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Comm760: Social Constructions of Reality Adrian Lin

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Chinese Dialects or Languages?

A Constructivist Approach to Linguistic Realities

Comm760

Adrian Lin

Professor Klaus Krippendorff


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Abstract:

Linguistics, as the science of language, often creates classifications with criteria based on its

own criteria and standards. This institutionalized discourse community might therefore

not accurately represent the world as it purports to do because of the particular self‐

regulating ways of thinking that confines it to exclude certain standards that come from

within the studied group, which must admittedly be included if any comprehensive view of

the reality of languages and dialects in the world. This paper seeks to allow greater

inclusion of the oft‐ignored subjects of linguistic studies to show the narratives, accounts

and other social constructed criteria with which they describe themselves.


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Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION: NOTIONS OF LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS 4

INCOMPATIBILITY OF LINGUISTIC DIVISIONS OF LANGUAGE WITH SOCIAL REALITY 5

LINGUISTICS AS IMPOSING A FALSE OBJECTIVITY IN DESCRIBING REALITY 7

CHINESE FĀNGYÁN: AUTOCHTHONOUS VIEWS ON CHINESE VARIETIES 11

SURVEY: 12

JUSTIFICATIONS AND DISCOURSES OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE WITHIN CHINA: 13

ARGUMENT FROM GEOPOLITICS: 13

ARGUMENT FROM SOCIAL VALUES AND UNITY: 14

ARGUMENT FROM SIMILITUDE: 16

ARGUMENT FROM THE SHARED WRITING SYSTEM: 17

ON THE SURVEY LIMITATIONS: 18

CONCLUSIONS: 19

REFERENCES: 21

APPENDIX A: SURVEY QUESTIONS 22

APPENDIX B: SURVEY RESULTS 23

APPENDIX B2: CONTINUED SURVEY RESULTS 32


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Introduction: Notions of languages and dialects

Broadly speaking, there exist two methods of understanding what constitutes

languages and dialects. The first is commonly employed by the field of Linguistics1 and

scientifically uses the criterion of mutual intelligibility to organize speech varieties into

languages or dialects; dialects would, under this definition, be “mutually intelligible” with

the language it is said to branch off from. Thus, all languages are judged by a single formal

and immutable criterion, and none of the plethora of social factors.

The other notion is actually built from an amalgamation of different societal factors

and notions, including political, historical, ethnic, and national understandings, which

together I shall term as the socially constructed understandings. These factors can each

constitute an independent understanding of languages and dialects but commonly work in

tandem in various social situations. They are often not fully compatible with each other, so

it may seem odd that I group them as one; however, I group them together not only

because they are even more commonly non‐coterminous with the linguistic definition but

also as they provide a greater outlet for the speakers of such languages and dialects to

describe their social reality, whereas the scientific, objectivist understanding espoused by

Linguistics often does not.

1 Due to the double meaning of the adjective “linguistic” as either pertaining to language, or pertaining to the scientific study of language, I shall identify the latter meaning with capitalization.


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Incompatibility of Linguistic divisions of language with social reality

Linguistics, being a scientific field, maintains and perpetuates itself within the a

specific discourse with its own assumptions and institutions, often conflicts in view with

those of lay people, those that its theories purport to describe and whose behaviors it tries

to model. For example, Hindi and Urdu, which respectively have statuses as one of the

official languages in India and Pakistan are often called a single language by Linguistic

standards, contrary to Indians’ and Pakistanis’ political understandings and identities,

suggesting more similarities than these peoples wish to believe. Conversely, speech

varieties in spoken by ethnic Han Chinese are Linguistically considered to be different

languages. However, most Han Chinese feel that they speak not different languages, but

various dialects.

Because Linguistics as a field has its own discursive practices and institutes itself,

Linguists from other cultures, in order to be accepted by the wider global Linguistics

community, have to conform to these standards to be taken seriously and considered part

of this discourse community. Mair (1991) echoes this Linguistic sentiment, although he

takes care to consider other non‐Linguistic viewpoints:

Unless the notion of dialect is somehow separated from politics, ethnicity, culture, and

other non‐linguistic factors, the classification of languages and peoples of China can never

be made fully compatible with work that is done for other parts of the world. (p. 13).


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Indeed, Mair further mentions an example of Chinese Linguists’ reservations

between the two discourse communities to which they belong, that of Linguistics and other

being the wider Chinese community:

Chinese scholars have repeatedly and confidentially told me on many occasions that

Hanyu ‐‐ on purely linguistic grounds alone ‐‐ really ought to be considered as a group

(yuzu), but that there are “traditional”, “political”, “nationalistic” and other factors that

prevent them from declaring this publicly.” [boldening in original] (p. 10).

Mair concludes his paper saying that although current Linguistic terms are

incongruent with Chinese societal notions, this issue must be addressed “if Sino‐Tibetan

linguistics is ever to take its place on an equal footing with Indo‐European and other areas

of linguistic research,” and that the “best way to gain speedy respectability for our field is to

apply impartially the same standards that are used throughout the world for all other

languages” (p. 15).

Thus, it can be seen that the rigid Linguistic definition makes affords no room for

these individuals caught between the two institutionalized discourses that to them are very

real and undeniable realities.

The linguistic notion tries to remain objective by applying a single criterion

systematically to all speech varieties. However, as seen, it is possible that this method is not

without bias, due to Linguistics’ origins and historical association with one region of the

world and its cultural academic practices; through this shortcoming and the rejection of


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popular understandings of language and dialects denies the very real reality that the

speakers of such “languages” and “dialects” themselves inhabit, and in no small part, help to

construct. Only in combination can these two notions truly describe the nature of the

various realities of different positions languages and dialects hold for the subjects these

notions describe.

Linguistics as imposing a false objectivity in describing reality

To understand the dangers of using solely the linguistic definition of languages and

dialects, one must first understand the history and development of modern Linguistics.

Modern Linguistics developed out of the discipline of Philology, which, unlike Linguistics,

emphasized history as well as literary studies. Modern Linguistics has since divorced itself

from these two aspects, having been influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure’s emphasis on

synchronic analysis and avoiding diachronic analysis. A problem with this is that cultural

and political notions that stem from historical roots such as identity, which are integral to

people’s lives are not considered. Had Linguistics remained more rooted in diachronic

analyses, the current field of Linguistics might have been more wholesome.

Blum (2005) quotes from Romaine illustrates this problem suggesting that the

metaphor of dividing up languages and dialects into distinct bounded regions could be a

cultural artifact, itself socially constructed out of the Western origins of modern Linguistics,

“fostered by processes such as literacy and standardization” (p. 136) and stemming from

the very political issues it strives to avoid. Thus, one might liken this view of its own


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objectivity as a Stoltzenberg trap, because of the unquestioned axioms upon which is built

the belief that the classification of languages and dialects reflects a universal reality. This

view of social construction rather than inherent existence of languages and dialects is

supported by Nic Craith (2006), who asserts that “[l]anguage is a concept that is

increasingly recognised by political scientists and theorists as having been constructed in

the era of nation states – as an idea that is closely linked to the erection of national

boundaries” (106).

Blum (2005) suggests instead that different possible metaphors used by various

cultures, dividing the various cultural understandings of language into three categories:

The first, boundary contesting, is common in Europe, where national boundaries are

commonly coterminous with and often determined by language boundaries (134). This is

the more common of the metaphors of language and is the notion upon which Linguistics

bases its classification schemes. This metaphor often results in “othering” speakers in an

insider‐outsider relationship and a narrative of self‐evidency in clear‐cut boundaries.

This particular metaphor was, perhaps, an example of an imperfect manner of

understanding and representing the world which itself brought about the realization of the

notions it described. Languages had likely existed in continua merging seamlessly from

one area to the next without clear natural boundaries one could use to define an area as

having a preferred speech style. However, because of the standardization policies assumed

such a reality or at least ideal reality in which one area’s speech variety could be thought of

as standard and the rest, non‐standard in comparison, it eventually brought about the


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actual manifestation of this idea by carving out boundaries from this metaphor and

conforming each language to the speech of an arbitrarily defined speech community,

roughly analogous and coterminous with the various nations of people in Europe. Indeed,

Nic Craith (2006) gives the example of Norway’s two standards of language: “Nyorsh, the

artificial standard, is somewhat different from Danish” but “the language commonly spoken

is remarkably similar,” and also quotes from McWhorter (2002), that ‘ “what is today

“Norwegian” was just “the way they speak Danish in Norway” until Norway broke with

Denmark in 1814’ (p. 24).

The second metaphor, boundary celebrating, is one in which linguistic differences

are exaggerated and, Blum quotes from Romaine (2000) in her example on Papua New

Guinea’s linguistic diversity, “has none of the pressures towards convergence found for a

long time in Europe and elsewhere, such as literacy, standardization, centralized

administrative control, schooling, media, was present to any degree in pre‐colonial days.”

Blum calls the third metaphor boundary shrugging, for which she uses the example

of Chinese language and nationalism, and which will also be the focus of this paper. She

draws examples from Chinese society to describe its boundary shrugging perspective for

the following reasons.

1. Linguistic difficulties are rarely mentioned in Chinese contexts where

familiarity with other (mostly Indo‐European) societies would lead one to

expect them: definitions of the nation, war, or political struggles.


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2. Most attention in China has been paid to the written form of the language,

and most people are scarcely aware of the characteristics of speech. Though

there has been concern with literacy, it has not led to suppression of variation.

3. Many people acquire multiple varieties of language easily and often, leading to

a disposition that tolerates rather than rebuffs linguistic differences. (p. 136‐137).

These two other means of understanding the social phenomenon of language

suggest that the imposition of a single one may not adequately encapsulate the social

realities that speakers know. A pure linguistic definition of languages and dialects still

favours a particular standpoint or perspective, and therefore is perhaps less suitable in

describing other cultures’ social reality of languages.


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Chinese Fāngyán:

Autochthonous views on Chinese varieties

In this paper, I2 will explore the more popular understanding of spoken language in

China on the speakers’ own terms, pointing out how social reality is constructed and

maintained. This is in contrast to the common Linguistic practice to impose its criterion of

mutual intelligibility, reducing its studied subjects to silent observers in their classification

and without acknowledging their views and realities, resulting in an i‐other relationship.

To start off, I should describe the term 方言 (fāngyán) as it is understood in China.

Literally, it means regionspeech, indicating a speech of a region. Mair (1991) discusses the

evolution of the term fāngyán, mentioning that earlier definitions “stressed crudity or non‐

standardness of its exemplars” (p. 4), but nowadays is understood with a variety of

definitions, although most emphasize shared linguistic history and the speakers’ shared

method of written communication, which Linguistics does not see as justifiable factors.

Nevertheless, the described speech varieties are invariably coterminous with what

Linguistics currently calls the Chinese languages as well as the dialects of those languages.

Mair attributes much of the confusion to the habit of translating fāngyán as dialects and

proposes the neutral term topolect and stresses that this term be applied in lieu of dialect

to syncretize the differing views. 2 At this point, I will discontinue the sole use of the impersonal passive in reporting my findings so as not to conform to the institutional practice of supposed objectivism by denying the possible influence my background in Linguistics may have on my analysis.


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Survey:

To study the Chinese views on the linguistic diversity in our country, I created a

survey (see Appendix A), for which I gathered responses from 26, mostly college student

respondents. I interviewed a combination of Han Chinese, White Caucasians, and Non‐Han

East Asians from various countries, as well as a variety of non‐Linguists, Linguists, and

people with knowledge of Linguistics. I believed this would broaden the viewpoints I would

be exposed to and therefore allow me to more clearly understand the various narratives

and discourses from the realities the respondents inhabited.

Because of my background in Linguistics and my prior deference to the Linguistics

definition to the exclusion of the common cultural definition, I administered the survey via

the Internet to allow them to fully express themselves on their own time and their own

terms without unconsciously applying pressure by my mere presence. Moreover, other

than the first question,

1) What would you describe 方言 (eg. Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese/Minnan,

Hakka etc) in English?

which had respondents select either language, dialect, or other (please specify), I used

mostly open‐ended questions that asked views and opinions so as to give the most leeway

to respondents and understand their views on their terms. Finally, I included a final

question that I predicted would be applicable to many of my respondents, question 5,


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5) If you answered dialects as the best translation of 方言, please answer the following

question; If you didn't please type "SKIP":

Speakers of certain European languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian can

understand each other somewhat through the spoken and written language. The

speakers of different 方言, however, often cannot understand each other through the

spoken language at all. How would you justify the common classification of these

European languages as languages and but 方言 as dialects?

to try and understand how respondents understand views that may contradict theirs, and

how or if subjects to Linguistic theories may themselves shape these theories through

social negotiation.

Justifications and discourses of spoken language within China:

The results and my analysis confirm that people have many justifications of what

constitutes languages and dialectal classifications, and certain sets of these justifications

correspond with certain types of people, namely Linguist and non‐Linguist.

Argument from geopolitics:

The Linguists and the non‐Han in the survey, tended to stress mutual intelligibility

as a criterion for their choice to call Chinese variants languages or dialects without

mentioning politics as a valid criterion. At least one or two did suggest dialects being


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“labeled so out of artificial political reasons” thus mostly downplaying agency to the

common Chinese speaker.

Han Chinese respondents seemed to view geopolitics as an important factor in

determining fāngyán. They commonly stressed that languages are “official” while dialects

are not, with one respondent calling regional boundaries the most important factor. While

at first this seems to align with the previously mentioned respondent’s belief in a top‐down

sanctioned official‐ness of certain speech variants as languages, many Han Chinese have

seemed to take agency in negotiating ownership of and internalizing this belief. At least one

respondent (#18) exhibited knowledge of the opposing view of official sanctioning of

terminology but calling out the flip‐side that European nations themselves may have

artificially emphasized differences for political reasons and even mused that it could be

argued the various languages of southern Europe should be “re‐classified as dialects of

Latin,” although also suggesting that one might not want to be so quick to “judge by the

benchmark of European languages.” Verily, as Kurpaska (2010) succinctly puts, “[c]alling

the varieties of Chinese ‘dialects’… rather than languages does have a strong political

undertone, as it serves the unity of the Chinese people,” and can even “interfere in the

sense of ethnic identity.” (p. 2‐3).

Argument from social values and unity:

Many also recognized an aspect of national unity associated with a language, calling

dialects variants of the language that branched off of the main language. Moreover, the

ethnic diversity and size of China was also mentioned, and used as a justification for an


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official language, lest the country “break into warring states”. Indeed, some called fāngyán

the speech of a “specific group of people” and something “regional”. While this has been

shown to not be true in the case of spoken Chinese (Mandarin, the official language is

historically younger and derived from some older dialects), this narrative of shared origins

is common among Han Chinese, as is the narrative of national unity through shared

language, which was validated by the account of the period of history without a common

language that saw China broken into numerous factions. For Han Chinese this factor

seemed to align with Blum’s boundary‐contesting metaphor, although this itself might be

an artifact of my questions calling attention to the different usages of the English terms

dialect when applied to Spoken Chinese.

Furthermore, some Han Chinese respondents mentioned that they may call these

Chinese variants as dialects partially because of habit or social desirability and because

“that’s how they are commonly referred to by speakers and non‐speakers alike”. Some non‐

Chinese respondents said they may call it such so as not to offend Han Chinese, thus

dialogically negotiating their behavior under influences from both the discourse of their

Western notions and contact with Chinese discourses of language.

Finally, as the agenda of presenting unity of a country through a shared language is

one common way of understanding, one might expect individuals with a pro‐Taiwanese

independence agenda and who speak Taiwanese, which is a variant not mutually intelligible

with Mandarin, the official language in China, to possibly prefer the term languages. While

Blum (2005) mentions Taiwan as the “only part of China … in which one can currently find


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activism on behalf of a linguistic variety” (p.139), respondent #24 who is Taiwanese and

pro‐independence did not call them dialects, while respondent #17 did, although in the

latter’s case, she had recently taken Ling001: Intro to Linguistics.

Argument from similitude:

One fundamental disagreement between Linguist and Han Chinese respondents was

the degree of similarity between varieties of Chinese. Linguists responded that most so‐

called “dialects” were not mutually intelligible, and even though many Chinese might not

consider this a factor in defining fāngyán, some seemed to know of this description but

nonetheless maintained that the differences were not so great. Indeed, some respondents

pointed out that fāngyán only have slightly different pronunciations and similar if not

identical grammatical systems. Similarly, variations exist even within languages, and

certainly within dialects in the orthodox Linguistic sense and in the various dialect

continua described by Linguistics, it is often hard to determine the boundaries that might

delineate a language, indeed Kurpaska (2010) explains that Standard Chinese both affects

and is affected by the non‐standard speech varieties (dialects) that exist in the region,

therefore blurring the boundaries between language and dialect (12).

That Linguists called them mutually unintelligible with different grammars and

pronunciations, the Chinese reaction was mostly the complete opposite. Hence we can infer

that the arbitrary criteria from which both sides might reify the phenomenon of Chinese

speech to justify the similitude necessary for each side’s argument; both use socially


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constructed criteria that may or may not be grounded in an objective reality but perhaps a

socially constructed one.

Argument from the shared writing system:

Various linguists in the survey, and in the field of Linguistics refute the common

Chinese claim that all Chinese “dialects” are written the same, and indeed if we take the

written script to be a relatively faithful representation of formal speech, they would be

correct in asserting that because of grammatical and lexical differences, the written script

most closely represents Mandarin, the official language. However, if we were to contend

that all Chinese dialect speakers are in the habit of writing using a shared system and that

no dialects are formally written, literally this would be a correct statement according to

both sides and may also be a justification for common Chinese view on this matter.

The survey tended to reinforce these views with Linguists mentioning that without

the common writing system the speakers of different varieties of Chinese would not

understand each other, whereas Han Chinese respondents instead emphasized the

corollary—that all Chinese speakers understand each other through the shared written

standard. From a literal objectivist point of view, Han Chinese responses were, as

mentioned previously, technically incorrect if we take a writing system as belonging to a

language or dialect if its units such as letters (or logograms in the Chinese case) correspond

highly with the said language or dialect. But, as suggested before, it is possible that such

notions are not directly analogous in Chinese society; it is possible that to Chinese, the

writing system is the language and not the system of coding language and thus Linguistic


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notions as a construct may be neither tangible nor applicable to the average Chinese

person. Indeed, Blum (2005) gives evidence of an example of cultural differences causing

respondents to not understand interviewer questions:

In interviews and conversations, students of minority background failed to understand

my question, Do you feel you lose anything of your own culture when you function

entirely in the majority language for your education? Incomprehension was consistent. (p. 150)

Blum infers from this that cultural metaphors of competition between varieties, which is

prevalent in European societies is not applicable to at least Chinese society. Similarly a

notion of a writing system as necessarily being a highly consistent representation of speech

may be a cultural artifact, as suggested by the differing viewpoints of my respondents.

On the survey limitations:

A concern, as briefly touched upon earlier is that this survey itself might be affecting

the results that it seeks. This is not only because of the nature of the medium which might

constrain possible responses, but also because of the nature of this paper that the results

inform and for which the survey was designed. Indeed, it is entirely possible that such a

discourse of this discussion on the linguistic diversity of China may have in being studied,

affected or created the results it sees—Chinese speakers might not ever even discuss such a

topic but for my survey forcing them to consider the realities they live in, albeit not with

the same manner that Linguistics may impose its definitions.


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Conclusions:

The main problem in describing other cultures lies in the translation of certain

terms not only from one language to another but from one social environment or culture to

another. While terms in different languages have different definitions and entailments,

sometimes even a description of such terms will not suffice as the values inherent in these

definitions may be inherently valued differently in different societies so as to be rejected by

the other culture as a label imposed from the outside instead of something autochthonous.

While Linguistics, which has roots and influences from European culture, uses a

more uniform set of criteria that can be applied to all cultures, it still describes things in

terms of values that are less valued in other cultures, such as in China, where native views

of linguistic variety does not hold to the same degree of import, the issue of mutual

intelligibility, due to the presence of a society with a unified written communication form.

Conversely, the Linguistics community rejects this cultural notion as a reality if viewed

from its commonly objectivist point of view, although the idea that scripts need to

represent the spoken language may have roots in the standardization and boundary‐

contesting Western cultural narratives. Kurpaska (2010) succinctly summarizes this type

of practice saying that

[t]he question whether or not the lack of mutual intelligibility does determine the

linguistic borders goes beyond the domain of linguistics and enters the area of politics,

anthropology and history. The question touches also upon the feeling of ethnic identity


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and linguistic ideology, which may, as in many cases in for example Europe, dominate the

controversies around linguistic diversification. This is why it is probably best to leave this

question aside. (p. 203).

Verily, what has been said here seems to be a recurring theme in the Constructivist

critiques of Positivism and the issues at stake are similar. As commonly said, it is important

to understand the viewpoint of the observer when considering the observation as they are

invariably colored by a lesser or greater degree by the lens of his or her viewpoint. Only

from multiple viewpoints, including the viewpoint of the observed can one truly come to

understand the complex nature of socially constructed reality.


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References:

Blum, S. D. (2005). Nationalism without linguism: Tolerating Chinese variants. In W. M.

Bloomer (Ed.), The Contest of Language. (134‐164). Indiana: University of Notre

Dame Press.

Kurpaska, M. (2006). Chinese Language(s): A look through the prism of the great dictionary

of modern Chinese dialects V. Gast, (Ed.). Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.

Mair, V. H. (1991). What is a Chinese “dialect/topolect”?: Reflections on some key SinoEnglish

linguistic terms. Sino‐Platonic Papers, 1(29), 1‐29.

McWhorter, J. (2002). The Power of Babel: A natural history of language. London: William

Heinemann.

Nic Craith, M. (2006). Europe and the Politics of Language: Citizens, Migrants and Outsiders.

Great Britain: Antony Row Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne.

Romaine, S. (2000). Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. (2nd ed.).

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.


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Appendix A: Survey Questions

1) What would you describe 方言 (eg. Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese/Minnan, Hakka

etc) in English?

2) For what reasons (eg. Social, Historical, Political, Scientific reasons etc) are you arguing that

they should be referred to as dialects or languages (or any other term)?

3) How likely are you to ever endorse or actively call them another/the other term? When?

Why?

4) What, to you, is the difference between languages and dialects?

5) If you answered dialects as the best translation of 方言, please answer the following

question; If you didn't please type "SKIP":

Speakers of certain European languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian can

understand each other somewhat through the spoken and written language. The speakers

of different 方言, however, often cannot understand each other through the spoken

language at all. How would you justify the common classification of these European

languages as languages and but 方言 as dialects?


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Appendix B: Survey Results


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25


26


27


28


29


30


31


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Appendix B2: Continued Survey Results I put responses here from respondents whose answers were too long and unwieldy to place in the table. Respondent #25 Q1. Dialects Q2 The record and research of Chinese regional dialects (not social dialects) started as early as West Han Dynasty, that was about two thousand of years ago. A great scholar named YANG Xiong collected different pronunciations of the same word and different names of the same thing/object all over China. From the point of contemporary people, the difference between the then dialects is as huge as that of two modern languages. However, if the people at that time could not communicate, there must have had a profession like interpreter or translator in modern times, but I did not see strong evidence that shows there had been that profession in the history of China. Therefore, the difference between the dialects in the early history of China might not as big as we imagined. One may argue that people at early history spoke ya3yan2 (lit. elegant speech, like Received Pronunciation of English or Mandarin in Ming and Qing Dynasties) when they communicated. This is true, but since there were no audio recording facilities, no schools to determine the standards, who could set and maintain the standards? In brief, my point is thoroughout the early history of China, the dialects were understandable to people of different regions. They were never different languages. Q3 Fangyan is clear and accurate enough. There is no need to adopt another term. People sometimes say di4fang1hua4 (local dialect) instead. Q4 Dialects are understandable to people from other places. You need not go to school to learn how to understand a dialect. However, you must go to school to learn a different language. Q5 People regard Portuguese and Spanish as different languages because they are spoken by people who live in two countries. If they lived in the same country, the two languages could be regarded as one language. The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese in the history was not as huge as that of nowadays. The phonology of Beijing dialect was dramatically reduced after maybe the fourteen century because of the Mongolian invasion. Before Yuan Dynasty, Beijing people and Cantonese people, I think, could communicate through spoken language.


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Respondent #26 Q1.

When faced with the discussion of regional languages in China, which I will cease referring to as fangyan herein in order to ensure a neutral start to my approach, it is not something which can be so quickly decided, nor something for which one term will suffice, reason being that the language situation in China is a decidedly complex one. The so-called Zhongguoyuwen, or the languages (and writing systems) in use by the plethora of groups living in China, is as diverse as the people by whom they are used, if not more so. If I have said that one term will not suffice, it is because the differences among different speech communities, and their tongues, within China vary by differing degrees. In order to adopt a reasonable approach to this question, it is necessary to apply some semblance of division to the amorphous mass that is 'the languages spoken in China'. As the differentiation occurs on many different orders of magnitude, I will employ a hierarchical dichotomy in my division.

Thus set out upon my course, the first major division that must be made is between languages which are demonstrably related to Chinese in some real and generally accepted fashion and those which are not. In creating this divide, we are left with what shall be briefly called the 'Chinese-like languages' or 'Sinoform languages', so as not to misuse an actual term, and the other languages. Languages in this latter group include languages in other established families: the Indo-European Tajik (a language which is established external to China) and Russian (a prominent national language), the a small band of Austro-Asiatic languages of the (perhaps defunct) Mon Khmer variety (many of whose members are established outside of China), Korean (a prominent national language) the Turkic languages (Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz), Mongolian, and a few Tungusic languages (the last three or four of these may all be grouped in the proposed Altaic language family, though its existence and membership remains the subject of debate). For many of these languages, it is manifest that they are not, nor should they be referred to as, dialects, and none of them can, in good linguistic conscience, be called a dialect of 'Chinese'. Thus, the established members at least must be referred to as languages (for there are certainly dialects which exist within these aforementioned groups), and their status as independent of Chinese-like languages should not be ignored.

Before moving into the Chinese-like languages, there are a couple of fringe cases which must be dealt with. First, there are the Hmong(-Mien) languages (or Miao-Yao). The relationship of this family to other languages is still the subject of speculation, and there have been some who have attempted to classify it with Chinese-like languages. The lack thus far of any strong evidence for this prompts us to group it with the non Chinese langauges. A similar if not parallel case occurs with the Tai-Kradai family, which has historically been considered a part of the Chinese-like languages, and we, again faced with little convincing data to its inclusion therein, and thus shall exclude it. Having dealt swiftly enough with the question of these external languages, and thus eliminating exterior, but significant linguistic areas of China, the task becomes already a bit tricky. Within the Chinese-like languages, a division must be made. Examining the tongues which remain, we see that we have the languages spoken in Tibet and those spoken in the 'main' part of China, that is, the Eastern portion. For the inclusion of these two groups, we shall follow suit of other linguists and rename these the 'Sino-Tibetan languages'. In doing so, the division that is to follow becomes apparent: that of the Tibetan languages and the 'Sinitic' (Chinese) languages. Again, the languages being separated are distant enough from the core Sinitic group remaining that we must call them languages.

Following this, our divisive enterprise becomes even more difficult. Particularly, the languages contained herein are very commonly heaped under the mantle of a 'Chinese language'. To start with the easiest, we shall separate the Bai language(s), whose inclusion within the Sinitic group is largely questionable. The distinctions between Bai and 'Chinese' are nonetheless sufficiently vast (well beyond mutual intelligibility) to allow its inclusion (thus it is a language).


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Within the remainder of the core group, the division has become increasingly difficult, insofar as we want to create meaningful cladistic divisions. The next prominent division, however, is between the languages which have developed from Middle Chinese (zhongguhanyu) and the so-called Min languages, which split off beforehand. At the time of this split, we are starting to reach distinctions of the general level as seen within the Germanic group of Indo-European languages. The Min group is demonstrably not colinguistic with the Middle-Chinese-derived group, but what is to be mentioned here is that it contains both languages and dialects. A passing glance reveals at least four or five distinct languages within the group, which may themselves (Min Nan in particular) be actually groups of their own, containing several distinct languages and dialects thereof. Thus, we reach a problem which will be discussed below: Min contains several languages, which themselves may have prominent dialects. But leaving this discussion aside for now, we are approaching the end of our in-depth analysis of the languages autochthonous to the region occupied by the entity that is the People's Republic of China ((Note: Taiwan has been excluded for ease of grouping. No political point is being made or not being made hereby)). That having been said, we are left dividing the group of Middle Chinese derivatives. This group derives itself fairly easily into Guan, Wu, Yue, Xiang, and Gan. Each of these groups has possibly distinct languages within it, and all are marked by wide variation. Further dissection would take up an equally long description, but we are left knowing that at least anything at or above the ZGHY split is a 'language' insofar as it is not possibly subsumed by or dialect to the standard variety of Mandarin Chinese. In striving to use the most general term, we shall thus describe the fangyan as languages, although the true nature of the vast number of speech paradigms in the territory of China is heavily nested. Q2. I am arguing this, as explicitly detailed above, from a purely linguistic basis, which itself is based upon mutual intelligibility and linguistic relation. A political division of languages can only feign validity. Q3. I suppose that depends on what endorse and actively mean. Will I create a grassroots campaign to enlighten people about the linguistic differences in the monolith that is the term 'Chinese'? No. But will I tell my friends a little bit about the distinction, both that between a language and a dialect and that between Mandarin Chinese and some other 'dialects' spoken in China? Nine times out of ten. Q4. The difference between languages and dialects is a vast question, both which cannot be fully answered or treated in its entirety in this small confine, and which is not so black-and-white a solution as to have a singular and precise division. Rather, languages and dialects exist on a sort of continuum, which is determined by mutual intelligibility, linguistic relation, commonality of vocabulary, and of grammatical structures.

However, an important usage difference is that while language implies autonomy and status, dialect implies subordination. For this reason, the appellation of a tongue as a 'dialect' carries with it the submeaning that it is a splinter or minor split from a more established 'language'. In addition to the politics of this type of master-slave dialectic to begin with, there is also the possible intentional misuse of 'dialect' to suggest derivation from a language of which the speech pattern in question is not a dialect. Here, the description of any dialects existing in China (thus, 'Chinese dialects') carries with it the presupposition that these dialects are dialects OF 'Chinese' (and not, say, dialects of Wu or of Hmong, or whatever the case may be). Q5. SKIP.