How many different Chinese dialects are there? How do these dialects shape Chinese culture? How have the Chinese characters changed over time? How is Chinese linked to different languages?

Chinese language has more native speakers than any other language in the world and it is mostly spoken in China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Chinese is written with symbols that are called Chinese characters. Chinese characters are one of the oldest languages that exist in the world and there are more than 100,000 Chinese characters. Chinese language also affects some other languages, such as the Japanese and Korean language.

Map 1. Map of China that show the areas where different dialects are used.

Different Chinese Dialects    

Chinese is composed of seven main dialects: Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Wu, Min, Xiang, and Gan. Mandarin is the most widely spoken form of Chinese because it is the official language of Mainland China and it is also called Putonghua, or common language. However, the official language of Hong Kong is Cantonese. As for Taiwan, the official languages are Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka.

How did different dialects shape Chinese Culture?

The relationship between language and culture is deeply rooted. Language is used to maintain and spread the culture and innovative ideas. There are many different Chinese dialects in China and the Han people, who represent about 92 percent of the total population, mostly speak these dialects. The dialects from the seven groups are quite different. For example many Mandarin speakers in the northern part of China do not understand Cantonese, Hakka and Min. This can be shown in the different culture of the areas that have different languages, too. For example, in the northern part of China where people speak Mandarin, they have dumplings and fish for New Year’s Eve, but for people in Southern China, where people speak Cantonese, they tend to eat chicken, fish, and other meat for New Year’s Eve. In both areas, it is common for people to eat fish during New Year’s Eve, but only people in Northern eat dumplings. This is because the pronunciation of word. Fish in Chinese means leftover, which suggest people will have left over savings for the next year. As for dumplings, people eat dumplings because the shape looks like ancient money and so it represents wealth. This tells people in the Northern part of China focus more on storing wealth as historically they have less food abundance compare to the Southern part. This shows that even within a similar culture, there is still variations, and that different cultures are developed in different regions in China, where they have different dialects.

Transformation of Chinese Characters Throughout History

According to the legend, Cangjie invented Chinese characters. Yet, the earliest confirmed evidence of Chinese script that has been discovered is the oracle bone script of the late Shang dynasty. Oracle bone inscription are for kings to communicate with their ancestor. The shortest ones are only a few words and the longest ones are about forty characters long. The Oracle bone script is a well-developed system. From Oracle Bones, it can be seen that Chinese characters are based on the object itself. For example, the verb ”see” is an eye with two legs, which shows a person looking at something.

Diagram 1. Changes occur to Chinese characters throughout history.

These characters on the Oracle bone scripts are called archaic characters, which are similar to a picture. Then they were developed into ancient characters to decrease the time that people spent to writing. Later, words were developed into Traditional characters because that is even simpler than the ancient characters. Traditional form was used until the 1950s in Mainland China but it is still used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Simplified characters used today are the result of the work of the government of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s. From the changes above one can see that as China became modern, the characters became simpler.

Similarities and difference of Chinese and Japanese Language

Chinese characters are also used in many other languages, such as Japanese and Korean. Japanese and Korean cultures are similar to Chinese culture and share other similarities too, such as the usage of Chinese characters. Japanese use Chinese characters and such characters are called kanji. It is said that during the Qin dynasty, the Emperor requested one of his officials to find an ingredient that would give him eternal life. The official took 50 girls and 50 boys to an island, which is one of the islands of Japan and stayed there. And this is how the language spread to Japan. However, even Japanese uses Chinese characters, they ignore the Chinese pronunciation. In Japanese, there are 2,136 frequently used kanji designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education and they are taught during primary and secondary school. Other than these frequently used kanji, people use other Japanese alphabets. Similar to Chinese names, Japanese names uses Chinese characters too. Today, a well-educated people in Japan may know up to 3,500 kanji. Written Chinese in a sentence has to be all Chinese characters; however, for Japanese, written Japanese also includes syllabic scripts known as kana, which are used in combination with kanji.

Conclusion 

Language affects culture. For Chinese, there are a lot of Chinese dialects. And it is shown that different areas have different cultures and are affected by the dialects. The Chinese characters have continued to develop since they were invented. And it is clear that as China became more and more modern, the words became more and more simplified because it is convenient for people to write with. Chinese characters are also used in other languages. For example in Japanese, the Chinese characters are used for writings and names. However for writing these characters are usually combined with kana, which is different from Chinese writing. Some languages are similar since they use similar characters and they usually have similar cultures, too.