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It’s common knowledge that Chinese is the world’s most spoken native language, or rather, languages. What exactly do the 1.3 billion native Chinese speakers speak? To many of us, they speak Chinese, the language of China, but there’s more to this view.

What many people don’t know is that there’s a variety of Chinese language in almost 300 similar or different forms. These varieties are often called dialects, and some of them are mutually intelligible while others are not.

For example, a Mandarin speaker might need help understanding a Cantonese speaker. That’s because each form can have different pronunciations, vocabularies, and grammatical structures.

As the world celebrates Chinese Language Day, let’s learn about the dialects of Chinese.

Is Chinese One Language or a Family of Languages?

Chinese is a family of languages, just like the Germanic languages (English, German, and Dutch), but with a twist. It has many dialect groups, and each group has several regional varieties. On top of that, the regional variations also have local spoken forms or dialects.

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Geographic Distribution of Chinese Language

Geographical area influences the development of languages, and the same applies to Chinese. Back then, mountains and large water bodies made traveling tedious and dangerous. This caused the isolation of populations and the separation of distinct languages based on location.

Here are the most common dialects of Chinese based on geographical locations.  

Mandarin

This is the most widely spoken dialect group across China and its official language. Almost a billion people speak Mandarin; it has four main varieties.

Wu

Wu has about six dialects and is spoken by 77 million people in the eastern coastal regions of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

Min

There are 60 million speakers of the four main dialects of Min, mostly in the province of Fujian and parts of Guangdong.

Gan

Gan is mostly spoken in Jiangxi and the southeastern corner of the Hubei provinces. About 41 million people speak Gan, and it has 10 dialects.

Xiang

These dialects are spoken in Hunan and Hubei provinces, Guangxi, and Guizhou. Xiang has at least four dialects with 36 million speakers.

Hakka

Sixty million people in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces, as well as in Taiwan, speak nine dialects of Hakka. They are well-known abroad within Chinese communities.

Jin

About 63 million people speak eight variations in Shanxi province and part of Henan province. According to some linguists, Jin is a dialect of Mandarin. 

Cantonese

Also referred to as Yue, they are the dominant dialects in Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province. With about 70 million speakers and over 11 varieties, Cantonese is very popular with people outside China, along with Mandarin.

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Historical Development of the Chinese Language

Typically, events and time influence the transformation of most languages. Political borders, war, trade, and migration played a role in shaping the evolution of the Chinese language. 

The Proto-Chinese

Also referred to as Proto-Sinitic, it was in use until 500 BC. It’s part of the Sino-Tibetan family and is the common ancestor of all Chinese language family or variations.

Archaic or Old Chinese

This is the root of all modern Sinitic languages and the earliest known and written form of the Chinese language. It was spoken during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, between the 18th century BCE and the 3rd century CE.

Middle Chinese

Also called Ancient Chinese. It was mainly used during the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties from the 4th century CE to the 12th century CE. Ancient Chinese went through significant changes to improve the written form of the spoken language.

Modern Chinese (since the 13th century–present)

Middle Chinese gave rise to major varieties such as Mandarin, Cantonese, and Wu. To promote literacy, the Chinese government came up with one simplified written form of Chinese. Mandarin, also referred to as Modern Standard Chinese, is based on the Beijing dialect.

Still, the traditional forms of many characters in Middle Chinese are in use in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. This is another attribute that makes Chinese a family of Languages.

Chinese Language in Southeast Asia

The Chinese dialects spoken in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia are diverse. And it mostly depends on the ancestral roots of people within the large Chinese communities.

Unification of Written Chinese

An interesting fact about Chinese is that its characters do not directly represent its pronunciations. And so, the variations that exist in the spoken language are absent in the written form.

Qin Shi Huang (the Qin dynasty) takes credit for this written unification of Chinese in 221 BCE. He founded the unified China Empire and was its first emperor. By sharing the same writing systems, people can communicate across different spoken dialects. 

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One Chinese with Many Flavors

If you consider its shared writing and national identity, you’ll agree that Chinese is one language. However, many linguists believe it is many languages or a family of languages.

Whatever angle you look at it, one can’t deny the deep history, preservation, and culture of the Chinese language.