35 Facts About Chinese language

1.

All varieties of Chinese language are tonal to at least some degree, and are largely analytic.

FactSnippet No. 621,174
2.

The phonetic categories of Old Chinese language can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry.

FactSnippet No. 621,175
3.

The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koine Chinese language based on Nanjing dialect of Lower Yangtze Mandarin.

FactSnippet No. 621,176
4.

The written form, using the logograms known as Chinese language characters, is shared by literate speakers of mutually unintelligible dialects.

FactSnippet No. 621,177
5.

Since the 1950s, simplified Chinese language characters have been promoted for use by the government of the People's Republic of China, while Singapore officially adopted simplified characters in 1976.

FactSnippet No. 621,178
6.

Several derivational affixes have been identified, but the Chinese language lacks inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles.

FactSnippet No. 621,179
7.

Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties.

FactSnippet No. 621,180
8.

Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese language, borrowed Chinese language words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence.

FactSnippet No. 621,181
9.

For most of this period, this Chinese language was a koine based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect.

FactSnippet No. 621,182
10.

The national Chinese language is used in education, the media, and formal situations in both Mainland China and Taiwan.

FactSnippet No. 621,183
11.

Chinese language Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese language.

FactSnippet No. 621,184
12.

These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages.

FactSnippet No. 621,185
13.

Local varieties of Chinese language are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely on the basis of the different evolution of Middle Chinese language voiced initials:.

FactSnippet No. 621,186
14.

Standard Chinese language is based on the Beijing dialect, the dialect of Mandarin as spoken in Beijing.

FactSnippet No. 621,187
15.

Conventional English-language usage in Chinese linguistics is to use dialect for the speech of a particular place and dialect group for a regional grouping such as Mandarin or Wu.

FactSnippet No. 621,188
16.

Some of the conservative southern varieties of modern Chinese language have largely monosyllabic words, especially among the more basic vocabulary.

FactSnippet No. 621,189
17.

Chinese language morphology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction.

FactSnippet No. 621,190
18.

All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages, in that they depend on syntax rather than morphology—i.

FactSnippet No. 621,191
19.

The Hanyu Da Zidian, a compendium of Chinese language characters, includes 54, 678 head entries for characters, including bone oracle versions.

FactSnippet No. 621,192
20.

The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese language Dictionary, based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84, 000 entries.

FactSnippet No. 621,193
21.

The 1999 revised Cihai, a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122, 836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19, 485 Chinese language characters, including proper names, phrases and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific and technical terms.

FactSnippet No. 621,194
22.

Any Latin or Greek etymologies are dropped and converted into the corresponding Chinese language characters, making them more comprehensible for Chinese language but introducing more difficulties in understanding foreign texts.

FactSnippet No. 621,195
23.

For example, jingji, which in the original Chinese language meant "the workings of the state", was narrowed to "economy" in Japanese; this narrowed definition was then reimported into Chinese language.

FactSnippet No. 621,196
24.

However, vocabularies from different Chinese language-speaking areas have diverged, and the divergence can be observed in written Chinese language.

FactSnippet No. 621,197
25.

Meanwhile, colloquial forms of various Chinese language variants have been written down by their users, especially in less formal settings.

FactSnippet No. 621,198
26.

Some Chinese language variants have diverged and developed a number of unique morphemes that are not found in Standard Mandarin, unique characters rarely used in Standard Chinese language have been created or inherited from archaic literary standard to represent these unique morphemes.

FactSnippet No. 621,199
27.

Chinese language had no uniform phonetic transcription system for most of its speakers until the mid-20th century, although enunciation patterns were recorded in early rime books and dictionaries.

FactSnippet No. 621,200
28.

The Dungan Chinese language, considered by many a dialect of Mandarin, isadays written in Cyrillic, and was previously written in the Arabic script.

FactSnippet No. 621,201
29.

Each Chinese language character represents a monosyllabic Chinese language word or morpheme.

FactSnippet No. 621,202
30.

Various other written styles are used in Chinese language calligraphy, including seal script, cursive script and clerical script.

FactSnippet No. 621,203
31.

The traditional system, used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and Chinese language speaking communities outside mainland China, takes its form from standardized character forms dating back to the late Han dynasty.

FactSnippet No. 621,204
32.

Singapore, which has a large Chinese language community, was the second nation to officially adopt simplified characters, although it has become the de facto standard for younger ethnic Chinese language in Malaysia.

FactSnippet No. 621,205
33.

Chinese language is first known to have been written in Latin characters by Western Christian missionaries in the 16th century.

FactSnippet No. 621,206
34.

Chinese language varieties have been phonetically transcribed into many other writing systems over the centuries.

FactSnippet No. 621,207
35.

Besides Mandarin, Cantonese is the only other Chinese language that is widely taught as a foreign language, largely due to the economic and cultural influence of Hong Kong and its widespread usage among significant Overseas Chinese communities.

FactSnippet No. 621,208