Anthony, the Octopus: The common misperceptions of languages of China

Paul, the Octopus, as you may know, has become an international celebrity. Although he doesn't have a spine, its bold predictions were certainly not spineless. So as a man with a spine, I would like to share my thoughts with you guys.

Many Chinese think the Western world doesn't understand China enough. There surely are a lot of misperceptions, but the question is, we don't understand ourselves any better.

The language issue is one of them. It has a big impact on the Chinese society. People rarely talk about it nowadays, but it can potentially cause a lot of trouble. The lack of attention is alarming. There is a lack of knowledge about the languages of China in the West, but that is very understandable since nobody can tell them the story. Let us now discuss what's wrong with our perception of Chinese languages.

1. Chinese language is Mandarin.
That is a common belief, and Chinese and Mandarin has become interchangeable in English. But there is a serious problem of that, what is Mandarin? If you bother to check Wikipedia, you would learn that Mandarin is a group of Chinese dialects. There is no doubt it is the most widely spoken one, but it doesn't mean that there are other groups. Actually, there are at least 6 other big groups (many linguists call them language). Cantonese is best known for it is the lingua franca for oversea Chinese. Wu includes Shanghainese. Taiwanese belongs to Hokkien (or Min Nan) which is a subgroup of Min. Hakka is widely spoken in the Chinese communities in South East Asia, and it is the native tongue of my grandpa. There are more.

2. All Chinese speak Mandarin as their first language.
First of all, there are ethnic minorities who speak their own language. But here, for ethnic Han Chinese, it is still not true. True, most Chinese nowadays can understand Mandarin (though it is not totally true for older generations), but their first language is not the same thing. We can say that most Chinese outside Beijing are bilinguals, since we not only speak our own "dialects", we learn the Beijing dialect of Mandarin in class. It is the only version allowed on TV, radio (although it is looser in Guangdong where Cantonese is allowed). Dialects everywhere are suppressed by the government. The government wants to build a national identity for more than 1 billion people. Needless to say, they need to do a lot to achieve that. But still, people speak there own dialects or languages at home and between each other. Although any dialects other than Mandarin has been described as uneducated language (such as improper during business conferences or other formal occasions), people still stick to their local culture. Just go to Shanghai, no matter how many migrants there are, people still speak Shanghainese on the streets. The situation of language in China is not as simple as many people think.
Also, Mandarin is also diverse. The Mandarin in Beijing and the Mandarin in Xiangtan, where Mao was from, is totally different. So is the Mandarin in Sichuan. We can well say that Mao does not speak Mandarin because when he is speaking, I don't understand what he is talking about.

3. The difference among different "dialects" in China is small. People can understand each other.
The difference is huge. People can speak one dialect for one hour and the other guy doesn't understand anything at all. I think this is not the case for Spanish and Italian speakers, but this is what is happening in China. I have mentioned that there are at least 7 different groups inside Chinese languages. Among different groups, they are totally unintelligible. Linguists think that their differences in phonology, syntax and lexicon are big enough to call that they are different languages. Although there is still a heated debate on the definition of language and dialect, if you call Croatian and Serbian two languages, there are hundreds of them in China.
One thing for sure is that there is only one official script in China. There is no written system for the other languages (although there are unofficial written systems for some, using Chinese characters with similar pronunciation). But this doesn't mean they are not independent languages. Written languages are based on oral ones. Each "dialect" can easily have its own written system if the language is recognized and there is an effort. It is amazing that although China mostly remained a unified country in its long history, the diversity in language is still huge.

4. There is no language issue in China.
Language has become an important issue. There are debates in Shanghai about the status of Shanghainese. There is a Defend Shanghainese Campaign. There is also huge opposition from those new migrants. Shanghainese could well be a good example. Most people in Shanghai are descendants of recent immigrants. My grandparents are from 3 different regions and none of them were originally from Shanghai. But people came to Shanghai, a metropolic transformed by the West from a small fishing village. They not only came, they adapted to the local culture. They spoke Shanghainese, and they also changed it, just like immigrants did to English. But the more recent immigrants, who envied the opportunities in Shanghai, turned out to be less willing to learn the local culture. They prefer to study more foreign languages. Worse is that they demand Shanghai people to stop speaking Shanghainese. The government stands on their side, and the officials in Shanghai government, few of whom are from Shanghai because they are not elected, don't stand up for the local population. This is also happening around the country. Many local culture has been lost, but more people are fighting on. This is not about local pride. People should cherish the local culture their ancestors created. I agree that China needs to a language that everybody can communicate with each other in, but it doesn't mean that you have to kill their mother tongues. Han Chinese, as described by the government, is the majority of the population, but Han Chinese is so diverse inside, it can hardly call it an ethnic. There needs to be some changes, otherwise, the language issue will be a potential thong that will cause trouble in addition to the numerous problems existing today.