Kintras identified Cheenese as a primary, admeenistrative, or native leid
Kintras wi mair nor 5,000,000 Cheenese speakers
Kintras wi mair nor 1,000,000 Cheenese speakers
Kintras wi mair nor 500,000 Cheenese speakers
Kintras wi mair nor 100,000 Cheenese speakers
Major Cheenese speakin settlements
Chinese or theSinitic leid(s) (汉语/漢語 Hànyǔ;华语/華語 Huáyǔ;中文 Zhōngwén) is aleid faimly consistin oleids that is maistlymutually unintelligible tae varyin degrees.[4] Oreeginally the indigenous leids spoken bi theHan Cheenese inCheenae, it forms ane o the branches oSino-Tibetan family o leids. Aboot ae-fift o the warld’s population, or ower aebillion fowk, speaks some variety o Cheenese as theirnative leid.Internal diveesions o Cheenese are uisually perceived bi their native speakers asdialects o a single Cheenese leid, raither than separate leids, althoughthis identification is considered inappropriate bi some linguists an Sinologists.[5]
Spoken Cheenese is distinguisht bi its heich level o internal diversity, although aw spoken varieties o Cheenese aretonal ananalytic. There atween seiven an thirteen main regional groups o Cheenese (dependin on classification scheme), o whilk the maist spoken, bi far, isMandarin (aboot 850 million), follaed biWu (90 million),Cantonese (Yue) (70 million) anMin (50 million). Maist o thir groups is mutually unintelligible, although some, likeXiang an the Soothwest Mandarin dialects, mey share common terms an some degree o intelligibility.
Staundart Mandarin(Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu) is a staundardised form o spoken Cheenese, based on theBeijing dialect, whilk is pairt o a lairger group o North-Eastren an Sooth-Wastren dialects, aften takken as a separate leid. TheMandarin Cheenese leid is referred tae as官话/官話Guānhuà or北方话/北方話Běifānghuà in Cheenese. Staundart Mandarin is the offeecial leid o theFowkrepublic o Cheenae (PRC) an theRepublic o Cheenae (ROC, an' a' kent asTaiwan), as weel as ane o fower offeecial leids oSingapore. Cheenese—de facto, Staundart Mandarin—is ane o the sax offeecial leids o theUnitit Naitions. O the ither varieties,Stanudart Cantonese is common an influential in Guangdong Province an Cantonese-speakin owerseas communities, an remains ane o the offeecial leids oHong Kong (thegither wiInglis) an oMacau (thegither wiPortuguese).Min Nan, pairt o the Min leid group, is widely spoken in soothrenFujian, in neighbourin Taiwan (whaur it is kent asTaiwanese or Hoklo) an inSootheast Asie (kent asHokkien inSingapore anMalaysie).
David Crystal,The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) , p. 312. “The mutual unintelligibility of the varieties is the main ground for referring to them as separate languages.”
Charles N. Li, Sandra A. Thompson.Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar (1989), p 2. “The Chinese language family is genetically classified as an independent branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family.”
Jerry Norman.Chinese (1988), p.1. “The modern Chinese dialects are really more like a family of language.
John DeFrancis.The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy (1984), p.56. "To call Chinese a single language composed of dialects with varying degrees of difference is to mislead by minimizing disparities that according to Chao are as great as those between English and Dutch. To call Chinese a family of languages is to suggest extralinguistic differences that in fact do not exist and to overlook the unique linguistic situation that exists in China."
