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88-924: Chao Shan people are mainly spread over Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Hainan; they have emigrated and established communities in Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, France, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia, and other countries and coastal areas. The Teochew Letters , which have been admitted into the Asia/Pacific Regional Memory of the World (MOW) Register, were family correspondence and remittance sent by Teochew immigrants in Southeast Asia to their families living in Chaoshan. The name "Chaoshan" ( 潮汕 )

176-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

264-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

352-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

440-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

528-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

616-622: A collection of 120,000 Teochew Letters, consisting of both originals and copies. The Teochew Letters has immense historical value. It is an archive of the cultural and collective historical experiences of the Teochew people. Its contents reflect society at all levels, touching on international relations, national issues, and details of daily life important to families. As such, the information they contain bear intrinsic value for further research, as they are able to authenticate and supplement contemporary written history. Qiaopi ( 僑批 ) literally means

704-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

792-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

880-673: A form of family correspondence combined with remittance, sent by Teochew immigrants in Southeast Asia (particularly Thailand , Singapore , Malaysia , Indonesia , Vietnam and Cambodia ) as well as Hong Kong , to their families in the Teochew region (now known as Chaoshan in Mandarin), in eastern Guangdong Province, China. These letters were sent from the early 19th century till the 20th century. They were initially delivered by men known as zui-kheh ( 水客 ) literally "Water Traveller", who travelled frequently between Southeast Asia and

968-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

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1056-419: A permanent population of 13,937,897 at the end of 2010, and covers an area of 10,415 km (4,021 sq mi) that stretches from Jieyang on the coast to the southern border of Fujian . Chaoshan is located in the east of Guangdong ; it is bordered by Zhangzhou to its northeast and Meizhou in the northwest. The region has varying elevations, with highlands in northwest Chaoshan and low-lying deltas in

1144-818: A proposal to merge Chaozhou , Jieyang , and Shantou into sub-provincial cities in Guangdong Province was submitted to the National People's Congress . Chen Jingwei, a member of the CPPCC National Committee and vice-chairman of the Federation of Chinese Industry and Commerce, submitted the proposal again in March 2014. The area contains two coal-fired power plants with 1000 megawatt or greater outputs: Shantou Power Station (1200MW) and Huilai Power Station (3200MW). Chaoshan

1232-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

1320-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

1408-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

1496-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

1584-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

1672-456: Is "Twenty-Five Tones of Chaoyu" written by Zhang Shizhen, a merchant in Chenghai , late Qing dynasty . Chaozhou opera ( 潮劇 ) is a traditional art form that has a history of more than 500 years, and it has been performed in over 20 countries and regions. Based on the local folk dances and ballads, Chaozhou opera has formed its own style under the influence of Nanxi opera . Nanxi is one of

1760-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

1848-488: Is a contraction of two prefecture-level cities in the region: Chaozhou ( 潮州 ) and Shantou ( 汕头 ). The name was first used in the 1904 construction of the Chao Chow and Swatow Railway , which connected the two major cities. Chaoshan then became the general name for four prefecture-level cities: Chaozhou, Shantou, Jieyang , and Shanwei . Chaozhou and Shantou have agglomerated into a single, dense metropolitan area, which

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1936-709: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

2024-581: Is among China's most densely populated. It is Guangdong 's second largest metropolitan area, after the Guangzhou -centered Pearl River Delta . Chaozhou is a major cultural center of the Chaoshan region, and thus the descendants of overseas Chaoshan immigrants are often called "Chaozhou". The Chaoshan region, despite having the second largest economy in Guangdong after the Pearl River Delta ,

2112-509: Is brining. Chaoshan brined meat is the signature dish in Chaoshan cuisine. Meat is brined together with rich flavors. Local dishes also use marinated raw seafood, such as colorful flower crabs steeped in a bath of vinegar, salt, chilis and cilantro. The seafood cooked in this way is extremely umami. Chaoshan has a rich history of farming and drying seaweed, which Westerners might instinctively associate with Korean and Japanese cooking. The ancient Teochew tradition of preparing thinly sliced raw fish

2200-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

2288-643: Is considered one of the more conservative Chinese dialects, as it preserves features from ancient Chinese that have been lost in some of the other modern dialects of Chinese. Locals claim Chaoshan dialect is one of the oldest in China. It is spoken by about 10 million people in local Chaoshan and approximately two to five million overseas. According to historical records, the Chaoshan dialect originated in Qin and Han dynasties, developed in Tang and Song dynasties, took shape in

2376-772: Is home to many active wind farms, including the Nan'ao Wind Farm complex on Nan'ao Island in Shantou , which is the largest island wind farm in Asia; and the Shibeishan Wind Farm in Huilai County . There are also multiple planned wind farm complexes set to start construction in 2024–2025, the most notable being Chaozhou 's planned offshore wind farm in the Taiwan Strait (set to be a 43.3 gigawatt facility) and

2464-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

2552-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

2640-904: Is served by three rivers and their tributaries: the Hanjiang ( Chinese : 韩江 ), the Rongjiang ( Chinese : 榕江 ), and the Lianjiang ( Chinese : 练江 ). Chaoshan has a long coastline with many ports, reaching a total length of more than 325.6 kilometres (202.3 mi). Its coastline spreads southwest from Raoping County and is detailed by bays, inlets, and islands; the largest island being Nan'ao Island . Districts: Jinping , Longhu , Haojiang , Chaoyang , Chaonan , Chenghai County: Nan'ao New Area: Haiwan Districts: Rongcheng , Jiedong Counties: Jiexi , Huilai County-level City: Puning Districts: Xiangqiao , Chao'an County: Raoping In March 2013,

2728-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

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2816-532: Is still considered quite economically small in comparison to the PRD's economy. Although the growth of the area's GDP stagnated in the late 1990s during the 1997 Asian financial crisis , it has experienced regional economic growth and a steady increase in GDP. Li Ka-shing has also invested heavily in the education and healthcare of the region, recognizing its potential for growth; in 2023, he donated RMB 100 million to support

2904-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

2992-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

3080-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

3168-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

3256-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

3344-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

3432-637: The Hokkien , the Cantonese and the Hakka , also used this method to communicate with their families. The Qiaopi agencies of the different groups served only their own community circle and their services did not overlap. An estimate of 170,000 Qiaopi letters have been collected by researchers and private collectors. The majority are Teochew Letters. The Museum of Overseas Remittance Mail Relics, based in Swatow, has

3520-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

3608-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

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3696-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

3784-582: The Song dynasty , is still flourishing and remains an important part of social etiquette in Chaozhou. At the local teahouse, tea service is often accompanied by Chaozhou music ( 潮州音樂 ). Chaozhou string music , the gong and drum music, flute music are the traditional musical forms of Chaozhou music. Chaozhou string music is made up of mostly plucked and bowed string instruments, and on some occasions, wind instruments are used. The most characteristic instruments are

3872-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

3960-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

4048-402: The rihin ( 二弦 ), tihu ( 提胡 ) and yahu (all two-stringed bowed lutes), the sanxian , pipa , ruan , guzheng , and yangqin . The number of instruments and performers in the ensemble is flexible and depends on the availability of instruments and musicians to play them - but for an even and balanced texture only one of each instrument is preferred. Chaozhou drum music includes

4136-699: The "Letter of the Overseas Chinese", with "phoe" ( 批 ) being the Southern Min expression for "letter". The term has sometimes been translated as Overseas Remittance Mail or Money Remittance Mail but these fail to capture the cultural aspect of the artefacts. As part of the larger Archive of Overseas Remittance Mails, the Teochew Letters were added to the China Archival Heritage Register in 2010. Together with

4224-876: The Chaoshan region in the eastern part of China's Guangdong Province , which includes the cities of Chaozhou , Shantou and Jieyang . Relative economic and linguistic isolation (most people also speak Mandarin) has helped maintain the Chaoshan area's local traditions, which has turned into a boon for foodies. Chaoshan cuisine, similar to Cantonese cooking , is characterized by the use of ingredients such as fresh seafood, poultry, galangal, Chinese basil, and vegetables. Chaoshan dishes taste fresh, light and natural. There are also unique local sauces such as pruning soy sauce, Shantou sweet and spicy sauce, garlic white vinegar sauce, and fermented fish sauce. Salty, spicy, sweet or sour, each has its own outstanding flavor. Teochew (also Chaoshan or Chiu Chow or Chaozhou) cooking focuses on restraint and subtlety and avoids heavy seasonings to highlight

4312-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

4400-590: The Qiaopi collection of Jiangmen , Meizhou and Fujian , the Teochew Letters were included into the Asia/Pacific Regional Memory of the World (MOW) Register on 16 May 2012. Higher recognition is being sought through ongoing submission for inclusion in the prestigious UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2013. To increase general awareness of the Teochew Letters and to promote the UNESCO Memory of

4488-514: The Teochew region for business. Towards the end of the 19th century, delivery of the Teochew Letters became a full-fledged industry, known as the Qiaopi industry ( 侨批业 ). Qiaopi agencies in Southeast Asia collected the letters and remittances from the migrant workers and sent them to their corresponding partner in Swatow. The agencies in Swatow then distributed the letters to local agencies located in

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4576-602: The World Register application efforts, The Museum of Overseas Remittance Mail Relics launched an online museum for the Teochew Letters in June 2012. The website was created on behalf of the museum by the Cheung Kong School of Journalism of Shantou University . Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

4664-548: The big drum and gong, the small drum and gong, the dizi set drum and dong and su drum and gong ensembles. The current Chaozhou drum music is said to be similar to the form of the Drum and Wind Music of the Han and Tang dynasties. Chaozhou guzheng ( 潮州古筝 ) is also regarded as a major genre of Southern style of Chinese guzheng . Chaoshan cuisine, also known as Chiuchow cuisine , Chaozhou cuisine or Teochew cuisine , originated from

4752-474: The construction of a new inpatient building of the Chaozhou People's Hospital. There have been proposals to the Chinese government to amalgamate the region into one Special Economic Zone , as the split of the region into three cities (Chaozhou, Jieyang, and Shantou) in 1991 greatly slowed the level of economic growth in the region; in 2012, the per capita GDP of Shantou reached only US$ 4,250, whereas

4840-550: The counties and villages of the Teochew region. The men employed to hand-deliver the letters and money to the families were known as phoe-kha ( 批脚 ), literally the "Feet of the Letters". The Qiaopi industry ended in 1979 when the government in China ordered its functions to be transferred to Bank of China . Family correspondence combined with remittance was not unique to the Teochews. Other groups of overseas Chinese, including

4928-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

5016-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

5104-464: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

5192-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

5280-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

5368-450: The freshness of ingredients. The ingredients of Chaoshan dishes usually include white olives, rice noodles, or mandarin oranges. These ingredients often come from the sea in Chaoshan, a hundred miles up the coast from Hong Kong. The cooking methods of Chaoshan dishes are diversified, including brining, deep-frying, pan-frying, braising, alive marinating, stewing, roasting, smoking, steam stewing, dressing, etc. The most used method among these

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5456-435: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

5544-531: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

5632-498: The late Ming and early Qing dynasties before forming an independent language system. Its main body is the Central Plains ancient Chinese, mixed with the Min dialect, Wang Shuo once said with a smile: " Qin Shihuang speaks a Chaozhou dialect." The Chaoshan dialect is pronounced in eight tones (four tones in Putonghua). As for the eight notes of Chaozhou, some people once summed up their image as: " Hong Kong police, old and powerless". The oldest surviving dictionary of Chaozhou sounds

5720-408: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

5808-432: The main reasons is its language, the Chaoshan or Swatow dialect . This variant of Chinese has eight tones, compared to the six tones found in Cantonese and the four to five tones found in Mandarin , which made it one of the most difficult ones to master. Music, opera and Chaozhou cuisine are further characteristics that distinguish Chaoshan people from the rest of Guangdong . The Chaoshan dialect ( 潮州話/潮汕話 ) of Min

5896-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

5984-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

6072-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

6160-421: The oldest Chinese operas that originated in the Song dynasty . The old form of choral accompaniment still retains its special features. Clowns and females are the most distinctive characters in a Chaozhou opera, and fan-playing and acrobatic skills are more prominent than in other types of performances. Gongfu tea ( 工夫茶 ), the "espresso" of Chinese teas with a formidable kick, which was first consumed back in

6248-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

6336-416: The outside world, ranked 11th in the province and the first of the four cities; Jieyang ranked 14th in the province and 2nd among the four cities; and Chaozhou ranked 18th in the province and 3rd among the four cities. (In economics, Fengshun County is usually not included in the statistics of the Chaoshan region.) The Chaoshan region encompasses the cities of Chaozhou , Jieyang , and Shantou . It had

6424-652: The planned Guangdong Jieyang Huilai wind farm (which has five separate projects). There are also plans to build a nuclear power plant in Jieyang , although the date by which construction will start has yet to be determined. Chaoshan has a culture that is distinct from its neighbours in Guangdong and the rest of China. It does, however, share similarities to the Minnan areas just north of Chaoshan in Fujian province. One of

6512-458: The province's total GDP per capita was US$ 8,600. During the period 2007–2012, there was only a 10% growth in GDP, whereas the average economic growth in the whole province was around 15%. In 2007, the total GDP of the four cities in eastern Guangdong was 210.748 billion yuan, accounting for 6.56% of the total GDP of the Province. Shantou , one of the first four special economic zones opened to

6600-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

6688-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

6776-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

6864-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

6952-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

7040-674: The south and southeast. Two of the most notable mountain ranges in the northwest are the Phoenix Mountain Range  [ zh ] ( Chinese : 凤凰山 ; pinyin : Fènghuáng shān ) and the Lotus Mountain Range  [ zh ] ( Chinese : 莲花山脉 ; pinyin : Liánhuā shānmài ). Another famous mountain is the Sangpu Mountain located at the junction of Shantou, Chaozhou and Jieyang 3 prefecture-level cities. The region's flat terrain

7128-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

7216-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

7304-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

7392-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

7480-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

7568-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

7656-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

7744-448: Was later exported to Japan, becoming known as sashimi. The most famous culinary method in Chaoshan is marinated broth stew, where poultry (especially local geese) and other meat are slow-cooked in a highly flavored broth. This is different from Cantonese food, in which barbecued meat is arguably one of the most representative dishes. Teochew Letters Teochew Letters ( Chinese : 潮汕僑批 ; pinyin : Chaoshan Qiaopi ) were

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