for Germany is de + guo , (de from Deutchland). In written form a Chinese character with the sound of de is used, in this case it does mean virtue, moral, but it is only used for its sound. This is how foreign names are usually transliterated into Chinese, as coverd under "Loanwords" in the article. LDHan 21:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

While LDHan is absolutely correct in pointing out that the character dé is used only for its sounds, as is the case for almost all country names, it's also true that in general the characters used were picked to avoid negative meanings or connotationsm, so the meaning is not completely irrelevant. The name for the United States, btw, is měigúo, where měi usually means "beautiful", but is also just a phonetic. siafu 21:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

LOL... I do remember there were people complaining about such picking of characters beautified the Western countries to a more or less degree, somewhere among newspapers. -- G.S.K.Lee 14:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

LOL... 饿国... 没国... 阴国... 惰国... 乏国... -- Миборовский 01:17, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

lol that's funny. I mean the logic is to find a character with sounds similar to the name of that country of another language... so why find a character with negative meaning instead of a good one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.118.242.7 (talk) 05:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Number of 2nd language speakers??

roughly how many people speak standard chinese as a 2nd language? I want to exclude those for whom it's their native language.--Sonjaaa 05:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• most of the population of Guangdong, for a start.... m.e. 10:30, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Chinese language grammer section too dry / Chinese language slated for extinction IMO

I had my example of "aspect rather than tense" for Chinese grammer removed by User talk:LDHan. I used the example of how "boiled water" is equivalent to "boiling water" since there is no tense in Chinese. But instead of this concrete example, the grammer section is as follows: "Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction, pronoun dropping (and the related subject dropping), and the use of aspect rather than tense." Too dry. On top of that, my observation that Chinese, when translated into English, seems verbose was also removed. I guess this is another example of the well-known tendency to save face when faced with embarrassing facts—a sure sign of weakness and an inferiority complex. A language without tense is like a civilization without the wheel. The Incas come to mind, and we see where that led them (extinction). In another 100 years, with globalization, Chinese may well enter the panoply of extinct languages IMO. Raylopez99 23:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you give an example in Chinese of what you mean when you say that "saying 'boiled water' is equivalent to saying 'boiling water' or 'water to be boiled'"?—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 01:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The example was given in English in the book 'Mr. China : A Memoir by Tim Clissold' Raylopez99 21:48, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

here is an example: 煮沸的水 [boiled water]; 開水 [boiling water]; 水煮沸 [water to be boiled] --Raylopez99 07:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be easier to credit the example if it included the relevant Chinese. I'm not a Chinese expert, but I can't think of how "boiled water", "boiling water", and "water to be boiled" could be construed as the same phrase.—Nat Krause^(Talk!) 03:17, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

If Chinese is to become extinct, it would have done so 2,000 years ago. Nice try, nevertheless. -- Миборовский 01:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Many languages around a thousand years ago, such as the African Click language, are dying out. Chinese is no exception, and the fact there are over a billion Chinese means little if they all adopt English gradually. But this is off topic so let's not discuss further. Raylopez99 21:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The click language would not be dying out if "Clickistan" is an economic powerhouse and everyone's trying to learn to click in order to make more money. :D -- Миборовский 23:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Cellophane noodles question

Hello, there's some controversy about the origin of the name saifun to refer to cellophane noodles. It was earlier thought that this was a Japanese name (i.e. harusame saifun) but it now seems it might be from Chinese, maybe related to the Mandarin "fen si." Is it possible that "saifun" is a Min Nan pronunciation? It doesn't seem to be Cantonese. Thank you, Badagnani 22:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Min Nan does not have the f consonant. It doesn't exist in that language. Ngzy91 (talk) 05:24, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Distribution Map

I think that this article needs a world distribution map like many of the other language articles on WikiPedia.

Foreign Language Learners

Quote form Article: In 1991 there were 2,000 foreign learners taking China's official Chinese Proficiency Test (comparable to English's Cambridge Certificate), while in 2005, the number of candidates has risen sharply to 117,660. China's Ministry of Education estimates the worldwide learners presently to be 30 million people, counting those undertaking studies in universities, community colleges, training courses and private tuitions.When I clicked the source link, I found that I led to the homepage of the Shanghai Daily not the article itself. I will delete this part of the wikipedia article if there is no source to the article on the Shanghai Daily within 12 hours. Jonathanpl 03:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Vocabulary

It seems like Chinese words for advanced subjects such as science, art, etc. have flooded neighboring languages similar to Græco-Latin words in Western European languages.Cameron Nedland 13:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily work that way. Many Western terms were translated first in Japan, and the kanji compounds then became common in Chinese. There is no one-way street. P0M 23:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Methods of Learning

Shouldn't there be a blurb on "bo po mo fo" here? I actually came to the page looking for a link or some other reference to that. It's the system native Chinese speakers use to learn Chinese in their schools. I think it's also used to look up Chinese words in Chinese dictionaries. 128.152.20.33 22:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Only in Taiwan, I think... On the mainland they use pinyin (which is much easier for those used to western scripts). m.e. 01:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Not so, because a woman from Chungdu in Sichuan province recommended that I look into a learning system that incorporated "bo po mo fo". Anyway, I guess the official name is Zhuyin. I'm going to add a link on the page because I do think it's relevant.128.152.20.33 15:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately Zhuyin has been hidden by not having a good title. It needs some "redirects" so people can find it better. The official names are "National Phonetic Alphabet" and "zhu yin fuhao".

See also http://www.wfu.edu/~moran/Cathay_Cafe/IPA_NPA_4.htm if you want to learn the system. Keep in mind that Chinese is a living language and different native speakers have different ways of pronouncing things, so sometimes I have given alternatives, especially in the case of vowels. (Where I live now, Wendy's restaurant is called "Windy's." Nobody but me thinks it's an unappealing name for a restaurant. Maybe their digestions are better than mine.) P0M 23:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

North/South Korea

Given that North and South Korea are really two states within one country, and that this article isn't referring to the states, shouldn't they be listen as simple "Korea" in the "Spoken In:" section? I believe this is how those in Korea themselves would prefer it. Is there an official Wikipedia policy on this issue?

Most commonly spoken language (wording)

This phrase: "According to Guinness World Records 2006, Chinese, with 1.4 billion speakers in the Mandarin dialect alone, is the most commonly spoken language (after English) in the world." uses after incorrectly, I believe. It should be reworded, or the parentheses removed. Dfrauzel 00:28, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Mandarin has more native speakers, however English has more speakers overall.Cameron Nedland 13:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Well, while that makes more sense in context, the fact of the matter appears to be a matter of dispute or, at least, speculation: English language states that estimates vary widely from 150 million to 1.5 billion. That is a pretty wide gap of estimation. Dfrauzel 17:25, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Where do you come up with 150m? So you're saying that half the population of the US (~300m) don't speak English as a native language? And that's not even considering UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, and other native English speakers which must be at least another 100m if not more.

Okay okay, don't shoot the messenger.Cameron Nedland 02:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Failed to access Chinese_language article

I can't access Chinese_language article and it is only displayed as �k��g�(��~ER�p�lWUw��-)Y�%�2�,��q �"�*�*�Y�E^�Uڳ��0��1����̀a Although I try multi-browsers and multi-networks, I don't know whether it's a common problem? Bigreat 03:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It looks like you have an old browser that is not Unicode capable. Try copying an article and pasting it into MS Word.

It is also possible that you have installed a restricted set of fonts on your computer, one that does not contain any Unicode fonts. P0M 22:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Spoken Chinese

I have change the page because I want to let readers of the page know the error of calling Mandarin Chinese Guanhua the same as Mandarin Chinese Putonghua

You seem to have instead introduced additional confusion by adding, "普通话,国语,北方话/北方話 or 官話/官话" where the article is clearly talking about the entire Beifanghua group, which is not the same thing as 普通话/国语 at all.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 06:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

汉语 Hanyu Chinese is divided into two groups: 文言 Wenyan Classical Chinese languages and 白话 Baihua Modern Chinese languages.

Mandarin Chinese Guanhua 官话 was the main language used at the Imperial Court and Mandarin Chinese Putonghua 普通话 is the main language in China. Both Guanhua and Putonghua are called Mandarin Chinese in the West but they are indeed different languages.

China has had only two official languages in its entire history. 满语 Manyu, the Manchu language, was the first official language of China, from 1644 till 1912. 普通话 Putonghua has been the official language of China since 1958. Before 1958, no form of Chinese was ever the official language of China.

The linguist names 上古汉语 Shanggu Hanyu Old Chinese and 中古汉语 Zhonggu Hanyu Middle Chinese are used by linguists who are researching the field linguist Bernhard Karlgren had started.

In China the Chinese did not make such a division, but divided Hanyu into Wenyan and Baihua.

Wenyan is sometimes called 古代汉语 Gudai Hanyu Classical Chinese and Baihua is sometimes called 现代汉语 Xiandai Hanyu Modern Chinese.

The above was what I added under Beifanghua and which is still been deleted by other users.

If you want to refer to Mandarin as Northeren Dialect Group you can only use the word Beifanghua and not the word Guanhua which refers to Mandarin Chinese as a language used at the Imperial Court.

Also Guanhua is not a language belonging to Baihua/Modern Chinese group as most people think but a language belonging to the Wenyan/Classical Chinese group. Lie-Hap-Po

Do you have a copy of Hu Shi's Baihua wenxue shi available?

You appear to be confusing the intension and the extension of the terms "baihua" and "wenyan." Wenyan has a literary corpus that goes back to the earliest extant texts, but baihua is not limited to the modern period. Some fairly early Chinese texts closely resemble the kind of modern writing that is produced when single characters are used in writing when compounds would ordinarily be used in speaking. Texts like the Zhu Zi yulei are in baihua whereas Zhu Xi's own writings are in wenyan.

The 20th century scholar Qian Mu's writings were mostly in a simple wenyan style, but some of his late writings were in baihua, and the difference is very clear.

The difference between wenyan and baihua is a combination of differences in syntax and differences in vocabulary.

The definition of baihua used by Hu Shi was that it is a written form that attempts to write as people speak.

My understanding of "guan hua" was that it developed when provincial officials realized that they had to be able to speak the language(s) of their superiors. If an official was born and raised in Yunnan and learned to write like Mencius, then he could do quite will in written communications with the court. But if he had to go to the capital and could speak only Yunnan hua, then he wouldn't be able to get anywhere. So he had to prepare himself by learning the spoken language of the court.

When people in China classified their own regional languages they realized that somebody coming from Fuzhou had more problems learning to understand, e.g., Beijing hua, than somebody from Sichuan, and that even somebody from Yunnan had an easier task than people from many areas that were less remote physically.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Chinese Language says (my translation): "Originally this term pertained to the language in common use in official venues. From the Tang dynasty on down, this language was predominantly of the northern sort. In recent years it has come to apply to a language in common (= universal) use, and again the standard has been predominantly the ordinary speech of the northern areas." (See entry 7262.185.) The accomplanying quotation makes it clear that people were clear that all the speech in "guan hua qu" were similar in structure, vocabulary, and pronunciation, and that it was clear that it would be easier to standardize this language and universalize its use within the nation for the many practical advantages that a common language would provide. P0M 23:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Chinese divided Language 语 Yu into Spoken Language, Speech 话 Hua and Written Language, Writing 文 Wen.

The term 官话 Guanhua was used during the Ming and Qing Dynasties and means Spoken language, Speech 话 Hua of Officials 官 Guan.

The problem is that we do not know what language the Imperial Courts of China used. We assume that all Chinese Imperial Courts used Chinese 汉语 Hanyu and the Monggol Imperial Court used Monggol 蒙语 Mengyu but we do not really know.

What we do know is what languages they used at the Qing Imperial Court. In the early days they used Manchu 满语 Manyu and at the end they used Chinese 汉语 Hanyu.

We also know that Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Puyi used the language now known in China as Mandarin Chinese 普通话 Putonghua.

I disagree. Putonghua specifically refers to a standard common venacular proposed after the formation of the PRC government. Prior to that, it was called guoyu, the national language. What the Empress Dowage would have spoken is Jingyu, the dialect of the capital of China, that is, Pekinese or Beijinghua. I refer you to Hillier's English-Chinese Dictionary of Peking Colloquial. It is very different in vocabulary to modern Mandarin. Dylanwhs 08:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I wrote that sentence wrong. I did not mean that Empress Cixi used Putonghua but a from of Mandarin Chinese ( I hate the term Mandarin Chinese ) similar but not the same as Nowadays Putonghua in present China or Nowadays Guoyu in present Taiwan. But what sort of Chinese Hanyu the other emperors used is not known because the written form does not show you whether the sounds of those written characters were spoken by the Emperors using Mandarin Chinese sounds or Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka Chinese sounds.Lie-Hap-Po 12:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

The late Ming and early Qing dynasty saw the arrivals of several notable western christian missionaries to China who left records of their encounters as well as materials on the language of the court. It is also known that the Emperor Yongzheng decreed the setting up of schools to teach the court dialect because he had difficulty understand the speech of southern court officials whose speech was very different from that in Beijing. Dylanwhs 08:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

There is an area of study in Chinese historical phonology called 'Jindai Hanyu' 近代漢語 (Recent Hanyu/Chinese) which deals in most part with the sound system of Mandarin between the Zhongyuan YinYun 中原音韻 published in the Yuan 元 dynasty based on the language of the capital (located in and around Beijing) and the present, using intermediate sources by non-Chinese sources, and what is known about the sounds of the speech in Beijing during the end of the Qing. Dylanwhs 09:29, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

But it is(still)not known whether Emperor Yongzheng spoke Chinese.This is also true for his father Emperor Kangxi who ordered the Kangxi-Dictionary to be made.We know that Empress-Dowager Cixi received Western diplomats wives in the Forbidden City and some of those diplomats wives could speak Mandarin Chinese. When they communicated to Cixi in Mandarin Chinese she communicated back in Mandarin Chinese.And that is how we know that Cixi spoke Mandarin Chinese.Lie-Hap-Po 10:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

上古汉语，中古汉语 and 近代汉语 are part of the study of Chinese Historical phonology, a field Bernard Karlgren Started. It uses the Modern Chinese Languages, old records of foreign sources and old Chinsese rime books etc to piece together a large Chinese Language puzzle that show the difference in phonology between Old Chinese Languages and Modern Chinese Languages. It does not show whether Mao Zedong spoke Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese, Mayan, Dutch or not.Lie-Hap-Po 12:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

But what kind of Chinese the other Qing and Ming emperors used is not known to us. Maybe the Ming emperors used (pre)Cantonese or (pre)Hakka, we do not know.

Classical Chinese 文言 Wenyan was used from Prehistoric Times untill 1922 AD (although many modern writers like Lu Xun return to it later on in life) and was used for all offical correspondence.

Modern Chinese 白话 Baihua is used for all offical correpondence since 1922 (although Baihua was used since the Yuan Dynasty for non-official purposes such as the famous novel 《红楼梦》Hong Lou Meng).

That is why 官话 Guanhua must be understood as a language belonging to the Wenyan group and not to Baihua group. Because all things most value to the Imperial Courts (like the Four Books 四书 Sishu etc) were written in Wenyan style and not in Baihua style.

When I teach students Chinese I call 汉语 Hanyu Chinese, 普通话 Putonghua Modern Standard Chinese, 北方话 Beifanghua Northern Spoken Languages and 官话 Guanhua as the Language used at the Imperial Court.

The term Mandarin comes from the Portuguese Mandarim. Mandarim comes not from the Portuguese verb Mandar because this is totally impossible grammatical speaking. By the way, if Mandarim was derived from the verb Mandar then all officials in the entire world were called Mandarim , which is not the case.

Mandarim could be derived from the Malay word Mentri and Sanskrit word Mantrin which the Portuguese thought that all officials were called in South East Asia. But I find that hard to believe because Jezuiets like Matteo Ricci knew the Chinese language and culture. By the way, if Mandarim was derived from Malay and Sanskrit, how come that only the officials at the Chinese Imperial Court are known in the West as Mandarins and not the officials from other South East Asian Courts.

My guess is that Mandarim comes from the Chinese word Manchu Official 满大人 Mandaren. This not only explains the sound Mandarin but it also explains why Mandarin is only used by the West for the officials at the Chinese Imperial Court.Lie-Hap-Po 22:19, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Romanization of Chinese article

I'm proposing a new article called Romanization of Chinese. It's a major topic that deserves its own article. The article name is structured to follow the examples of Romanization of Japanese, Romanization of Hebrew, and Romanization of Arabic. Information on this topic is cluttering up other pages, especially the Standard Mandarin page, which has ended up being primarily about romanization. I hope to work in creating this page, but assistance would be appreciated. I have initiated discussions the talk pages of other relevant articles as well. --LakeHMM 01:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I've put up a rough draft. P0M 00:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks! What about just moving the stuff from the section here, though, instead of writing it anew? But good job. --LakeHMM 00:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Moving the section to a new article is a good idea - if it can be standardized, so much the better. Pjrich 20:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The usual thing, of late, is to have a short version in the main article with a link to the more complete article. The short version could just explain the derivation of the term "romanization," explain that Wade-Giles has its misleading points, pinyin has its decoding tricks, etc., and that the reason wasn't just to make it hard for the farangs. P0M 23:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, but it just seems that the new page has been written as a completely new article as opposed to changing the information on this page to a little blurb and moving the text that has already been written here to the new page. --LakeHMM 01:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The easy solution would be for you to delete what I have written and move the stuff you want from this article over there, then. P0M 09:00, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course, but the best thing to do would be to merge the two as opposed to just erasing all of your work. --LakeHMM 01:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Vandalised with a flag of Japan at 1645GMT. Please fix it.

Please sign your postings. P0M 23:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

As we all can see now, there is a separate article for Romanization of Chinese. I definitely think that info about Chinese Romanization shown in the main article "Standard Chinese" be moved and added there. The heading should remain in the main article with simply a link to the "Romanization of Chinese" article instead. How do we go about doing this? BPH

Well i have attempted the merge. I have mentioned Romanization in a general 'transcription' section, it seems reasonable to me. I made some slight alterations in Romanization of Chinese, most of the subject had been fully covered already, simply a case of adding the (very) few missing bits and bringing the table across. ThinkMedical 23:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A song

Can somebody provide a transcription of this song in pinyin? http://www.vanillae.de/chala/media/CHA-LA_HEAD-CHA-LA_-_China_extended.mp3 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.224.54.181 (talk) 15:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Picture Copyright Status

http://www.zanhe.com/, the site which was also hosting the image (though not claiming copyright over it?) seems abandoned, also the copyright text on the picture links to a dead site. The picture seems to have gone unquestioned for ~3 years and GPL is listed by apparent owner, it seems that perhaps the user should be given the benefit of the doubt (as no other sources are available) and this issue be removed from the todo. I welcome any disagreement but i am not sure how an alternative could be found. ThinkMedical 23:54, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"If considered a single language"

This phrasing is ridiculous, since Mandarin alone is number one in number of native speakers. --Ideogram 14:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I've read the sentence before and never once got the impression that you did; that it was misleading and implies a form of the Chinese language wouldn't still be ranked 1. It doesn't give any indication either way. I read it (as a native speaker of English) as: If considered a single language it would be ranked 1; if not, it would have no rank. Which is correct. S. Lodovico 16:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The presence of the box indicates we are considering it as a single language. If it isn't a single language, there would be no box. If the article has nothing to say, it should say nothing. --Ideogram 16:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Easy there, mate. I didn't say I opposed the new changes, only that the original phrasing was reasonable. It indicates that it is only sometimes ranked, and when it is, it's ranked 1. However, a simple 1 can also suffice. S. Lodovico 16:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem. --Ideogram 16:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Countries and regions spoken in

This is absolutely ridiculous. Where exactly is Chinese not spoken? Antarctica? --Ideogram 12:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it’s not much use to list every country or region where there are Chinese people. I’ve simplified it by narrowing it down to the main states/countries/regions. LDHan 16:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

PinYin is not a Chinese language

PinYin is listed in the article as a spoken Chinese language. It is not, it is a method of Romanization of the Chinese languages. I have only seen it used for Mandarin and Cantonese but would also work for other dialects. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.101.1.24 (talk) 12:58, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

Pinyin is a romanisation, but it does not necessarily follow that it would be suitable for other languages. The romanisation for Cantonese is very different to standard pinyin, in that standard pinyin does not employ 'oe', nor does pinyin permit ng- initials either which occur in Cantonese. There is also tone orthography which is different. There are six tonemes marked in the Cantonese scheme but only four (five if you include the unstressed tone) in Mandarin. If anything, standard pinyin orthography would have to be changed to suit Cantonese (and thus other languages) which would not make it 'pinyin' in the sense of hanyu pinyin, but rather a different romanisation altogether, borrowing elements from hanyu pinyin. Dylanwhs 09:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

: Originally, pinyin would be simple romanisation, but these days, with a few dialects trying to maintain individuality within the overall Chinese language, it's becoming more and more of a language on its own. Also the internet makes a big pinyin only subgroup as does the rising amounts of foreign visitors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.70.150.54 (talk) 07:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Offensive editing

A person edited the Chinese language article to include a flag of Japan at the top. I remind that person that that is a highly offensive gesture, please DO NOT abuse editing in the future. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.109.198.214 (talk) 10:26, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

That person regularly and persistantly vandalize many China-related articles, using different usernames. I don't know if there's anything to stop them other than to keep reverting. LDHan 15:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, next time revert the edit instead of changing it to the PRC flag [2], which is also inappropriate for a language article. —Umofomia 23:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

IP vandalism

66.203.40.189 recently changed the "Infobox Language" template to an "Infobox Language is a bitch" template, creating a red link and nullifying the template. I sent him a nice note on his talk page, telling him he will be IP-blocked if this happens again. Since I am not actually an admin, I am counting on someone else to follow through if it does happen again. Thanks.--Clorox (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Requests for improvements almost all met?

The box at the top asks for sample sentences in 3-5 regional languages. There already are enough if it is just a question of the number of samples. So why does somebody still seem to be insisting on a "Gan (Wannian dialect)" example? How is that one regional language so important to the average well-informed reader? P0M 06:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I just had a look at the article. Actually, there are no example sentences for "dialects." Strange. P0M 06:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Loanword section

The loanword section is without any references or citations. I tagged as such. I like to learn more about the Chinese loanword topic. Also "hacker" is not a pure transliteration, it is half-transliteration because "客" in "黑客" means guest, which can be an unwelcome guest such as in 刺客 (assassin). --Voidvector 03:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

~~Expanded notion in "Borrowing" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Tweaked language about international linguists usually classifying Chinese as a language family

I changed it to linguists often classify Chinese as a language family.

First it isn't clear to be what an "international linguist." Second, it isn't the case that they "usually" classify Chinese as a langauge family. Linguists from China rarely do, and most Western linguists I've read try as much as possible to use avoid taking sides on the issue.

Roadrunner 23:09, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Philippine Language Group and Sinitic Languages have the same range of intelligibility....Kasumi-genx (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:56, 6 September 2009 (UTC).

Commercial links

We've had a running series of link adds and reverts of commercial links. We might as well talk about it properly rather than through edits. The reason I have been deleting the links is because they point to a service selling Chinese instruction. While the page that one gets directed to has information, it is using it as an entry to selling Chinese lessons. There's nothing wrong with that, but if sites selling products and services are allowed a links then the page becomes a product directory, something not very encyclopedic. The question came up about sites with Google ads. This doesn't bother me, because I see it as someone putting out information that happens to by trying to recoup some costs. They are not actively trying to sell Chinese services or products. --Beirne 19:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

To add a bit of formal backing for removing the links, here is what Wikipedia:External links says should be avoided: "Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services." In regards to ads on the pages, it says that "Links to sites with objectionable amounts of advertising." should be avoided. I don't see a problem with the Google ads some pages have. --Beirne 00:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

--- Any sites all have cost to operate. Who can cover cost?

For university site, example 1: www.wku.edu/~yuanh/AudioChinese/. It points to its product site www.instantspeakchinese.com/ 2 sites are run by one person (Hai Wang) and this site also sells book 'Magic Lotus Lantern and Other Tales from the Han Chinese' written by Hai Wang. example 2: tools.google.com/pinyin/ Google is a non-commercial site? If google does not pay the cost to develop this tool, what can we use? This site of course points Google.com. Example 3: www.csulb.edu/~txie/introduction.htm it also points to an admission site of California State University. If wku.edu and csulb.edu do not offer fund to operate these sites, what can we view?

AD is a key point to consider whether a site is commercial or not. Please check Google Adsense Vendor Top List by keywords. You can see these sites all on the list. Example: zhongwen.com is Top 1 Vendor of Keyword 'learn Chinese'. And I check the code of this site, it uses some rigged javascript code and frame to refresh AD page part automatically to increase pageview and AD income. Please read Google Adsense, some AD is charged based on the amount of display. At the same time, when you check Google Adwords, these sites also deliver own promotion AD through Adwords. I just found out they also purchase our MSN Live Search AD (advertising.microsoft.com/advertising). If they are non-commercial sites, why do they spend so much money to deliver their own AD to promote?

So all AD vendor sites, of course, should be commercial sites. Especially content of these site is never updated often and AD area of a page is even larger than content area. If a site has no AD and really offers enough content, it should be a non-commercial site. I Love Chinese is under a school site and its interface and structure is absolutely different from its school site. It is not a problem a school offers lessons. When I learnt Chinese in 2004, my wife recommended me this site. I always visit it. This site is very good, content is updated often and I can find almost all of useful information on it. No one contacts me to sell any lessons by now. Based on my experience, I think it is very important and useful for non-native Chinese speakers to know Chinese language. And the sites I listed are all recommended by my wife who is Chinese linguistics Ph.D of China National Language Committee.

As for http://www.wku.edu/~yuanh/AudioChinese/, I wouldn't make a reference to it because it is sort of lame. It's just a collection of phrases, and not particularly useful. In any case, there isn't a link to it so it is irrelevant. The Google link provides free (as in beer, not speech) software, which is OK. They aren't trying to get you to spend money. The csulb.edu page is just a collection of links. I'd favor deleting that because it doesn't really provide more knowledge.

Regarding ads, the Wikipedia guidelines don't discourage linking to pages with ads, just to pages with excessive ads. So it is the quantity of ads on the page that is the issue, not how much money they make by ads. Having some Google ads on the right isn't a big deal, especially when the site has the entire contents of a dictionary online. This isn't one of those pages full of ads with a bit of text.

Once you start allowing sites that are selling things, the link spam never stops. You have your favorite sites. I have a commercial one that I like that has a lot more content than the page you keep inserting, but I haven't put it in because they are trying to sell lessons, just like the Beijing Online School of the Chinese Language.

I'm going to restore the zhongwen.com list because it clearly fits the Wikipedia guidelines for external links. I'll leave your link there for now and wait for others to comment. --Beirne 04:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, zhongwen.com has several problems, please consider:

1, never updated. When you check its update history in google or msn, you will find it was updated last time even in 2006. Many pages were never updated from 2004. At the same time, its AD always updates because it uses a javascript automatic refresh code. AD can change every 90 seconds (Please read its web code: function doLoad() {

   setTimeout( "refresh()", 90000 );

} function refresh() {

   window.location.href = sURL;

} ) This kind of code also is forbidden by google.

2, a lot of errors. Example 1: www.zhongwen.com/s/ziyin.htm this is page about Chinese Hanyu Pinyin used in mainland China, but when you click to view, you will find all of characters are traditional Chinese. Mainland China stopped to use from 1956.(Details, please read my adding on this wiki page). If this site focuses on Taiwan mandarin, they should not use mainland hanyu pinyin. Taiwan Pinyin should be 888.rockin.net/pinyin/ My wife is a Chinese linguistics expert, she points out a lot of errors in this site. Example 2: on www.zhongwen.com/s/v60.htm, 倒彩 - the tone of 倒 should be 4th, not 3rd. another word, 盗印 is not a single Chinese word. My wife told me there are a lot of errors almost on every page of zhongwen.com. So she thinks it will bring very negative influence to foreign Chinese learners.

3, Based on your commercial site opinion, zhongwen also sell products. it sells books on homepage and can get commission because this is an Affiliates service of Amazon.

I think you should remove zhongwen.com link

About I Love Chinese, yes, it should be edited by hello school or others because it is just a sub-site, not main site. This sub-site structure and interface has no relationship with main site. I guess it should be edited by a separate team. They maybe need to get some support from school and professors. I think any education service almost is business except public primary school. The key point is that this site is a purely academic site. they do not sell anything on I Love Chinese and content is very useful and updated often. At least, the content has no too many errors. Any universities all have 2 faces of education and business. And when you write some content in Wiki, you have to mention or ask others to read some useful and even unique content on I Love Chinese. The copyright of these content is theirs. That is why I think it is important resource.

For dictionary you mentioned, I think most of dictionary links on this page are also spam links. Did you find out most of these dictionary are very similar, similar program, similar result and similar structure? I can tell you why. Most of these dictionaries use the same database. This database is from open source code site sourceforge.net. You also can download more code for free from sourceforge.net. the owners of these sites downloaded free code and installed in a cheap web hosting site, then they can start to make money through Google Adsense. And These owners technical skills are not very good, they even do not know how to modify open source code to personalize and compile again. Do not you think these sites are commercial?

I think we need a standard to judge. If one site does not sell directly products and services, and it really offers useful information, this site should be non-commercial. If one site sells too many AD or sell products directly, even purchases AD to promote itself, this site should be commercial. Examples in our Microsoft, microsoft.com and msn.com should be commercial. but msdn.microsoft.com should be non-commercial although it is edited by microsoft. But this site is an absolutely academic site and very important to all students whose major is computer. Do you agree? Daniel

Regarding Zhongwen.com, just because it hasn't been updated doesn't mean it isn't useful. It provides a different sort of dictionary than other sites, with its emphasis on the components of characters. It uses traditional characters because that allows for the fullest amount of detail on character history. It isn't trying to focus on Taiwan, it is trying to best show how characters are formed and since the simplified characters lack parts of the traditional ones the author went traditional. Using pinyin makes sense in this context, because few students nowadays learn the other romanizations.

As to the ads at Zhongwen.com, show me the Wikipedia guidelines that forbid ads on linked pages.

I'm not convinced that zhongwen.com is full of errors. Your first example, about pinyin, is based on your misunderstanding of the purpose of the dictionary. The second, 倒彩, is valid. The third, 盗印, is a word. It means pirate or piracy of printed material according to the ABC Dictionary.

And yes, Zhongwen.com sells the printed version of its site. However, they have put the entire book on the website for free, mitigating a lot of the fact that they are selling a book.

Finally, back to I Love Chinese. It is selling lessons on the main page in the Live Class section. Also, five of the tabs at the top of the page are for selling things. One more thing. I've left your link in the article as I said I would, but I deleted the paragraph you added this morning. It is set up as a way to mention Hello Chinese, with some other sites worked in. That's really pushing things.

I noticed that one of the dictionary links you deleted was just a front end to the already-linked CEDICT with ads. I agree that such sites shouldn't be linked to. --Beirne 12:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, looking at your edits from a few hours ago, I see they started with an edit from 123.112.102.196, an address in Beijing, the home of the language school you are promoting. Are you sure there isn't a conflict of interest here? --Beirne 12:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the external links should be strictly kept to completely non-commercial sites, and sites with a very few and unobtrusive adverts. There are already too many links as it is, it is not the purpose of wiki articles to provide a directory of links. Eg, all the sites that use CEDICT should be removed except for of course the link to CEDICT itself. I Love Chinese is clearly a commercial site, yes it may offer a few free pages but that does not change the fact that it exists for the purpose for selling products and services. Also, whether or not pages are updated is irrelevant.

As for the argument that universties are also commercial and are businesses in the way that private language schools are, the difference is that unversities do not exist purely to make a profit. And yes, there are free universities.

It also seems to me the persistent promotion of this private language school might indicate some personal connection. LDHan 14:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, about 'I'm not convinced that zhongwen.com is full of errors', are you a Chinese native speaker or linguistics expert? The content of Wiki should be correct at least. I do not know ABC dictionary, but I have latest 2007 5th edition of Xiandai Haiyu Cidian 现代汉语词典 recommended on Vocabulary part. I cannot find this word. This Chinese dictionary should be the most authoritative. I also do not think 'However, they have put the entire book on the website for free, mitigating a lot of the fact that they are selling a book.'. So I have to remove this worthless and commercial site link again. Daniel (BTW, 123.112.102.196 is IP of Microsoft China Gateway in Beijing. I cannot visit Internet in my company. Our firewall blocks all of outgoing traffic. I have to find a proxy through China branches)

Dear LDHan, I have no personal connection with this site. But I just read it for many years and really like it. Daniel

OK so you have no personal connection with the website, but the wikipedia policies and guidelines on external links still apply and the link to the website should not be in this article. LDHan 17:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree fully with what LDHan said. What he said follows the Wikipedia guidelines. The external links lists could stand further pruning, but that does not mean that hellomandarin.com belongs in the list as it is a commercial site.

Regarding my expertise in Chinese, I answered the three examples you gave in objective, non-insulting terms. I'd appreciate it if you would do the same. The ABC Dictionary was edited by John DeFrancis and is available in print and as part of the Wenlin and Plecodict products. One thing I've learned is that no dictionary has every Chinese word, and that may includes the dictionary you cite. It does not mean that 盗印 isn't a word. 盗印 is also in the Adsotrans online dictionary, which isn't as authoritative but indicates another example of its usage. Finally, search for it on Google. The top hit is a list of blog postings at Technorati tagged with the word. Here's a sample sentence: 检查手上的张爱玲的书，不幸的发现都是盗印的。安徽文艺那套还行，应该流传也是比较广。Note that it comes after 是 and before 的, meaning that it is a standalone adjective. You are going to have to come up with better examples of errors in zhongwen.com.

So you are saying that because your company Microsoft doesn't let you get onto the Internet that you have to go through a proxy in China even though you live in the USA? That doesn't quite make sense to me. --Beirne 21:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, I can not understand this sentence clearly, but word '盗印' cannot be found in the latest 2007 5th edition of Xiandai Haiyu Cidian 现代汉语词典. It is clear. Daniel

So what? Just because a word isn't in in the dictionary does not mean that it isn't a word. --Beirne 03:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

External link review

While we had the discussion of whether some specific links are appropriate I noticed other links that are of minimal use. Rather than wipe things out myself I figured we should first talk here about what kind of links are expected. I've added the External links template to notify people that the links need reviewing. Here is what Wikipedia:External links says:

Wikipedia articles can include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews).

Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified.

I see several categories of links in the article now. I haven't gone through each link but will list some categories for discussion.

Dictionaries: I think these are fine in general, but we only need one link to a CEDICT-based dictionary.

Learning tools: This includes the idiom or character-a-day pages, pinyin practice, and tone drills. I'm inclined to say no to these, because they aren't exactly reference material.

Chinese input software: Not exactly reference material

Commercial sites teaching Chinese: No.

Non-commercial sites teaching Chinese: I have mixed feelings on these. Some are fairly low quality and just have some starter lessons.

Articles on the language: There is actually one of them, "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard". This is the kind of thing that should be in the link list.

Pages of link lists: These are of varying quality. I'd say pick one or two good ones.

These are just my thoughts. What do the rest of you think? --Beirne 12:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Excellent points! And I agree with you. LDHan 13:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne: This Pronunciation Dictionary has no problem. I already used for several times. Please tell me your technical problem. Maybe you have to use our Internet Explorer to look up. Firefox and the other web browsers do not work. I already found this problem and left comments on their blog. I do not know why though I am engineer of Microsoft. (Believe me, I do not promote our web browser here, it is just a fact.) Please use Microsoft Internet Explorer to try again.

Another technical point, please read notes before look up. This page is edited by GB(Chinese Simplified) encoding. If your web browser is configured to unicode (utf-8) or the other character encodings, the text you input cannot be recognized.

Daniel

Dear Beirne: I found some reasons. This dictionary is using a Microsoft DLL encryption engine developed by our Microsoft China. Not reason from type of web browser. But you need to make sure your web browser can visit encryption secure page. Generally your web browser should give a alert to ask you to accept encryption engine. I am also not familiar to this technology of Microsoft. I am asking the other engineers and also try to contact this team in China. But it is not easy. Microsoft is huge. I already left more comments about my new discovery on their blog and hope they can add more technical notes. Danielsaw

Daniel, the problem is that I when I enter text, either in English or Chinese as selected below the text box, nothing happens when I hit the Synthesize button. I don't think it is an encryption issue, because the page is http rather than https. I can't use Internet Explorer because I use a Mac.

Note the according to the Wikipedia:External links guidelines a linked page should not be limited to certain browsers. From the "Links normally to be avoided" section: Sites that are inaccessible to a substantial number of users, such as sites that only work with a specific browser.

--Beirne 02:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, the submit page is not https, but after you click, you will visit a https page. BTW, Mac also can use IE. If you use IE, the dictionary does not work again, I agree with you. As you know, any program is impossible to be suitable for all of browsers. IE has over 95% market share, so IE is not "a specific browser." Most sites list recommended web browsers, not all of browsers. I also have ability to program a personalized web browser based on C or java. If my browser cannot use some sites, can I define some sites that cannot be linked? Danielsaw

OK, I can't tell that it is https because the Synthesize button doesn't work, which is the main problem. BTW, the Mac can't use IE. Microsoft dropped support for it a long time ago. I'm using Firefox, a popular alternate browser, with 14.55% market share, a bit more than you will have with your personalized web browser. There is no excuse for a page being designed such that a submit button does not work. Plus, this page specifically discourages other browsers when it says "Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 sp2 and above is recommended." Wikipedia is designed to foster the free flow of information, and a web page that does not adhere to basic cross-platform web standards does not support that goal. --Beirne 03:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I use Opera browser to test. Opera also works. I think the problem is not from IE. Danielsaw

BTW, if you only use Safari as browser, a lot of high-tech sites cannot be compatible with Safari very well because most of sites just are designed to be compatible with IE, not consider Safari. (It is a fact, not because I am in Microsoft). I just also tested the other web browsers. Opera also works. But I think IE is enough, over 95% computer users are using IE. User amount over 95%, of course, is "a substantial number of users" Danielsaw

I looked into the code on the page. The problem is that the references to "option" and "TTS" in the submitForm function aren't preceded by "document.". Once those are put in the page works fine, except for the Microsoft certificate authority not being known. --Beirne 04:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Good. You can leave some comments about your discovery in their blog and ask them to improve. Danielsaw

I told them about the problem and they fixed it. I'm going to need to delete the external link in the article, though. The pronunciation is unreliable. I looked up several words pronounced li3 such as 理，礼 and 李 and they all come out as bi3. These errors could lead the student to learn incorrect pronunciation. --Beirne 20:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, you can also leave comments to them and ask them to improve. I think no program has no problem. All content of Wiki are absolutely correct? I also asked my wife to test the following sentences "你说得有道理，理论也正确，但是没理由这么说" and "道理，礼品和李子". My wife told me, in the 1st sentence, all of words 理pronunciation are correct. in the 2nd sentence, 礼 and 李 are correct, 理 is not perfect. a little like di3, not you mentioned bi3. It should be li3. You can leave comments to webmaster about your discovery to improve. I think the other students also can see your discovery. But I do not think you need to remove this tool. It is absolutely helpful. If we need to delete tools that have errors, we have to delete all of links. When you check the above dictionary, you also can find a lot of errors. I ever learnt Chinese in my university, my professor is from Shanghai, I believe his pronunciation is much poorer than this tool.

Danielsaw

Danielsaw, I thought from the discussion about zhongwen.com that errors disqualified a site from being linked. I'm much more concerned about multiple mispronounced characters than I am one incorrect tone in a written dictionary. Try putting in 礼 and 李 as single characters and you will hear the bi3. I left a note with the webmaster but since he is just linking to a Microsoft service I don't know if he can do anything about it. --Beirne 03:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, I saw your comments. They replied you. I also input single words, 理 礼 里 李 and ask my wife to help me to check. She said, yes, the pronunciation of these single words are not perfect. Not bi3 you mentioned. A little similar to di3. But still between li3 and di3. It is ok, not perfect. We should believe native speaker. If this program is developed in China, maybe Microsoft China, I think they are native speakers. They have ability to distinguish. My wife told me it is also difficult for Chinese native people to distinguish 'b', 'd' and 'l'. especially for non-Beijing people. It is called 'Front-nose pronunciation' and 'back-nose pronunciation'. Non-beijing people also need to learn in primary school. Another point, when these words are used in context, their pronunciation are correct. Maybe they are multiple pronunciation characters. You know most of Chinese characters have multiple pronunciation. You should give out context or at least a whole sentence. Did you ever learn '长'? 成长(cheng2 zhang3) and 很长 (hen3 chang2). If you do not give out context, how to pronounce 长? My wife gave me another interesting sample '数数' (shu3 shu4) means 'count'. She said most of non-Beijing people cannot pronounce correctly. They pronounce 2 words without difference. Danielsaw

Danielsaw, I just sent four examples. Hopefully then can fix the problem. BTW, when I first heard the mispronunciations yesterday I played 李 for my girlfriend, a native Chinese speaker, without telling her what it was. She said it sounded like 铅笔的笔 (the bi3 syllable in qian1bi3). The fact that the sound may be difficult for some speakers should not keep the program from pronouncing an "l" like an "l". Your examples of characters with multiple pronunciations do not apply here. 理, 礼, 里, and 李 are only pronounced as li3. --Beirne 11:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I use Firefox, along with many millions of other net users, so I can't use the website, but if li3 doesn't sound like li3 then it's wrong, plain and simple! It's nonsense to say if it sounds like di3 but not bi3 then it's OK. Of course many if not most Chinese people speak Chinese with "wrong" pronunciations (linguists would say they have a non-standard accent), but standard pronunciation is standard pronunciation and li3 is li3. If a website can't get something as basic as this correct, then perhaps it's better not to link to it until they get it right. LDHan 14:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Why you always input single character? When you input a complete sentence, examples: "你说得有道理，理论也正确，但是没理由这么说" or "我爱吃李子". There is no problem. I already left a comment to suggest they write a note to ask users to input a complete sentence to lookup before finding reason. My wife told me, she cannot make sure the other words. If necessary, we can look up more. But at least, 里 can be pronounced 'di3'. Please refer to novel 'dream of the red chamber', '第五十九回 柳叶渚边嗔莺咤燕 绛云轩里召将飞符' This 里 should be pronounced 'di3', not 'li3'. My wife is PH.D of Chinese literature in Peking University, not general Chinese native speaker. She also said, we should not just input single character. Chinese is different from English. Much more complex and not spelling language. When you input a complete sentence, if you do not find any problem, it can show this program has no problem. Only inputting single character to look for pronunciation is not scientific for Chinese. That is why I suggest they should list a note about how to use on the site. Danielsaw

I entered single characters because when I discovered the problem in the full sentence 我坐在李女士的旁边 and heard 李 mispronounced I then wanted to find out what else might be a problem. The easiest way to do this was to enter single characters, something one might want to do if they only need to know how a single character is pronounced. Regarding 里，I went through five Chinese-English dictionaries and can find no documentation that 里 is ever pronounced di3. You will see by my example that there can be problems with full sentences, although it does appear that it works in most full sentences. Also, sometimes one might want to look up fragments. I searched for 李 in Google and the first hit for me was the 李宇春的BLOG. I wondered how that was pronounced so I put the characters from the title into the pronunciation dictionary. It pronounced 李 as bi3 again. --Beirne 12:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Another point, If based on policy of LDHan, almost all of links should be removed. Give you a dictionary sample. 'Chinese - English Dictionary', When you look up '丢三落四'. the result is 'absentminded'. The result is ok. This '落' means '落下'(be missing). But when you look up '落下', all of results are all 'fall'. The result is, of course, not enough. '落下' pronounced 'la4 xia4', not 'luo4 xia4'. Sentence sample about 'la4': '我忙着出来,把票落在家里了'. This '落' is '落' of '丢三落四'. If you want to look up meaning of '落' of '丢三落四', you just input '落下', 'Chinese - English Dictionary' gives out wrong result. If you just look up '落', the Dictionary gives you result of 'drop, leave behind, to drop, to fall, alight.'. All of results are from 'luo4'. The users will surely misunderstand '落' of '丢三落四' means 'luo4'(fall). Do we need to remove 'Chinese - English Dictionary'? And there are also a lot of this kind of errors or pretermission in the other dictionaries. Do we need to remove all of dictionaries? There is nothing we can use finally. I do not think LDHan is correct to remove everyday and never add something. I never found any valuable contents on this page added by LDHan. The history shows you always remove contents added by others. It is also nonsense or invalidity for Wiki. Similar to some dictionaries, I cannot find too many words that are often used, such as '完璧归赵', '嫦娥奔月'. The result is always 'Sorry, this definition page is not yet loaded'. Removing too much is worthless. I think editors of these dictionaries should spend more time adding content, not adding restriction. Danielsaw

Editing of inappropriate and incorrect content is equally as valid a contribution to Wikipedia as adding appropriate, verifiable and factually accurate information. Please see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, in particular regarding original research, external links, usage guides. Articles do not automatically have to include links to external sites. This is not just merely my own opinion and I did not make up these guidelines. LDHan 13:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have no clue what 'Chinese - English Dictionary' is, but more importantly I don't know why you are looking up 落下 when you have the phrase 丢三落四. You are coming around to my point, though. You were all upset about Zhongwen.com because it had one tone error and two claimed errors that were not actually incorrect. I agree that a dictionary can have mistakes, and one here or there, and that should not necessarily invalidate a link. Regarding the overloaded link list, Wikipedia guidelines say: Some external links are welcome (see "What should be linked", below), but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justified. External link sections are to point to more valid information. They are not meant to be lists of everything on the Internet. Each link needs to be evaluated to see if it is appropriate according to Wikipedia guidelines. --Beirne 12:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Because 落 in 丢三落四 means '落下'. The full sentence should be '丢下三落下四'. Zhongwen has really too many obvious errors from Pinyin. Pinyin does not need to discuss because we can find in dictionary. But you cannot find pronunciation just from text dictionary. Text dictionary has voice. For this pronunciation dictionary, I have not found obvious errors. Maybe there are some limits. I also tested your 2 sentences '我坐在李女士的旁边' and '李宇春的博客'. Pronunciation is correct and clear. My conclusion is also confirmed by my wife. She is authority of Chinese literature. So this link or tool does not disobey Wikipedia guidelines. If you think my conclusion is not correct, at least you need to find more confirmation from higher authority. Not only opinion or feeling from non-native speakers because this page of Wikipedia is Chinese Language, not English Language. Before my wife came to US, she worked for '国家语言文字工作委员会' of China. This is the highest authority in Chinese literature. You can submit your opinion about this tool to them. If they also think this tool has too many errors or misleading. I will agree with you. If you think this pronunciation dictionary is not justified, do we need to remove all of links because it is easy for me to find enough errors in these linked sites and dictionaries? But I do not think so, these linked sites at least are helpful for Chinese learners. Danielsaw

It does not take a Ph.D to know the difference between a B and an L. See below for Ogg Vorbis examples with li3 pronounced as bi3. --Beirne 22:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that Literature (any language) and Linguistics are two very different fields of study, being a specialist in one does not necessarily make someone an expert in the other. This is not to say that a Literature degree course will not have some Linguistics component. LDHan 13:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Different from text Dictionary that can show a list of results, Voice dictionary just can show only one pronunciation if you just input a single word. Generally it is difficult to give out what you want. It is, of course, unfair to criticize only based single character input. So I just give them my suggestion to add more notes and experience about how to use.

Danielsaw

Single character input is a perfectly valid criteria if the character has only one pronunciation, as is the case with the four I listed earlier. --Beirne 12:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear Beirne, are you sure the pronunciation of 李 in '我坐在李女士的旁边' and '李宇春的博客' is 'bi3', not 'li3'? I also input the 2 sentences. To my listening, I am sure the pronunciation is 'li3', not 'bi3'. I also asked my wife to help me to confirm. Please listen again. About dictionary, why do you look up in 'Chinese-English dictionaries'? The pronunciation has no relationship with English, not translation. Please look up in '现代汉语辞海'(Chinese - Chinese dictionary). You can find in Amazone.com. If you cannot find, leave your email address on their blog. I send you link. Danielsaw

Check out the ogg vorbis versions of the two sentences I have uploaded to and . They both sound like bi3. The reason I looked up 里 in Chinese-English dictionary is because they include the pinyin for the character. I don't need a Chinese-Chinese dictionary to get the pronunciation of Chinese characters. --Beirne 22:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I cannot use Java plug-in on my computer. Could you send to my mailbox? I already left my hotmail address on their blog, just below your comments. Thanks. In addition, why I mentioned Chinese-Chinese dictionary? Chinese-English dictionary is designed for English speakers to look for English translation of some basic Chinese words. It is impossible to include complete Chinese vocabulary base. the current topic we discussed is not English translation, but pure Chinese. '现代汉语辞海' is much more complete Chinese dictionary. Its vocabulary is 10 times of general Chinese-English dictionary. We have one at home. My wife brought it from China. BTW, this dictionary is also paper based. It can only give out pinyin. It has no voice. It also cannot judge li3 and bi3. I have not reached the team of this engine in Microsoft China. I left message, but I have not got any reply. To my opinion, the criterion of pronunciation li3 and bi3 for a word maybe is from shape of sound wave. I found some research articles in internal network of Microsoft. Anyway, the criterion is impossible from listening feeling of a person or some people because maybe 100 people have 100 feelings. But I know this site is created by BLCU. This is authority of Chinese language. Many Chinese teachers of America, including my Chinese teacher in Standford, go to join training in BLCU every year and many textbooks in US are also from BLCU. Maybe your Chinese teacher also learned in this university. Since they think this tool is qualified and valuable to recommend, I do not think it has any serious and obvious problem. The only problem is that it has some limits, example: not fit to look up single words because of multi-pronunciation. If you have any academic opinions, you can submit to them. Authority of Chinese language is only possible from China, impossible from America. And this site is from an university, an absolutely academic site, not a commercial site and has no AD. so this link absolutely fits for guideline of Wikipedia. Danielsaw

It would seem to me actually it should be easier to provide pronunciation for single characters ie one syllable. For characters which have more than one pronunciation, all a website would have to do is simply list the various pronunciations in pinyin and then ask the user to select one pronunciation to listen to. In comparision providing pronunciation for multi-syllable words and phrases would seem to be more complex; due to tone sandhi, the neutral tone etc. Perhaps this website is still being developed, but there's really no excuse for single syllables to be not absolutely clear without any doubts whether it's eg li, di or bi etc. Also what is more important for a learner is for them to learn pinyin rather than having to rely on sound recordings for pronunciation. If a user is already at the level where they know how to input characters and pinyin, then it's probable that they already know how to use pinyin. Once you have learnt pinyin then any character, word or phrase can be pronounced accurately from its pinyin. If the website worked properly then of course it would be a good tool for learning pinyin. LDHan 13:18, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please read comments from Chinese teachers of BLCU. They already explained reasons why learners are difficult to distinguish li3 and bi3. This program is being developed for HSK exam. So learners have to fit for this program. I remember in HSK there is no Pinyin or English, all of contents are written in Chinese, including reading, listening and grammar. I believe once HSK starts to use this program, Chinese exam of SATII will use soon because this technology is from American company. Danielsaw

Sorry I didn’t realise the site does not use pinyin, so it’s only in Chinese characters? Then it seems to me the site is designed for native speakers and I would suggest that the site would not be very useful for foreign learners unless they were already at an advanced level. If the website is in Chinese only and gives the pronunciation when you input characters, then it seems the main purpose of the site (or that particular part of the site) is to provide standard pronunciation to native speakers. LDHan 17:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

My god, Dear LDHan, Why do you learn Pinyin? Just to help you to remember pronunciation of Chinese character. That's all. Did you ever visit China? Can you find any Pinyin in the street, airport, hotel or on the book, newspaper? Of course, this program is not only suitable for advanced learners. If you join HSK exam, even in beginner level exam, you also cannot find any pinyin or English description, only Chinese characters. Pinyin was just created in 1958 in China. Chinese people elder than 50 even do not know how to use Pinyin. (Please Read: 1958年2月，第一届全国人民代表大会第五次会议通过了《汉语拼音方案》。四十多年来拼音方案在我国的社会主义建设中，在教育事业中发挥了重大的作用 - China People Education Press) Pinyin is similar to phonetic symbol of English. In USA, do you use phonetic symbol to write something? If a Chinese person only writes phonetic symbol to you, can you accept? If you already know pinyin of a word, generally you should know how to pronounce. This tool just tell you how to pronounce if you do not know some words pinyin. Example: when you read Chinese news or articles, no one gives you pinyin, but you have to know how to pronounce. This tool is very useful. As webmaster said, this technology will be used in HSK exam. That shows this tool is very important. Danielsaw

Actually pinyin is used in street signs, shop fronts, business cards etc but usually without tones which limits their usefulness. And of course Chinese people generally just use hanzi and not pinyin. You wrote "If you already know pinyin of a word, generally you should know how to pronounce. This tool just tell you how to pronounce if you do not know some words pinyin. [sic]", many dictionaries both on paper and online will provide pinyin and as you have said once you have the pinyin then you will know how to pronounce the word, which makes this tool less useful for foreign learners. If a foreign learner sees a new word eg in a book where they don't know both meaning and pronunciation, they will need to look up the word by shape in a dictionary which will then give both the meaning and pinyin, they don't need a sound recording. I'm not saying this tool is not useful, I'm saying it's less useful for foreign learners. The people who will find it more useful are native speakers (including people who only speak a regional dialect) who don't know pinyin or find it difficult to use, and need sound recordings of standard pronunciation. LDHan 12:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. 1, About 'pinyin is used in street signs, shop fronts, business cards etc', it is already called 'stupid' in China right now. Please read articles about bilingual signs on 2008 Olympic website. Many years ago, a few Chinese people know foreign language. Generally they think it is honorable, internationalized and nice-looking that there are some foreign language characters in the street sign or brand mark. But these people really do not know any foreign language, so they have to use pinyin as substitute. If you visit some companies in non-developed districts or small village now, you still can get business card with pinyin. But in Beijing, Shanghai... large cities, it is not easy to find pinyin on street sign. Examples: some year ago, in Shanghai, you maybe saw 'Huai Hai xi Lu' 淮海西路. now already was changed to 'Huai Hai West Road'. It is obvious 'Huai Hai xi Lu' cannot be understood by anyone including Chinese and foreigners. If foreigners do not know Chinese, they of course cannot understand what is 'Lu'. If they can understand, they can directly look at Chinese '路'. 'Huai Hai West Road' is good. If you do not know Chinese, you will understand 'Huai Hai' is just a road name and has no the other meanings, just remember it. 2, 'look up the word by shape in a dictionary' is very difficult for foreigners. If I need to use Chinese-English dictionary, Generally I use pinyin to look up for meanings. If I do not know pinyin and use radical and radical order to look up for pinyin, you have to know much about how to write this character, structure of this character and sequence of Stroke. If you have any errors, such as amount of Stroke, you will not be able to find. It is almost impossible for most of Chinese learners. As you know, even for Chinese people, they also have some difficulty to use radical order. In literature class of Chinese primary school, Chinese students also need to learn. So this pronunciation tool can help you to get pronunciation easily and soon. You do not need to know how to write it, especially a sentence with a lot of Chinese characters. It is horrible to look up one by one. Danielsaw

You are absolutely correct about the common non-academic use of pinyin in China, it is used to render Chinese names into Roman letters, although usually without tone marks. It is precisely because pinyin is not routinely used by Chinese people, except perhaps as a means to input characters on a computer (I'm aware not all use pinyin and other methods are also used), that this tool is of more use to them than to foreign learners because first, this tool does not use pinyin, and second other online tools will give both pinyin and translations (machine) to whole sentences, even a paragraph as well as single characters or words. As you have already said, once you have the pinyin you have the pronunciation. I'd like to also point out foreign learners learn pinyin first, before even the most basic characters. LDHan 20:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Based on my understanding, this tool is not useful for native speakers except mandarin students who plan to join mandarin level exam. When do Chinese learners need to use this tool? 1, Want to know standard pronunciation of a sentence or phrase when you read non-textbook.(Generally most of textbook will give you pinyin and audio recording file, but non-textbooks have no audio and pinyin, only characters. Even you use online dictionary to get pinyin, generally you do not know whether you pronounce correctly. Or you think it is horrible to look up one by one. At this time, you can look up and listen by this tool. In fact, if you only want to know pronunciation, you do not need to use the other dictionary, you can only use this tool to look up.) 2, Help Chinese learners to practice listening. You do not need to purchase so many CD, mp3 and podcast. You can personalize your listening materials if you have text file. You can copy any text into this tool, then it will create standard pronunciation audio files to you. Save money and you can listen to any content you want. So this tool does not need to output pinyin. Pinyin has no voice and helps you to remember pronunciation. Now it is multimedia time. Since this tool can give you voice directly, why does it need to give you pinyin again? There are so many dictionaries to give you pinyin. So this tool is special and cannot be replaced. For 'Pinyin is used to render Chinese names into Roman letters' you mentioned, I think it depends on which part of Chinese people. Generally in government, officials have to use pinyin as their English name diplomatically because it can show Chinese sovereign. But if you go to companies, generally Chinese people use English name directly if they know English. Example: in Microsoft Shanghai, I know 'Amy Zheng', 'Tina Liu', even you can see pure English name for Chinese person 'Steven L. Korby' His family name is '柯'. Danielsaw

Are you saying Zheng and Liu are not pinyin? "Tina" and "Amy" are non-Chinese names. You seem not to have addressed any of the points I have been making regarding this tool. Also you are not consistent, first you say "If you already know pinyin of a word, generally you should know how to pronounce." and then "Even you use online dictionary to get pinyin, generally you do not know whether you pronounce correctly". My basic point is, assuming it does provide sound recordings of the correct pronunciation, it is less useful to foreign learners because it does not provide pinyin. To answer your question "Since this tool can give you voice directly, why does it need to give you pinyin again?" My answer is why not give pinyin in addition to sound recordings? What is the disadvantage of including pinyin? Pinyin is an important tool and fundamental part of teaching Chinese to foreign learners, pinyin does not require a media player/speakers/headphones, it can be added to any text, it is not subject to non-standard pronunciations nor potential aural ambiguities and sound quality issues, it can indicate multiple pronunciations of relevant characters, and pinyin will indicate the correct individual tones of third tone characters when followed by one or more third tone characters. Also providing pinyin will help in learning pinyin by associating a sound with a pinyin syllable and vice versa. By giving pinyin this tool would be greatly more useful to all Chinese learners. I’m afraid we have to agree to disagree. Other people reading this conversation can come to their own conclusions about this, but I’m very confident that the vast majority of foreign learners will agree with me. I'm not going to add anymore to this discussion, anyone else is of course more than welcome to add a comment. LDHan 10:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I said most of Chinese learners can pronounce based on Pinyin, but for beginner or zero level of students, they cannot pronounce correctly pinyin, especially tone. So if they can get audio directly, that is better. I do not know why this tool does not offer pinyin in addition, you can leave a comment on their blog to express your suggestions. I guess because pinyin can be got easily from the other dictionaries, this tool just wants to offer some featured services. (BTW, if discussion just focuses on this tool, I suggest we can continue on their blog. That blog is from Blogger. I find out there is big problem on Discussion page of Wikipedia. This page cannot be divided into multi-pages. The page is already too long to read.) Danielsaw

What happened?

This article, unless I'm hallucinating, seemed to be much better in earlier versions - one of the best I've seen on Wikipedia in fact. Currently, the grammar is badly distorted in the opening. I appreciate the difficulties involved in accomodating different pov's in regard to language v. dialect, language v language family, etc, but sentences like this should not be the result: "Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages[1]" This talk page is grotesquely long. 24.90.17.134 06:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Took many cooks, spoil the broth. Dylanwhs 08:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

The first two sentences are some vandalist's statement. Is it possible to block the user who did it?

Fredl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.184.66 (talk) 17:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Only language to not use an alphabet?

I'm not sure if this is true, but I have heard that Chinese is the only remaining language that does NOT use an alphabet. If it is true, should that be mentioned? -68.4.73.34 (talk) 07:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't imagine that it'd be true -- but it depends on what the definitions of "use" and "alphabet" are. --Nlu (talk) 07:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I think "use" and "alphabet" have clear enough definitions to rebut your statement, but you can look at what kind of Chinese to determine if it even qualifies as not using one. Taiwan's Chinese uses Zhuyin, which for all arguments sake, is an alphabet as it is a series of graphemes that spell out the word in question. Coincidentally you can consider pinyin to be the alphabet of Chinese. Only by traditional means would Chinese qualify as not having an alphabet and therefore would be the only surviving language without one. (Hieroglyphics is the other as noted by Wikipedia itself) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.70.150.54 (talk) 07:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Distribution Map Accuracy

I've met people from Vietnam who speak a Chinese language. I've met even more people from Vietnam who identified themselves as "Chinese" without specifying their language. Why does the distribution map not show any Chinese usage in Vietnam? The edge of usage seems to follow the Chinese border there and also near Thailand, Burma, Laos, North Korea and Russia, although the map does show usage outside China in Taiwan. Does Chinese usage really follow borders that closely? Readin (talk) 01:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

That may be true. I heard many Chinese immigrants in Vietnam can't speak fluent Chinese. As for the borders, I think most people who live along the Sino-Vietnam border speak Vietnamese as native language.--Haofangjia (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Question

I recently came upon a sort of dilemma. I've learned all about the oracle bones and the assertion that this evidences Chinese to be one of the world's oldest living languages. Upon looking at several internet forums on the subject some people disagreed with this notion. From one point of view apparently, it might be incorrect to determine a language's lifespan by its prior iterations; instead one might say that a language has lived as long as it is intelligible to speakers in the further generations. I thought that some kind of clarification of this might benefit the Chinese language page, or maybe at least it sate my thirst for knowledge :p. Is there any source that clarifies explicitly what constitutes a living language's lifespan? Grenadesalad (talk) 06:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion proposal

See Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_April_27#Template:Chinese. Badagnani (talk) 14:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Sinophone

• I don't think this term is widely used
• "Sinophone Muslims" gets exactly 11 google hits which seems less than "often"

--JWB (talk) 23:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Sinophone is used primarily in Academia, however "Sinophone Muslims" is rare and it can be slightly reworded without "often". Katulsky (talk) 23:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I've rewritten the section. Is there even a term in Chinese which is equivalent to Sinophone and in common use? --JWB (talk) 05:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The ugly word "radicals" rears its head again

I cut this sentence: "There are about 214 radicals recognized in the Kangxi Dictionary, which indicate what the character is about semantically". Please see the page on Radicals for a fuller story of why. But in a nutshell, there are two meanings of the word, one being ‘semantic root’ and one being a translation of ‘部首 bùshǒu’ (section headers from Shuōwén as well as later dictionaries), and the two are clearly not the same concept. There are many examples of characters listed under 部首 bùshǒu which most definitely are not their semantic component, but which are instead an artificial graphic extraction, a phonetic component, etc.. Even if it is true that MOST 部首 bùshǒu happen to play a semantic role, we cannot simply equate the two concepts, just as we cannot say all ethnic Chinese speak Chinese.Dragonbones (talk) 14:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You may think it is ugly, but it is the standard term, and Wikipedia documents existing usage. It would be better to rewrite the sentence, qualifying with "most".

In my opinion, the more misleading thing about the sentence is that it suggests a definite root word, rather than disambiguation into a general category. See determinative.--JWB (talk) 22:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The really 'ugly' part is the misunderstanding that 'radical' means 'semantic', and that is the reason the sentence got cut. The translation of bushou as 'radical' may be one standard (there is also precedent for the more intelligent choices of 'bushou' and 'section header'), but explanations which equate bushou and semantic are not standard, they are simply wrong, as my references on the talk page for Radical amply demonstrate.Dragonbones (talk) 05:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Editing page on Chinese topic

Can anyone point me in the direction of a Wikipedia editor bilingual enough to help me edit a page on a Chinese subject? I started an article on Gloria Yip and now I'm trying to get it to good article status. Preferably, this would be someone familiar with Cantonese because the subject is Hong Kong based and the transliterations should be consistently in Catonese, and I don't think they currently are. I mostly resorted to Babelfish due to lack of info in English, but the translations were often unreadable, and I don't know if I interpreted it correctly. Thanks. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Basic Sources

The first source is a chinese gov site, and while its probably very informative, i think that english wikipedia should have primarily english sources, maybe the gov has an english version of a language site. To sum up: we need to make the primary sources inteligable for editorson the english wiki, so source must be in english, move chinese sources lwoer on the bar Da Baron (talk) 05:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Meaning of Zhongwen

Should the article mention that 'Zhong wen' has more of the meaning of Written Chinese than only Chinese language? 74.211.177.2 (talk) 19:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

~~That's true. "Zhong wen" literally means the literature of the middle kingdom or Chinese. Likewise, "zhong yu" means Chinese language. Hanyu means the language of the Han people, which could extend to Korea, Japan, and many Asian nations. Korea and Japan have even designated a term to define parts of the language that derive or evolved from Hanyu, Hanja and Kanji, respectively. I'm not actually sure about the others so I won't mention that.

However, I don't think English has developed a term to distinguish China, the nation, versus China, the culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 20:25, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

first, there is no "zhong yu". "zhong" means middle or center. Because ancient chinese think they lived in the middle/center of the world, so they call their country "zhong guo", means central country. "Han" is the name of the major race in China, so "han yu" is the language of Han people. Here are some translations, you can use it on every single character. zhong中=center. wen文=initially means written language, but can also be understood as language. han汉=the Han race(ethnic majority in China). yu语=language(including spoken & written language) yan言=speak or spoken language —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.162.112.128 (talk) 15:23, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"中语" means "the language of China" literally so there is a "zhong yu". The "yu", as you mention, signifies language, but incorporates the "yan" and "wen" aspects to a language. (You note this definition yourself so I'm not sure of the discrepancy.) Hence, "zhong yu" means the language as a whole, while "zhong wen" means the written form or literature and "yu yan" signifies the spoken form of a language. While it is commonly used to indicate the language as a whole, "zhong wen" officially deals only with the written form. As such, noting dialect "zhong wen" is folly and is preferably and correctly described as "yu yan". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 19:57, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

• • • Minor note: The word "中" can signify middle or it could denote interior, as used widely in Japanese as "naka". Therefore, "zhong guo" may also signify the collective nation of Han rather than simply the middle of the world.*** —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 20:00, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Adding a new section/article which provides background information

Should we write a new section or a new article to illustrate how the different forms of the Chinese language are used in different geographical area? For example, we should explain:

• In mainland China: Standard Mandarin is recognised as the official spoken standard of the Chinese language. The Beijing dialect is considered the standard accent, and is spoken by the news reporters on the China Central Television. Simplified Chinese characters are used for written Chinese.
• In Taiwan: Standard Mandarin is recognised as the "national language". In practice, most people in Taiwan speaks Mandarin with a Taiwan accent. While Mandarin is used for Government business and as the medium of instruction in schools, a lot of people in Taiwan speak Taiwanese and Hakka in daily life. Traditional Chinese characters are used for written Chinese.
• In Hong Kong: The official language policy of the Government is "biliterate and trilingual", meaning that the people of Hong Kong are encouraged to be proficient in written Chinese and written English, and be able to speak in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Standard Cantonese is the primary form of spoken Chinese in Government business and daily life. It is also used as the medium of instruction in schools for subjects like Chinese history and Chinese culture (while English is used for other subjects). Standard Mandarin is taught in schools, and is used by the Hong Kong Government to communicate with the mainland Chinese officials. Traditional Chinese characters are primarily used for written Chinese in Hong Kong (although simplified characters are now accepted in public exams). However, the traditional characters used in Hong Kong have a number of slight difference from those used in Taiwan. In addition, written Cantonese is sometimes used in informal communication.
• In Macau, the situation is pretty much the same as in Hong Kong, except that Portuguese is a co-official language.
• In Singapore, Simplified Chinese characters are used, and the Government's encourages the Chinese-speaking population to speak Mandarin instead of the other spoken forms.
• In the United Nations, the use of the Chinese language pretty much follows the standards in mainland China.

This is necessary because a lot of non-Chinese-speaking readers need this background information to understand the discussions in some other articles. This new section/article elucidating the background information can always be referred/linked to in other articles when necessary. The role of this section/article is like that of the article Political status of Taiwan, which is provides background information for a lot of other articles. -24.254.86.86 (talk) 07:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Support Readin (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

AFD proposal

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mandarin Chinese profanity. Badagnani (talk) 16:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Official status

Add Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Chinese is an official language within the organization. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 12:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Borrowing

One of the most amusing bits in this article is about borrowing from other languages. (Modern borrowings and loanwords) Most of the examples used about Chinese borrowing from a Western nation stems from naming ("Israel" becomes 以色列 (pinyin: yǐsèliè), Paris 巴黎), which would then be a ridiculous example since translations of names can't be done otherwise. For instance, Israel has to be Israel no matter the language and doesn't mean anything's been borrowed. Granted, America was actually given a Chinese name "mei guo", but that doesn't then justify the examples. Same for something like Mario that I found afterward. Even things like "ke le" is only so because it derives from the brand Coca Cola "ke kou ke le" and the actual term used for soda or cola is "qi shui".

Also, stuff like "telifon" or "youmo" aren't even used for the words they represent. Telephone is "dian hua", original to China despite the article mentioning Japan's alternate pronunciation of the words: dian > den, hua > wa. (Note: "indeed, there is some dispute over some of these terms as to whether the Japanese or Chinese coined them first." While the dispute is true, typical Japanese uses furigana pronunciation on original Japanese terms and only the kanji pronunciations for terms originated in China, hence "kanji" being defined as Han wording, Han being decidedly a description of Chinese. (Ex: "mae" is Japanese for before as used in "namae" or name, but "gozen" is used for before noon.))

Typically, you'll find actual translations for things like a phone, for instance, the Bluetooth example being literally a blue tooth "lan ya". Rarely will Chinese use phonetics to borrow from another language so bluetooth would have been a best example of the lot, though "ku" would be a better example for the point at hand as "ku" means cool and sounds as such.

However, it would be folly of me not to mention that Taiwanese Mandarin and Hong Kong Cantonese do take many words from other languages. For instance, while telling one to pick up the phone in Cantonese would use "diem wa" for phone, Hong Kong Cantonese would use the English "call" instead.

I don't expect much action on the sensitive Japan/China originated issue as I'm sure it'd only create more problems. However, perhaps an edit about what was actually borrowed versus what was simply phonetically translated would be appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.168.106.43 (talk) 20:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I am excited to see someone made such deep research on the "borrowing" issue since I always think about it, too. In my opinion, every language is formed what it is now after thousands of years. Every language has its own "habit", and it is very hard to change. Chinese is more "Latino" than "English", it never ends with a "t" or "f". So when it comes to "Slavia", chinese can only read it like "Si La Wei Ya", since there is no "Sla" in chinese, and either is "v" a formal pronunciation and there is no "wi" in formal Putonghua. Name translation is actually very inconvenient in Chinese due to the great difference between Chinese and western languages. But "Mei Guo" is an abbreviation for "美利坚合众国(mei li jian he zhong guo)", I don't know if "meilijian" sounds more like "america" to you. A close translation is "德意志共和国(de yi zhi gong he guo)", which "deyizhi" is quite close to "deutsch" Other countries have their own "habits". The German name "Pfiffer" is read "fifer" in English beacause native english speakers are not used to "pf". So is the difference between "pepfer" and "pepper" which means the same thing. But chinese call it "hu jiao", "hu" means foreign and "jiao" means spicy seed or fruit. I think it is only because of the difference between language system itself. The Japanese has their own language system, both chinese characters and their own pronunciation symbols(平假名,片假名and罗马字). "namae" is written "名(na)前(mai)", "名(na)" is exactly "name" in both japanese and chinese. Though "名前namai" and '午前gozen" both have "前" but pronounced differently, because Japanese has only one tone, unlike Chinese(Putonghua) have 4, some characters are "forced" to have different pornunciations, such as "日本(Ni Hon)" and "松本(Matsu Moto)". japanese prefers sound translation much more than chinese. Take "proposal" as an example, using roman characters is it read "puroposo", but chinese use "qiu hun", qiu means beg or require, hun means marriage. About "diem wa"(actually it sounds more like "deen wa") and "call" example in catonese. You may not know that catonese is a much older language(or accent) than Putonghua("mandarin"), it has 9 tones when putonghua has only 4. The pronunciation system is also more complicated. Furthermore, since the authority has looser control on cantonese(used only in guangdong(caton) province, hongkong, macau and by overseas descendants of this region), cantonese translation is free. So they accept what is convenient. By the way, "call" is not the only used way, they also says "da deen wa"(make a phone call), like "da dian hua" in putonghua. —Preceding Daibret comment added by 211.162.112.128 (talk) 15:56, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

===========================================================

Thank you. I was just browsing a few things and came across it. Like you, I took an interest in it particularly due to the examples used.

I wouldn't so much say Chinese is related to Spanish or English as Chinese has distinctly remained separate from most languages until recent years. On following phonetics, I'd like to note many modern translations are provided by Cantonese, being Hong Kong sharing the closest link to the west. (ie: taxi and bus) I also recognise where the flaws might result from such translation as each language bears unique pronunciations.

In terms of Japanese and Chinese, as I was noting, the Japanese have their own pronunciations for any of the Chinese Kanji they use. In the same case, "名前" uses only Japanese furigana pronunciation. ("名" in Chinese is "ming") Hence, when formulating Japanese original words or phrases, they typically use furigana or "namae" rather than the Chinese derived "gozen". (午前) Succeedingly, I don't believe it delves into the tonal system of Chinese Mandarin as, as you mentioned, Cantonese would then have a 9-tone system and, correspondingly, Wu dialects have anywhere from 2 to 12. If there was an issue with tones, even Mandarin would have difficulties and we overlook Korea's Hanja, which follows Chinese despite also not having tones.

However, your next comment takes direct impact on my previous statement: that the examples of "borrowing" in Chinese are malapropos. Japanese words like "keki" or "puroposo" are obviously derived from English counterparts "cake" and "propose" much like the Hong Kong Cantonese "call". More than not, Chinese maintains its own assortment of phrases and words, adapting known definitions to fit new concepts like the telephone or computer that are foreign. However, slang and other common speech can truly borrow from other languages like the afforementioned "ku" for the English slang "cool" in my previous statement. (Oh, but I do make a note that Hong Kong's "call" is also mainly slang and the traditional "da diem wa" is also used)

I'm not quite sure which dialect predates which, but I know in terms of change, Cantonese and Taiwanese were stunted since their lapse from the mainland. Today, China's Putonghua uses the simplified range of words while Hong Kong and Taiwan maintain the "traditional" style. The "control", I assume, would fit into this category. Many nuances or changes due to modernisation have yet to impact those languages, much as to several Japanese phrases retaining their ancient Chinese context. Again, I'm also not sure about the level of difficulty with the different tonal systems, but I do maintain that this should not impact a language's choice to create a new set of pronunciation like Japan's furigana.

• • [wasei-kango (和製漢語, literally Japanese-made Han Language)]

Originally Japanese-made Chinese

It was erroneous due to a misinterpretation from culture. As many Southeast Asian civilisations derived their languages from Chinese as this topic itself had suggested, Japanese use of the words "漢語" literally means the han language, which it uses itself in the form of kanji. Kanji is also just the words "漢字" which could easily be misinterpreted as "Chinese Words". So wasei-kango really doesn't apply to Chinese so much as it applies to how Japanese takes its roots from the Han Language and relates it to a parent language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.70.150.54 (talk) 08:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Mandarin Romanization Comparison

I just noticed, that the page on Confucious seems to somewhat contradict the Chinese name on here. It shows here, that it is 孔子;Kǒng Zǐ, but on the main article on Confucious, it adds in the Fū hanzi 孔夫子;Kǒng Fūzǐ. Any idea why this article is omitting Fū? Kyprosサマ (talk) 21:36, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Kongzi's real name is 孔丘(KONG QIU). Kong is his family name, 子means scholar or master, 夫子means teacher or master, they both show respect. It is similar with 孟子/孟夫子. But chinese people formally call him 孔子KONGZI when westerners call him confucius(kongfuzi) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.37.7.104 (talk) 02:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Chinese a recognised regional language of Malaysia?

since when? I thought it is stated in the Article 152 of the Constitution of Malaysia that the Malay language is the sole official language of Malaysia. No other languages are recognised, even the languages of the Orang Asli (aborigines) and the languages of the two other main races in Malaysia, particularly Indian and Chinese. To be honest, I don't like the fact too but the above is stated in the constitution and the law, so there is nothing much that anyone can do about it. -_- It will be great if Chinese is listed as one of the regional languages there though. Further reading: Constitution of Malaysia. Kotakkasut (talk) 13:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I've also removed the mention of Vancouver, Canada... it was added by an IP on 21 August 2008. However, it is unreferenced and I can't find any evidence of official or regional status here. (If someone can find it, great, please let me know.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

logic of a phrase

A detail: To me, the following phrase seems illogical:

"linguists have not determined whether their mutual intelligibility is large enough to sort them as separate languages."

After all, the more mutually intelligible different types of speech are the more likely they are to be variants of the same language. I think the passage should read "linguists have not determined whether their mutual intelligibility is small enough to sort them as separate languages."

Or substitute "weak", "doubtful", "nonexistent" or whatever for my word "small". I am, myself, not knowledgeable enough about the subject to venture a change in the article.

Da Student 82.181.109.242 (talk) 20:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Regions

In the sidebar, Chinese is listed as being a minority language in Singapore. What is this intended to mean? Does it mean the Chinese are a minority in Singapore? Because if this is so, it is not accurate. About 75% of Singapore's population are Chinese. Or is it supposed to mean that a minority of all Chinese speakers reside in Singapore? If this is the case, it's alright, as there are about 3 million Chinese in Singapore and 1.2 billion Chinese in the world. Ckannan90 (talk) 04:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Map data source?

The map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New-Map-Sinophone_World.PNG is fascinating, but I'm curious what the data source is!

Does anyone know? Thanks!

69.153.60.69 (talk) 00:13, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Truce term

Can anybody help me please with what Chinese children use as a truce term. A truce term is a word used to call a temporary halt to a game for respite for something like discussing the rules or tying a shoelace etc? Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Another alternate name

Add 中國話/中国话 (Zhōngguó huà) as an alternate name? Very commonly used, along with 漢語 and 華語. Refers to the spoken language. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:13, 11 July 2009 (UTC)