11:53
Every time when I say I speak Chinese, some people are like, "There's no Chinese. Do you mean Mandarin or Cantonese?" And yes, Mandarin is the official language of China and the most widely spoken one. But if we really want to be precise about what Chinese means, here's the funny part. Cantonese isn't even the second most spoken one in China. This is exactly why I wanted to make this video because there's a lot of confusion around languages versus dialects in China. And the reality is way more complex than most people think. By the way, I'm from Guangxi, China,
and I speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Zhuang and Guiliu. And today, I will show you what people usually get completely wrong. Let's discover China's real language map. Before we go any further, we need to clear up one very important thing. In China, the words language Yǔyán and dialect Fāngyán do not mean the same thing as they do in linguistics. In everyday Chinese usage, fāngyán doesn't mean just an accent or a small variation. It's often a social and political label, not a linguistic one. From a linguistic perspective, the rule is actually quite simple. If two
people cannot understand each other when speaking normally, they are speaking different languages, not dialect. But in China, many speech varieties that are not mutually intelligible like Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese and Hokkien are officially grouped under one umbrella and called Chinese dialect. So when people say Cantonese is just a dialect, they are not wrong with the Chinese classification system. But linguistically speaking, Cantonese functions as a separate language. That's why the same speech form can be called a dialect in China and a language in
linguistics because the definition itself is different. Now let me give you a very concrete example from my own life. Zhuang is not a dialect of Chinese. Chinese belongs to the Sino Tibetan language family. While Zhuang belongs to Zhuang-Tai or Thai kadai family much closer to Thai and Lao than to Mandarin. So if you only speak Mandarin or Cantonese, you will not understand Zhuang at all. Different grammar, different vocabulary, and completely different system. In Mandarin, we say chī to eat. In Cantonese, we say sik, which comes directly from the classical Chinese
character shi. So you can still clearly see the connection. But now listen to this. In Zhuang we say gen in Thai it's gin in lao it's kin. Different script very similar sounds and the same basic meaning. A fun anecdote. My mom's mother tongue is Zhuang. She doesn't speak English or Thai but when we were in Thailand she could still bargain with Thai vendors. I've also learned a bit of Thai myself and there really are many similarities. Guiliu on the other hand is very different. It's a regional variety of mandarin. If I speak Guiliu and you speak standard Mandarin, you will hear a strong accent,
some regional vocabulary, maybe slightly different tones, but we can still understand each other. For example, if I want to say, I want to learn Mandarin. In Mandarin, we say Wǒ xiǎng xué pǔtōnghuà in dialect, we say o xiang xiou pu tong hua the grammar and vocabulary are the same. What changes is mainly the pronunciation. This is similar to other mandarin varieties in China like a Sichuanese, northeastern mandarin or shaanxi mandarin. Linguistically, this is closer to Paris French versus Quebec French. The same language, different accents and regional features. When we talk about languages in China,
we are not talking about five or 10 varieties. We are talking about more than 300 living languages if we include minority and regional languages. And these languages don't all belong to one family. Of course, you have Sino Tibetan languages. Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai, Hoken, Kaka, the ones most people think as Chinese. But beyond that, there are completely different systems. In southern China, including Guangxi, you have Thai Kaidai languages like Zhuang Bouyei, and Dong. As I said, these languages are not Chinese linguistically. They are actually closer to Thai and Lao than to Mandarin. In the
southwest, especially Yunan in and Guizhou, you also find Hmong-Mien and languages such as Hmong and Mien. These languages have their own grammar, their own tone systems and their own core vocabulary. In the same region, there are also Austroasiatic languages like Wa, Blang, and De'ang from the same family as Vietnamese and Khmer. In the north and northwest, you find languages from Altaic related families such as Mongolian, Uyghur, and Kazakh. In northeastern China, there is a large Korean speaking population known as the Chaoxianzu. In places like Yanbian, people grow up speaking Korean as their mother tongue,
using Korean daily in the community and Mandarin as a shared national language. In the northeast, there are also Tungusic languages such as Manchu, Evenki, Oroqen, and Hezhen. Historically, these languages were extremely important. The Qing dynasty rulers were Manchu, but today many of them are endangered or rarely spoken. There are also Indo-European languages spoken in China like Russian in the northeast and Tajik in part of Xinjiang. Let me give you a note. China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups and many of them have their own languages, not just a regional accent or Mandarin. Some people like me grow up speaking a
minority language at home, a local fāngyán dialect in daily life and Mandarin at school that's already triilingual even if they are told they only speak Chinese. Mandarin or Putonghua is one standardized variety designed for nationwide communication, education, and media. It's incredibly important, but it's not the whole picture. When people say Chinese, they usually mean Mandarin. When linguists talk about China, they mean a huge network of languages. Now, let's talk about numbers. Just to be clear, these numbers are approximate and they include all
regional varieties within each group. We are focusing here on the major Sinitic languages, the ones often labeled as dialect, but which function much more like a separate languages. Mandarin is by far the largest group with around 900 million speakers. But even here is not one uniform language. Beijing Mandarin, Sichuan Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin. They can sound different from each other. Mandarin is a continuum, not a single sound. Number two, Wu languages, including Shanghainese, have about 80 to 90 million speakers. Phonologically,
they are very different from Mandarin. More complex tone systems and sound contrast Mandarin doesn't have. Many Mandarin speakers cannot understand Wu at all, including me. Yue commonly known as Cantonese, has roughly 70 to 80 million speakers. Cantonese preserves many classical features that Mandarin has lost, including final consonants and older sound distinctions. Is spoken mainly in Guangdong Province. Even in Guangxi, the province I'm from, we have a regional form of Cantonese that we call Baihua. The region my grandmother comes from speaks Baihua. So about half of my family can speak and understand Cantonese very easily.
Cantonese also have a strong media and culture presents especially in Hong Kong and Macau. Min is one of the most fascinating groups around 70 million speakers but with huge internal diversity. Hokkien, Teochew, and Taiwanese can differ so much that even mean speakers don't always understand each other. Hakka has around 45 million speakers is closely tied to a migrant history which gives it a very strong culture and identity component. Many hakka speakers are bilingual or triilingual from a young age. Then there are Gan and Xiang with roughly 20 to 40 million speakers combined. These
are often overlooked, but they are distinct speech systems with their own histories and structures. So when people ask me, do you understand Mandarin or Cantonese? I understand the question, but I also know how incomplete it is. China's languages are not just accent around one center. They are different systems from different families shaped by geography, history, and migration. Growing up, no one ever said, "Wow, you are multilingual." We were simply told we spoke Chinese. And only later did I realize that I actually grow up in the multilingual environment. So next time
when you meet someone from China, instead of asking, do you speak Mandarin or Cantonese, try asking which languages do you speak? And if you grow up in China or in a Chinese family abroad, tell me in the comments which languages or 方言 do you speak. If you want more videos like this, don't forget to like, subscribe, and I will see you in the next one.
