1. Language and
Calligraphy
Cultural Tour of China 2009

2. Mandarin
- Guanhua, an official language used in the government, the language of officials
Guoyu - National language
Putonghua - Common Speech, Common Language
Huayu or Huawen – Singapore or overseas

3. Current status and Future
Hanyu is used by 720 million people
70% of the population of China speak Hanyu
One fifth of world population speak Hanyu (885 million )
Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family
Mandarin will become the major language in Asia in the 21 century.

4. Dialects Northern (Mandarin)-Beijing Wu-Shanghai Min Southern - Fuzhou
Min Northen - Xiamen
Yue (Cantonese)- Guangzhou
Kejia (Hakka)
Xiang - Changsha
Gan - Nanchang

5. Pronunciation
The number of syllables are limited: There are 1376 syllables if all tonal variation is taken into account. (Liu, 1957)
Vowels are predominant.
There are four tones in Mandarin.

6. Vowels are predominant
lǎo, miáo, lèi
One syllable has at most two consonants
nóng – consonants: [n] and [ng]
There are no consonant clusters
[sp] ‘speak’
[st] ‘steak’
[kst] ‘text’

7. Four tones in Mandarin
mā má mǎ mà
妈 麻 马 骂
mother hemp horse to scold

9. There are five tones in Shanghai dialect.
There are nine tones in Cantonese dialect.

10. 石室詩士施氏﹐嗜獅﹐誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時﹐適十獅適市。是時﹐適施氏適市。氏視是十獅﹐恃矢勢﹐使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅尸﹐適石室。石室濕﹐氏使侍拭石室。石室拭﹐氏始試食是十獅。食時﹐始識是十獅屍﹐實石獅屍。試釋是事。(趙元任《語言問題》商務印書館

11. Shí shì shī shì shī shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī
Shí shì shī shì shī shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shí shí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shì shì, shǐ shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí shì shí shī shū, shì shí shì. Shí shì shì, shì shǐ shì shù shí shì. Shí shì shì, shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shì shì shí shī shī, shí shí shī. Shì shì shì shì

12. Translation of “SHI” story
The poet Mr. Shi who lived in a stone house liked to eat lions. He swore that he would eat ten lions. He went to the market often to look for lions. At ten o’clock, it happened that ten lions were in the market. At that time, Mr. Shi happened to arrive in the market too. Mr. Shi looked at the ten lions and he shoot the ten lions with arrows. He picked the dead bodies of the ten lions and returned to his stone house. The stone house was wet. He made the servant to clean the room. After the room was cleaned, he began to try to eat these ten lions. Only by the time of eating, he found that these dead bodies of lions were actually stone lions. Try to explain this story.

13. Way of Chinese Writing
Non-phonetic: a character has no clue to its pronunciation
Ideographic or pictographic: characters are derived from the pictures (More in the second half of today’s class)
The writing unit is character. Characters can be written vertically or horizontally, from left to write, from right to left, or from top to bottom

14. A character has no clue to its pronunciation豳
bīn

15. Characters are derived from pictures

16. Characters can be written horizontally, from left to write or from right to left

17. Various styles of writing

18. Power to form new words
When new words were introduced to Chinese, most words were translated into Chinese and the new words were coined based on the meaning of each character.
telephone 電話 diànhuà electric speech
television 電視 diànshì electric vision
computer 電腦 diànnǎo electric brain
laser 激光 jīguāng activated beam
railway 鐵路 tiělù iron road

19. Load words radar léidá 雷達 model mótèěr 模特兒 pound bàng 磅 shock xiūkè 休克
humor yōumò 幽默
cola kělè 可樂
sofa shāfā 沙發

20. Chinese for Travelers Hello Goodbye Thank you I am sorry Please
Teacher
Where is the bathroom?
How much does this cost?
Too much—Cut Price

21. Review questions
1. Explain the following terms: Guanhua, Mandarin, Putonghua, Guoyu, Hanyu, Huayu.
2. How many people speak Mandarin? Where are they?
3. What language family does Chinese belong to?
4. Is Chinese language a unique language? What are the varieties of Chinese?
5. What are typological characteristics of Chinese?
6. In what way is Chinese influenced by other languages?