Arabipod.com

Oh, and in Hong Kong they use a ton of "English" that isn't even really understandable. People say "fend" (friend) instead of "pangyau." Why? I don't know. ;-)

John, you are right. But, I would be fine with everyone saying "we have one formal writing system and it is Mandarin, which we read using our own language/dialect's values to each character," instead of "written Chinese is all the same." The key point being, if you write a sentence in "formal chinese" (not newspaper, 文言文, etc., but just something like the characters for "ni shi bu shi wo de pengyou") that ONLY makes sense in Mandarin, not in Cantonese, Minnanhua, Hakka, or most (if not all) other Chinese languages/dialects.

The effect is that non-Mandarin speakers are really learning ANOTHER language to read anything in the universal language. Cantonese speakers know at least TWO languages. Cantonese and Cantonese reading of Mandarin (in the case of the latter, they can just learn the Mandarin pronunciations of all those characters and then speak Mandarin with no problem).

Anyway, that's probably too much for most people.

John, I'd like to add to your "hanzify not to hanzify" thing that many people in Taiwan say "call" instead of "da dianhua gei", which sounded awful to me, but I understand it--the English word is so much shorter than the Chinese phrase!

Actually, insisting on calling different Chinese languages "dialects" or "方言" or "topolects" is partly a ploy for national and ethnic unity. It makes more sense that you're one nation if you're only speaking separate dialects rather than separate languages. So the propagation of the "dialect" notion is in the best interest of the government as well as anyone who wants to see unity of the Chinese people. And speaking of unity, the writing system definitely did provide unity in the past, when there was no spoken standard and China's languages were mutually unintelligible. Surely, it's a rough fit for many of the languages, but people made it work and it did its job. Pulosm, I think you're viewing a writing system as a visual reflection of spoken language. The idea of writing in the vernacular is actually fairly new in many languages, and definitely in Chinese. It was only a little over 100 years ago when most people (Mandarin-speaking or not) were still writing in 文言文 even though it wasn't how they spoke at all. It took the 白话 movement to change that. Relevant links: May 4th Movement To hanzify or not to hanzify

The Chinese want to perpetuate the myth that Mandarin is the only true Chinese, and the even more obscene myth, that there is "one writing system", i.e., that "written Chinese is all the same, regardless of dialect."

Example of something I find annoying: Most songs sung in "Cantonese" are actually Mandarin lyrics but the characters are read in the Cantonese way (because most, if not all, characters have a Cantonese reading, even if they wouldn't use them in the same way as Mandarin). They call this "formal Cantonese." AHHHH!!!! It's not Cantonese. It's Mandarin. For example, in Cantonese school they will teach you to read (can't type in characters right now, so imagine): "ni shi bu shi wo de pengyou" as "neh si buht si ngo dik pangyau." That's not Cantonese at all. Yet, they use it in songs, etc. This sentence is properly rendered "neh hai mm hai ngo ge pangyau." (sorry, I don't have a standard writing system because I didn't learn Cantonese that way).

Just to confirm that schools in China, even in the south reaches of places like Yunnan where many many minority groups lurk (and are put on a pedestal for tourist even), they are still according to law to teach Mandarin in school. I know first hand from visiting an organization from the States, SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) who are there in work with/for the government on a big problem with minority children entering schools where only Mandarin is spoken. At home, especially in these secluded mountain areas, the children do only speak the "topolect" of the minority group, and when they enter into grade school have not learned Mandarin like most of the Han children are better at (even though they also have a bit of a dialect). SIL works on ways to get these children ready for school and also convincing the government that at least in the first grade, these children need to have a class which teaches topics all children study in their mother tongue but gets them also up to speed with Mandarin. I am sure this is not much unlike Spanish-speakers in the States dealing with bilingual education, but it sounds like China is much more strict on not wasting resources on children of minority languages, thus volunteer organizations have to come in to help. --- Also, to comment on not calling Cantonese or Shanghainese a dialect, oddly I call them (or treat them as) a separate language myself with my Cantonese speaking friends, yet they insist on me calling it a dialect! They seem to see 普通話 as 中文 and the way they talk, 廣東話， is just a local way of speaking, even as different as the language sounds. Not sure exactly what is considered a dialect and what isn't, but just thought it was interesting my Chinese friends here in the UK insist I see Cantonese as a dialect (their own words, but maybe they don't know a better word than "dialect" either). I hopefully will start learning 廣東話 tomorrow evening from a friend who is willing to teach me (even though they seem to not know how to teach Cantonese... this shall be interesting) -R

oh dear. "right."

Oops, sorry, arabicpod.net is the write URL.

John, turkce biliyormusun?

English, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Shanghaiese and Turkish. You're a regular John-of-all-trades.

Kyle, No problem. It can be confusing, because you can technically learn one "first language" after another "first language." Both are "native languages" or "mother tongues." So you can have lots of "second languages" too. To make things even more confusing, Spanish is the second language I acquired, but it's the first language I actually consciously learned.

@ John

You're definition of "second language" clears things up. I hadn't thought of L2 acquisition like that before.

"tower of babel" back at you! :-)

pulosm,

I agree with you. I was mainly using the term "dialect" out of laziness/convenience. In some cases, the word dialect would be wholly appropriate, but true, not in the case of Shanghainese. Shanghainese, like Cantonese, is a separate language from Mandarin.

The problem, as you pointed out, is the term 方言, which doesn't correspond well to the English term "dialect," and yet it's just so much easier to use "dialect" even though we know it's not always really appropriate. Some have suggested using the word "topolect" for 方言 instead, but most people will have no idea what you're talking about if you use that word.

I don't really have a problem with how the Chinese use the word 中文, though. It's their language, after all. Meanings shift and change over time, and yes, they are affected by politics. That's reality.

BTW, 好像Arabicpod.com 剛才被取消了

John, please please please don't say dialect, unless you are prepared to call Spanish and Portuguese dialects of Latin. Indeed, if you did, you would be a lot closer. As a Spanish speaker, I can understand a great deal of portuguese; first having learned Cantonese, I had to study Mandarin in order to learn it well. And 閩南話. Forget it.

I guess the questions really comes down to "why are we asking?" The problem inherent in breaking it down by "native" language is the following. If by doing this, we mean to exclude English (which is the most widely-spoken language in the world), because it was learned or "imposed" by foreign influence, I'd posit that Mandarin is much the same. I think it is truly, truly a shame that the universalizing of Chinese has led to the destruction of other Chinese languages.

Particularly, I find offensive the notion (adopted by many Chinese, even those whose native language isn't Mandarin) that 中文 is synonyous with "Mandarin" and that the other languages are merely 方言. For one, it's not linguistically accurate, since 方言 means something like "dialect." A famous linguist once said, the only difference between a language and a dialect is that the former has an army.

I am glad Cantonese has moved towards a more complete writing system. I can't tell you how many people I have met who insist that reading what is essentially Mandarin with the Cantonese pronunciation of the characters is "formal Cantonese." This is hogwash.

In conclusion of my rant, I think it's perfectly practical to have multiple thriving languages, as well as an official language. Mandarin can have that role. As long as people in Beijing (who speak a dialect of Mandarin that is not quite standard) don't get superiority complexes over it. If it's not already too late.

mongo,

It's required by law that schools use Mandarin to conduct class. The students are all supposed to speak to each other in Mandarin as well. For that reason, many Chinese young people go through the experience of speaking Mandarin with all their classmates, but a dialect with their parents, and then either Mandarin or dialect (or both) for their jobs after university, depending on what kind of jobs they get.

Mandarin is used from kindergarten. I have noticed, though, that some of the older teachers in Shanghai "cheat" and use a bit of Shanghainese. This problem gets worse and creeps into higher grades as you move out into the countryside. The overall Mandarin level of teachers is getting much better, though, which results in the students speaking more standard Mandarin.

Hong Kong has a special situation re: the use of Cantonese.

John, here's a question for you:

In areas where the local dialect is different from Mandarin, for instance Shanghai, are the K-12 classes held in Mandarin or the local dialect? At what point is Mandarin introduced and to what extent? does this vary by region and dialect?

I had always guessed that since the official language of the country as of the 1950's, or possibly longer, is Mandarin then that would mean that all the schools would use this language as their primary means of communications... On the other hand, I've often heard that Cantonese are quite passionate towards their language... yet, i've never met a person that speaks Cantonese from mainland China that also doesn't also know how to speak Mandarin in my limited experience...

Taiwan, like China also has an indigenous language or two (Hakka and Taiwanese) in addition to learning Mandarin. As John points out, making most Taiwanese bi to tri linguals. In addition, most children start formal English training in preschool lasting through high school.

When it comes to language training, America's High Schools are like Galapagos turtles, slow, old, evolving at an incredibly slow rate, and way out of touch with the rest of the world.

Taiwan has a mere 22,858,872 左右個人:( Seems like the Taiwan population is headed south:(

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/tw-taiwan

Kyle, Sorry, I have to point something out. You said:

Secondly, the only 'native Mandarin' speakers are in NE China. Everyone else learns it as a second language in school.

According to some researchers, the defining difference between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) is the age at which the language was learned. For example, linguist Eric Lenneberg used second language to mean a language consciously acquired or used by its speaker after puberty. In most cases, people never achieve the same level of fluency and comprehension in their second languages as in their first language. These views are closely associated with the Critical Period Hypothesis.

Also, I always find these lists shady because they put down "Mandarin" as the native language for people in places not big enough to have their own language "minority" (sounds contradictory, I know). Look at this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese_(linguistics). I think this is how they get Mandarin having over 800 million "native" speakers. Mandarin is simply NOT the native language to people way down south like that map shows But, I guess, what difference does it make after all.

Right. Does the NE really account for 885 million speakers? I don't think it does. Plus, you gotta count the Taiwanese people, I guess. But I say can't be more than 500 million true native speakers.

My records of "native Mandarin" speakers says 885 million. That's of 1.3 billion Chinese. Secondly, the only "native Mandarin" speakers are in NE China. Everyone else learns it as a second language in school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

seems a bit high...but then again there are at least 6.7 billion people on the earth.... that figure would put it at about 2.7 people out of every 10 people speaking english....

its probably more like 1 out of every 10 people speaks english (670 millon speakers)....

"Nowadays English is used by an estimated 1.8 billion speakers (about 400 million of them being native speakers). " (See, [http://www.ehistling-pub.meotod.de/01_lec06.php])

I think the statistics on this are all skewed when it comes to Chinese. They count every single Chinese person as speaking Mandarin as their first language. As we know, this is patently false.

And arabicpod.com has no option to pay is it being funded or given source code by Praxis. Just some enthusiasts working for free for now until it really gets going. If it is under Praxis why isn't it promoted in a news letter. I only ask because I want to know if it is going to definitely get better or if there is a chance it is going to die like some of these language learning podcasts seem to do.

For the record, Kyle, numbers are highly disputed.I've always found widely varying numbers. Also, www.englishpod.com started before spanishsense.com

Again, I don't know for a fact it's under Praxis but the blurb written on the site about changing business models sounds like it is directly from Ken's mouth.

I'm thinking about Spanish but I'd really love a Russian version of this site Ken/Praxis.

Bengali is 4th, Hindi is 5th.

I thought Hindi was up there somewhere in the top 10, but that may be including non-native speakers. Most Indians I know speak Hindi and English, while their native language is something different entirely. I'm a little disappointed there aren't more resources for learning Hindi. I think it's a fascinating language.

That's very true.

English is obviously the #1 foreign language. Anyone know what #2 would be? Mandarin? What about 3#?

Most high schools in the States only get to choose from Spanish or French. Most take Spanish becaues it seems the most practical (Hispanics being a large minority in the States).

Languages like Chinese, Japanese, German etc. are offered, but are uncommon mostly due to the lack of teachers and/or interest.

highest number of speakers doesn't necessarily means largest learning-as-foreign-language market though, e.g. Chinese until recently

Well, according to my stats, which are a few years old, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world by native speakers. It beats English by around 10 million.

Kyle, are you sure Spanish is # 2?

I'm pretty sure that the umbrella corporation is "Praxis Language" which includes Chinesepod and Spanishsense.

If I'm correcting in assuming that Praxis is following the largest markets (Mandarin #1 with around 900 million native speakers, and Spanish #2 with around 350 million) then the next target would be English--the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world by native speakers.

If not English, then Bengali which has around 200 million native speakers. Russian is #6 with around 170 million and Japanese #8 with around 130 million.