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Linguaholic

Chinese Dialects


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Hello, everyone. I speak Cantonese, but don't write or read, nor would I say I'm extremely fluent in this language. However, it was the language I grew up with.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that there are many, MANY different dialects of Chinese. The main two and probably the most common would be Mandarin and Cantonese. Mandarin was the original Chinese I believe, used by the nobles and was developed in Northern China. Cantonese was the language of the lower classes and was developed in the South, where the agriculture was mostly based. There are also many other sub-dialects of Mandarin and Cantonese too. For example, Shang Hai Mandarin would sound different than your general Mandarin. Cantonese spoken from different villages and area also sound very different.

The other big thing is, Chinese uses one written language. Whether you're Mandarin or Cantonese or anything else in between, you can read Chinese script. It's just the pronunciation is different and sometimes the meaning behind the characters are different too.

I just thought that would be nice for some of you to know  :grin:.

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