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88-677: Taiwanese Mandarin , frequently referred to as Guoyu ( Chinese : 國語 ; pinyin : Guóyǔ ; lit. 'national language') or Huayu ( 華語 ; Huáyǔ ; 'Chinese language'; not to be confused with 漢語 ), is the variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan . A large majority of the Taiwanese population is fluent in Mandarin, though many also speak a variety of Min Chinese known as Taiwanese Hokkien , which has had

176-401: A dialect continuum in which differences generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though there are also some sharp boundaries. The Sinitic languages can be divided into Macro-Bai languages and Chinese languages, and the following is one of many potential ways of subdividing these languages. Some varieties, such as Shaozhou Tuhua , are hard to classify and thus are not included in

264-720: A null initial (apart from open zhǐ rime series ( 止攝開口 ) finals), unlike the /ʐ/ of Northern and Beijing Mandarin. Based on, for example, the pronunciation of the palatalized jiàn initial ( 見母 ), Jiaoliao Mandarin can be divided into Qingzhou, Denglian and Gaihuan areas. Central Plains Mandarin is spoken in the Central Plains of Henan , southwestern Shanxi , southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu , as well as most of Shaanxi , southern Ningxia and Gansu and southern Xinjiang , in famous cities such as Kaifeng , Zhengzhou , Luoyang , Xuzhou , Xi'an , Xining and Lanzhou . Central Plains Mandarin lects merge

352-536: A retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to

440-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from

528-435: A departing tone. Subdivision of Central Plains Mandarin is not fully agreed upon, though one possible subdivision sees 13 divisions, namely Xuhuai, Zhengkai, Luosong, Nanlu, Yanhe, Shangfu, Xinbeng, Luoxiang, Fenhe, Guanzhong, Qinlong, Longzhong and Nanjiang. Lanyin Mandarin, on the other hand, is divided as Jincheng, Yinwu, Hexi, and Beijiang. The Dungan language is a collection of Central Plains Mandarin varieties spoken in

616-481: A function of the speed of speech than of register, as it is more commonly used in casual conversations than in formal contexts. Like all varieties of Mandarin, Guoyu is a tonal language . Putonghua as spoken in the mainland has five tones, including the neutral tone. Tones in Guoyu differ somewhat in pitch and contour. Research suggests that speakers of Guoyu articulate the second and third tones differently from

704-733: A given side. The political separation of Taiwan and mainland China after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 contributed to many differences in vocabulary. This is especially prominent in words and phrases which refer to things or concepts invented after the split; thus, modern scientific and technological terminology often differs greatly between Putonghua and Guoyu . In both Guoyu and Putonghua , for example, 通過 ( 通过 ) tōngguò means 'to pass (a bill or inspection)' or 'to pass through' and 透過 ( 透过 ) tòuguò means 'to penetrate,' but 透過 also means 'by means of' or 'via' only in Guoyu , while using 通过 to express such meanings

792-650: A large majority of their vocabulary, but significant differences do exist. The lexical divergence of Guoyu from Putonghua is the result of several factors, including the prolonged political separation of the mainland and Taiwan, the influence of Imperial Japanese rule on Taiwan until 1945, and the influence of Hokkien. The Cross Strait Common Usage Dictionary categorizes differences as "same word, different meaning" ( 同名異實 tóngmíng yìshí — homonyms ); "same meaning, different word" ( 同實異名 tóngshí yìmíng ); and "Taiwan terms" ( 臺灣用語 Táiwān yòngyǔ ) and "mainland terms" ( 大陸用語 dàlù yòngyǔ ) for words and phrases specific to

880-464: A national prestige during the Ming and Qing periods, though not all linguists support this viewpoint. The Language Atlas divides Huai into Tongtai, Huangxiao, and Hongchao areas, with the latter further split into Ninglu and Huaiyang. Tongtai, being geographically located furthest west, has the most significant Wu influence, such as in its distribution of historical voiced plosive series. Yue Chinese

968-425: A nearly identical grammatical role. No is often used in advertising, where it evokes a sense of playfulness and fashionability, and handwriting, as it is easier to write. Taiwanese braille is similar to Mainland Chinese braille , though several sounds are represented by different patterns. Both systems represent the sounds of the language (as do Pinyin and Zhuyin), not Chinese characters themselves. While pinyin

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1056-484: A significant influence on the Mandarin spoken on the island. Mandarin was not a prevalent spoken language in Taiwan before the mid-20th century. Early Chinese immigrants who settled in Taiwan before Japanese rule mainly spoke other varieties of Chinese languages, primarily Hakka and Hokkien. By contrast, Taiwanese indigenous peoples speak unrelated Austronesian languages . Japan annexed Taiwan in 1895 and governed

1144-497: A text in simplified characters. In practice, Taiwanese Mandarin users may write informal, shorthand characters ( 俗字 ; súzì ; 'customary/conventional characters'; also 俗體字 sútǐzì ) in place of the full traditional forms. These variant Chinese characters are generally easier to write by hand and consist of fewer strokes . Shorthand characters are often identical to their simplified counterparts, but they may also take after Japanese kanji , or differ from both, as shown in

1232-869: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;

1320-500: Is a table of relatively common characters pronounced differently in Guoyu and Putonghua in most or all contexts ( Guoyu / Putonghua ): Note that many of the above include tonal differences where a first tone in Putonghua is pronounced second tone in Guoyu . Some pronunciation differences may only appear in certain words. The following is a list of examples of such differences ( Guoyu / Putonghua ): Guoyu and Putonghua share

1408-418: Is not generally used as a day-to-day language. Language falling on the less standard side of the Guoyu spectrum may be stigmatized as uneducated. This article focuses on the features of both Standard Guoyu , particularly its relationship to Putonghua , as well as non-standard but widespread features of Mandarin in Taiwan, grouped under Taiwan Guoyu . Large-scale Han Chinese settlement of Taiwan began in

1496-495: Is only present in Putonghua . The differences may be prevalent enough to hinder communication between Guoyu and Putonghua speakers unfamiliar with each other's respective dialects. For instance, Zhang (2000) selected four hundred core nouns from computer science and found that while 58% are identical in Standard and Taiwanese Mandarin, 22% were "basically" or "entirely" different. As cross-strait relations began to improve in

1584-410: Is sometimes separated as a remnant of Old Shu. Huai is spoken in central Anhui , northern Jiangxi , far western and eastern Hubei and most of Jiangsu . Due to its preservation of a checked tone, some linguists believe that Huai ought to be treated as a top-level group, like Jin. Representative lects tend to be Nanjingnese , Hefeinese and Yangzhounese . The Huai of Nanjing has likely served as

1672-571: Is spoken by around 84 million people, in western Guangdong , eastern Guangxi , Hong Kong , Macau and parts of Hainan , as well as overseas communities such as Kuala Lumpur and Vancouver . Famous lects such as Cantonese and Taishanese belong to this family. Yue Chinese lects generally possess long-short distinctions in their vowels, which is reflected in their almost universally split dark-checked and often split light-checked tones. They generally also tend to preserve all three checked plosive finals and three nasal finals. The status of Pinghua

1760-439: Is spoken fluently by the vast majority of the Taiwanese population, with the exception of some of the elderly population, who were educated under Japanese rule. In the capital of Taipei , where there is a high concentration of Mainlander descendants who do not natively speak Hokkien, Mandarin is used in greater frequency and fluency than in other parts of Taiwan. The 2010 Taiwanese census found that in addition to Mandarin, Hokkien

1848-522: Is spoken in the Jiaodong and Liaodong Peninsulae , which includes the cities of Dalian and Qingdao , as well as several prefectures along the China-Korea border. Like Jilu Mandarin, its light checked tone is merged into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial, though its dark checked is merged into the rising. Its rì initial ( 日母 ) terms are pronounced with

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1936-513: Is the official standard. A competing system, Tongyong Pinyin , was formally revealed in 1998 with the support of the mayor of Taipei Chen Shuibian . In 1999, however, the Legislative Yuan endorsed a slightly modified version of Hanyu Pinyin, creating parallel romanization schemes along largely partisan lines, with Kuomintang-supporting areas using Hanyu Pinyin, and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) areas using Tongyong Pinyin. In 2002,

2024-472: Is used in applications such as in signage, most Guoyu users learn phonetics through the Zhuyin Fuhao ( 國語注音符號 ; Guóyǔ Zhùyīn Fúhào ; 'Guoyu Phonetic Symbols') system, popularly called Zhuyin or Bopomofo , after its first four glyphs. Taiwan is the only Chinese-speaking polity to use the system, which is taught in schools (often used as ruby characters to aid young learners) and represents

2112-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to

2200-551: The Kensiu language . Sinitic languages Over 91% of the Chinese population speaks a Sinitic language. Approximately 1.52 billion people are speakers of the Chinese macrolanguage, of whom about three-quarters speak a Mandarin variety. Estimates of the number of global speakers of Sinitic branches as of 2018–2019, both native and non-native, are listed below: Dialectologist Jerry Norman estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible Sinitic languages. They form

2288-929: The Republic of China , People's Republic of China , Singapore and United Nations . Re-population efforts, such as that of the Qing dynasty in the Southwest, tended to involve Mandarin speakers. Classification of Mandarin lects has undergone several significant changes, though nowadays it is commonly divided as such, based on the distribution of the historical checked tone: as well as other lects, which do not neatly fall into these categories, such as Mandarin Junhua varieties. Varieties of Mandarin can be defined by their universally lost -m final, low number of tones, and smaller inventory of classifiers , among other features. Mandarin lects also often have rhotic erhua rimes, though

2376-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝   'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for

2464-619: The Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family , which includes varieties such as Mandarin, Cantonese , and Hakka . They share a common ancestry and script, Chinese characters , and among Chinese speakers, they are popularly considered dialects ( 方言 fāngyán ) of the same, overarching language. These dialects are often extremely divergent in the spoken form, however, and not mutually intelligible . Accordingly, Western linguists tend to treat them as separate languages rather than dialects of

2552-774: The high dialect of the island as the result of decades of Japanization policy. After the Republic of China under the Kuomintang (KMT) gained control of Taiwan in 1945, Mandarin was introduced as the official language and made compulsory in schools, although the local population rarely spoke it at the time. Many who had fled the mainland after the defeat of the KMT by the Communists also spoke non-standard varieties of Mandarin, which may have influenced later colloquial pronunciations. Wu Chinese dialects were also influential due to

2640-404: The simplified characters used on the mainland. Some grammatical differences also exist, often due to Hokkien influence. The two varieties of Mandarin have diverged in the decades since the political separation of Taiwan and the mainland. Guoyu spoken in Taiwan exists on a spectrum, from the most formal, standardized variety to the least formal, with the heaviest Hokkien influence. On one end of

2728-437: The "theoretical" retroflex (so called because it is a feature of Standard Guoyu but rarely realized in everyday speech, as zh- is usually pronounced z- ; see above section) is assimilated into the palatal glide [j] . Often the reduction involves the removal of initials in compound words, such as dropping the t in 今天 jīntiān 'today' or the ch in 非常 fēicháng 'extremely, very'. These reductions are not necessarily

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2816-479: The 17th century by Hoklo immigrants from Fujian province who spoke Southern Min languages (predominantly Hokkien ), and to a lesser extent, Hakka immigrants who spoke their respective language. Taiwanese indigenous peoples already inhabited the island, speaking a variety of Austronesian languages unrelated to Chinese. In the centuries following Chinese settlement, the number of indigenous languages dropped significantly, with several going extinct, in part due to

2904-399: The 1930s and 1940s. Some examples of differences are given later in this section . These character-level differences notwithstanding, Standard Guoyu pronunciation is largely identical to Putonghua , but with two major systematic differences (also true of Taiwan Guoyu ): In addition, two other phenomena, while nonstandard, are extremely common across all Mandarin speakers in Taiwan, even

2992-544: The 3,500 most commonly used characters. A 1992 study, however, found differences in 22.5% of the 3,500 most common characters. Much of the difference can be traced to the preferences of linguistic authorities on the two sides; the mainland standard prefers popular pronunciations in northern areas, whereas the Taiwanese standard prefers those documented in dictionaries in the 1930s and 1940s. The Taiwanese formal standards may not always reflect actual pronunciations commonly used by actual Taiwanese speakers of Guoyu . The following

3080-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China

3168-640: The Taiwanese government led by the DPP promulgated the use of Tongyong Pinyin as the country's preferred system, but this was formally abandoned in 2009 in favor of Hanyu Pinyin. In addition, various other historical romanization systems also exist across the island, with multiple systems sometimes existing in the same locality. Following the defeat of the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War and their subsequent retreat to Taiwan in 1945, little emphasis

3256-532: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,

3344-522: The amount of its use may vary between lects. Loss of checked tone is an often cited criterion for Mandarin languages, though lects such as Yangzhounese and Taiyuannese show otherwise. Northeastern Mandarin is spoken in Heilongjiang , Jilin , most of Liaoning and northeastern Inner Mongolia , whereas Beijing Mandarin is spoken in northern Hebei , most of Beijing , parts of Tianjin and Inner Mongolia . The two families' most notable features are

3432-405: The dark checked into the dark level tone, the light checked into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial , and vowel breaking in tong rime series' ( 通攝 ) checked-tone words, among other features. Jilu Mandarin can be classified into Baotang, Shiji, Canghui and Zhangli. Zhangli is of note due to its preservation of a separate checked tone. Jiaoliao Mandarin

3520-420: The dominant digital input method on electronic devices. (Before the introduction of Hanyu pinyin starting in 1958, it was also used in mainland China, whereas today in the mainland it is used primarily in language education and in some dictionaries.) It has accordingly become a symbol of Taiwanese identity as well. Chinese language romanization in Taiwan somewhat differs from on the mainland, where Hanyu Pinyin

3608-662: The early 20th century. Standard Guoyu pronunciations tend to be based on prescribed dictionaries of the period, whereas Standard Putonghua integrated colloquial Northern Mandarin pronunciations for some words. Notable characteristics of Guoyu as is commonly spoken in Taiwan include its somewhat different tonal qualities compared to Putonghua , the lack of the erhua phenomenon, and the lack of retroflex consonants (with zh- , ch- , sh- being pronounced like z- , c- , and s- ) in most contexts. Guoyu also incorporates vocabulary from Hokkien and Japanese. Written Chinese in Taiwan generally uses traditional characters , in contrast to

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3696-561: The early 21st century, direct interaction between mainland China and Taiwan increased, and some vocabulary began to merge, especially by means of the Internet. For example, the words 瓶頸 ( 瓶颈 ) píngjǐng 'bottleneck' and 作秀 zuòxiù 'to grandstand, show off' were originally unique to Guoyu in Taiwan but have since become widely used in mainland China as well. Guoyu has also incorporated mainland phrases and words, such as 渠道 qúdào , meaning 'channel (of communication)', in addition to

3784-644: The extinct Taz language of Russia is also a Northeastern Mandarin language. Beijing is sometimes included in Northeastern Mandarin due to its distribution of the historical dark checked tone, though is listed as its own group by others, often due to its more regular light checked tones. Jilu Mandarin is spoken in southern Hebei and western Shandong , and is often represented with Jinannese . Notable cities that use Jilu Mandarin lects include Cangzhou , Shijiazhuang , Jinan and Baoding . Characteristically Jilu Mandarin features include merging

3872-401: The family is classified into at least seven main families. These families are classified based on five main evolutionary criteria: The varieties within one family may not be mutually intelligible with each other. For instance, Wenzhounese and Ningbonese are not highly mutually intelligible. The Language Atlas of China identifies ten groups: with Jin, Hui, Pinghua, and Tuhua not part of

3960-616: The following briefs. This is a language family first proposed by linguist Zhengzhang Shangfang , and was expanded to include Longjia and Luren. It likely split off from the rest of Sinitic during the Old Chinese period. The languages included are all considered minority languages in China and are spoken in the Southwest . The languages are: All other Sinitic languages henceforth would be considered Chinese. The Chinese branch of

4048-482: The former Soviet Union . Jin is spoken in most of Shanxi , western Hebei , northern Shaanxi , northern Henan and central Inner Mongolia , often represented by Taiyuannese . It was first proposed as a lect separate from the rest of Mandarin by Li Rong , where it was proposed as lects in and around Shanxi with a checked tone, though this stance is not without disagreement. Jin varieties also often has disyllabic words derived from syllable splitting (分音詞), through

4136-540: The heavy use of rhotic erhua and seemingly random distribution of the dark checked tone, and generally having four tones with the contours of high flat, rising, dipping, and falling. Northeastern Mandarin, especially in Heilongjiang, contains many loanwords from Russian. Northeastern Mandarin lects can be divided into three main groups, namely Hafu (including Harbinnese and Changchunnese ), Jishen (including Jilinnese and Shenyangnese ), and Heisong. Notably,

4224-685: The highly educated: Taiwan Guoyu pronunciation is strongly influenced by Hokkien. This is especially prominent in areas where Hokkien is common, namely, in Central and Southern Taiwan. Many, though not all, of the phonological differences between Taiwan Guoyu and Putonghua can be attributed to the influence of Hokkien. Notable phonological features of Taiwan Guoyu include: The non-standard Taiwanese Guoyu tends to exhibit frequent, informal elision and cluster reduction when spoken. For example, 這樣子 zhè yàngzi 'this way, like so' can be pronounced similar to 醬子 jiàngzi 'paste, sauce'; wherein

4312-409: The historical checked tones with a lesser muddy ( 次濁 ) and clear ( 清 ) initial together with the rising tone, and those with a fully muddy ( 全濁 ) initial are merged with the light level tone. Lanyin Mandarin, spoken in northern Ningxia, parts of Gansu, and northern Xinjiang, is sometimes grouped with Central Plains Mandarin due to its merged lesser light and dark checked tones, though it is realised as

4400-753: The infixation of /(u)əʔ l/ . 笨 pəŋ꜄   → 薄 pəʔ꜇ 愣 ləŋ꜄ 笨 {} 薄 愣 pəŋ꜄ → pəʔ꜇ ləŋ꜄ 'stupid' 滾 ꜂kʊŋ   → 骨 kuəʔ꜆ 攏 ꜂lʊŋ 滾 {} 骨 攏 ꜂kʊŋ → kuəʔ꜆ ꜂lʊŋ 'to roll' As per the Language Atlas by Li, Jin is divided into Dabao, Zhanghu, Wutai, Lüliang, Bingzhou, Shangdang, Hanxin, and Zhiyan branches. Spoken in Yunnan , Guizhou , northern Guangxi , most of Sichuan , southern Gansu and Shaanxi , Chongqing , most of Hubei and bordering parts of Hunan , as well as Kokang of Myanmar and parts of northern Thailand , Southwestern Mandarin speakers take up

4488-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from

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4576-549: The island as a colony for the next 50 years, introducing Japanese in education, government, and public life. With the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II, Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China , ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT), which by 1950 had been expelled from the mainland by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The KMT promulgated Guoyu in Taiwan while suppressing non-Mandarin languages in

4664-474: The mainland, however, the word is also a euphemism for a prostitute and is therefore not used as a polite term of address. Guoyu and Putonghua speakers may also display strong preference for one of a set of synonyms. For example, both 禮拜 lǐbài ( 礼拜 ) and 星期 xīngqí ( xīngqī in Putonghua ) are acceptable words for 'week' in Guoyu and Putonghua , but 禮拜 is more common in Taiwan. Guoyu tends to preserve older lexical items that are less used in

4752-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as

4840-512: The mainland. In Taiwan, speakers may use a more traditional 早安 zǎo'ān to say 'good morning', whereas mainland speakers generally default to 早上好 zǎoshang hǎo , for instance. Both words are acceptable in either dialect. Likewise, words with the same literal meaning in either dialect may differ in register . 而已 éryǐ 'that's all, only' is common both in spoken and written Guoyu , influenced by speech patterns in Hokkien, but in Putonghua

4928-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In

5016-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often

5104-452: The middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of the predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is

5192-596: The most area and population of all Mandarinic language groups, and would be the eighth most spoken language in the world if separated from the rest of Mandarin. Southwestern Mandarinic tends to not have retroflex consonants , and merges all checked tone categories together. Except for Minchi , which has a standalone checked category, the checked tone is merged with another category. Representative lects include Wuhannese and Sichuanese , and sometimes Kunmingnese . Southwestern Mandarin tends to be split into Chuanqian, Xishu, Chuanxi, Yunnan, Huguang and Guiliu branches. Minchi

5280-521: The natively spoken language of a significant number of, or even any, people. Guoyu exists on a continuum from the most standard, formal version of the language to the form most heavily influenced by Hokkien. The former variety can be called Standard Guoyu ( 標準國語 ; Biāozhǔn Guóyǔ ) in contrast to the less standard Taiwan Guoyu ( 臺灣國語 ; Táiwān Guóyǔ ). More formal settings—such as television news broadcasts—tend to feature speakers using Standard Guoyu , which closely resembles mainland Putonghua , but

5368-502: The northern areas of Taipei, Taoyuan , and Hsinchu . Youth is correlated with use of Guoyu : in 2020, over two-thirds of Taiwanese over 65 used Hokkien or Hakka as their primary language, compared with just 11% of 15–24-year-olds. Guoyu employs traditional Chinese characters (which are also used in the two special administrative regions of China , Hong Kong and Macau ), rather than the simplified Chinese characters used in mainland China. Literate Taiwanese can generally understand

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5456-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as

5544-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as

5632-459: The other. For example, 誇張 ( 夸张 ) kuāzhāng means 'to exaggerate,' but in Taiwan, it can also be used to express exclamation at something absurd or overdone, a meaning absent in Putonghua . 籠絡 ( 笼络 ) lǒngluò in Guoyu means 'to convince, win over', but in Putonghua , it carries a negative connotation (cf. 'beguile, coax'). Another example is 小姐 xiǎojiě , meaning 'miss' or 'young lady', regularly used to address young women in Guoyu . On

5720-666: The process of sinicization . Official communications among the Han were done in Mandarin ( 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'official language'), but the primary languages of everyday life were Hokkien or Hakka. After its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War , the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan , which governed the island as an Imperial colony from 1895 to 1945. By the end of the colonial period, Japanese had become

5808-475: The public sphere. At the same time, the People's Republic of China promoted the same national language as Putonghua ( 普通话 ; 普通話 ; Pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech') on the mainland. Putonghua in mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan are highly similar and derive from the same standard based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese and the grammar of written vernacular Chinese in

5896-572: The relative power of KMT refugees from Wu-speaking Zhejiang , Chiang Kai-shek 's home province. The Mandarin Promotion Council (now called National Languages Committee ) was established in 1946 by Chief Executive Chen Yi to standardize and popularize the usage of Mandarin in Taiwan. The Kuomintang heavily discouraged the use of Southern Min and other non-Mandarin languages, portraying them as inferior, and school children were punished for speaking their non-Mandarin native languages. Guoyu

5984-407: The result of Taiwan Guoyu incorporating influences from other languages used in Taiwan , primarily Hokkien, but also Japanese. Like Standard Guoyu , Taiwan Guoyu is also mutually intelligible with Putonghua , but when compared with Standard Guoyu , Taiwan Guoyu exhibits greater differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Chinese is not a single language but a group of languages in

6072-409: The same language; citing Yuen Ren Chao , John DeFrancis likened the differences among some dialects as like those between English and Dutch, for example. Mandarin Chinese is a grouping of Chinese languages that includes at least eight subgroups, often also called dialects. In English, "Mandarin" can refer to any of these Mandarin dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. However,

6160-652: The seven traditional groups. Varieties of Mandarin are used in the Western Regions , the Southwest , Huguang , Inner Mongolia , Central Plains and the Northeast , by around three-quarters of the Sinitic-speaking population. Historically, the prestige variety has always been Mandarin, which is still reflected today in Standard Chinese . Standard Chinese is now an official language of

6248-568: The south of the mainland. Both pairs are grammatically correct in either dialect. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until

6336-795: The spectrum, there is Standard Guoyu ( 標準國語 ; Biāozhǔn guóyǔ ), an official national language of Taiwan. This variety is taught as the standard in the education system and is employed in official communications and most news media. The core of this standard variety is described in the Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary . Very few people speak purely standard Guoyu , however. Mandarin, as colloquially spoken in Taiwan, can be broadly called "Taiwan Guoyu " ( 台灣國語 ; Táiwān guóyǔ ). Taiwan Guoyu diverges in varying degrees from Standard Guoyu , with some speakers being closer to Standard Guoyu than others. These divergences are often

6424-585: The standard Guoyu , there are differences in pronunciation that arise from conflicting official standards in Taiwan and the mainland. Quantification of the extent of pronunciation differences between Guoyu and Putonghua varies. Estimates from graduate-level research include a 2008 study based on the 7,000 characters in the List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese , which found approximately 18% differed between Guoyu and Putonghua , and 13% for

6512-452: The standards of Beijing Mandarin. The precise nature of the tonal differences is not well attested, however, as relevant studies often lack a sufficiently large variety of speakers. Tones may vary based on age, gender, and other sociolinguistic factors and may not even be consistent across every utterance by an individual. In general, for Guoyu speakers, the second tone does not rise as high in its pitch, according to Jeroen Wiedenhof , and

6600-482: The table below. A few shorthand characters are used as frequently as standard traditional characters, even in formal contexts, such as the tai in Taiwan , which is often written as 台 , as opposed to the standard traditional form, 臺 . In informal writing, Guoyu speakers may replace possessive particles 的 de or 之 zhī with the Japanese particle の no in hiragana (usually read as de ), which serves

6688-677: The term is most commonly used to refer to Standard Chinese , the prestige dialect . Standard Chinese in mainland China is called Putonghua ( 普通話 ; Pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech') and in the Republic of China (Taiwan) Guoyu ( 國語 ; Guóyǔ ; 'national language'). Both of these, as Mandarin languages, are based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and are mutually intelligible, but also feature various lexical, phonological, and grammatical differences. There exists significant variation within Putonghua and Guoyu as well. Some scholars have argued that Putonghua and Guoyu are artificial standards that, strictly speaking, do not represent

6776-496: The third tone does not "dip" back up from the low, creaky voice range. Overall, Guoyu speakers may exhibit a lower and more narrow pitch range than speakers of the Mandarin of Beijing. Acoustic analysis of 33 Mandarin speakers from Taiwan in 2008 also found that for many speakers, the second tone tends to have a dipping contour more akin to that of the prescriptive third tone. In addition to differences in elision and influence from Hokkien, which are not features that are codified in

6864-730: The traditional Guoyu term, 管道 guǎndào . Words may be formed from abbreviations in one form of Mandarin but not the other. For example, in Taiwan, bubble tea , 珍珠奶茶 zhēnzhū nǎichá , is often abbreviated 珍奶 zhēnnǎi , but this is not common on the mainland. Likewise, traffic rules/regulations, 交通規則 ( 交通规则 ) jiāotōng guīzé , is abbreviated as 交规 jiāoguī on the mainland, but not in Taiwan. Some identical terms have different meanings in Guoyu and Putonghua . There may be alternative synonyms which can be used unambiguously by speakers on both sides. The same word carry different connotations or usage patterns in Guoyu and Putonghua , and may be polysemous in one form of Mandarin but not

6952-583: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with

7040-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write

7128-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being

7216-409: The use of non-Mandarin Chinese languages, younger generations generally prefer using Mandarin. Government statistics from 2020 found that 66% of Taiwanese residents use Guoyu as their primary language, and another 31% use it as a secondary language (32% used Minnanyu /Hokkien as their primary language, and 54% used it as a secondary language). Guoyu is the primary language for over 80% of people in

7304-511: The word is largely confined to formal, written contexts. Preference for the expression of modality often differs among northern Mandarin speakers and Taiwanese, as evidenced by the selection of modal verbs . For example, Taiwanese Mandarin users strongly prefer 要 yào and 不要 búyào over 得 děi and 別 bié , respectively, to express 'must' and 'must not', compared to native speakers from Beijing. However, 要 yào and 不要 búyào are also predominantly used among Mandarin speakers from

7392-521: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c.  200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c.  the 5th century . Although

7480-769: Was gaining prominence internationally. Ultimately, a revised version of Gwoyeu Romatzyh was released in 1986, which was called Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II . However, this system was not widely adopted. Like Putonghua , both Standard and Taiwan Guoyu are tonal. Pronunciation of many individual characters differs in the standards prescribed by language authorities in Taipei and Beijing. Mainland authorities tended to adopt pronunciations popular in Northern Mandarin areas, whereas Taiwanese authorities prefer traditional pronunciations recorded in dictionaries from

7568-496: Was natively spoken by around 70% of the population, and Hakka by 15%. A 2004 study found that Mandarin was spoken more fluently by Hakka and Taiwanese aboriginals than their respective mother tongues; Hoklo groups, on average, spoke better Hokkien, but Hoklo under 50 years old still spoke significantly better Mandarin (with comparable levels of fluency to their usage of Hokkien) than the elderly. Overall, while both national and local levels of government have taken some measures to promote

7656-536: Was placed on the romanization of Chinese characters, with the Wade-Giles system used as the default. It is still widely used for transcribing people's legal names today. The Gwoyeu Romatzyh method, invented in 1928, also was in use in Taiwan during this time period, albeit to a lesser extent. In 1984, Taiwan's Ministry of Education began revising the Gwoyeu Romatzyh method out of concern that Hanyu Pinyin

7744-650: Was thus established as a lingua franca among the various groups in Taiwan at the expense of existing languages. Following the end of martial law in 1987 , language policy in the country underwent liberalization, but Guoyu remained the dominant language. Local languages were no longer proscribed in public discourse, mass media, and schools. English and "mother tongue education" ( 母語教育 ; mǔyǔ jiàoyù ) — Hokkien and Hakka — were introduced as elective subjects in primary school in 2001. Greater time and resources are devoted to both Mandarin and English, which are compulsory subjects, compared to mother tongue instruction. Mandarin

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