Nowadays, there are more and more foreigners come to China to learn Mandarin. However, they may not know that there are totally 130 languages of various ethnic groups in China, including the Mandarin. According to Xinhua News Agency, the linguistic experts of Chinese dialect hold the opinion that the total 130 languages are inherited and developed among the 1.3 billion people in China even under the impact of globalization and regional economic development.
For the purpose of language statistics, relevant research has been made. A piece of news comes from the teachers in Mandarin learning courses that the book named Chinese language Atlas will be published in the end of 2011. In this book, we will see the situations and intendancy of Chinese language development in the recent 20 years. Then, we can know clearly the language speaking conditions in certain areas and times.
As we all know, there are many kinds of languages in the world. Those who study in China may ask the specific figures. According to the survey and statistics by the linguists in the world, there are more than 6,000 languages all around the world, among which more than 2,500 species are endangered. In China, there are all 130 languages, including the Mandarin. They are used by 1.3 billion people in China.
In accordance with the internationally recognized six comprehensive evaluations standards for language influence, the influence of the Chinese language ranks the sixth in the world. Maybe that’s why more foreigners begin to learn Chinese in China. Xiong Zhenghui is the chairman of the National Chinese Dialects Institute. He said that the 130 languages in use in China is characterized by “most people use Chinese language and the other 129 ethnic languages are used by less population”.
As the process of China‘s economic development is speeding up, the population mobility is also increasing. Therefore, the population of using Mandarin language shows a growing trend. Those who study Chinese in China may be curious about the population of using Chinese language. At present, among the 1.3 billion people, about 1.26 billion people use Chinese language in their daily life but only 58.35 million people using the remaining 129 languages.
However, language experts pointed out that we can’t summarize the characteristics of Chinese language inheritance and development according to the population of using the languages because various ethnic peoples can use multiple languages. The students who learn Chinese language may be told that Tibetan can use 15 languages, Gaoshan people also speaks 15 species of languages, Yao people is able to use 8 languages and so on.
In order to expand students’ knowledge, more information about the peoples who speak multiple languages is introduced when they learn Mandarin Chinese. Jingpo people speaks 5 languages, Nu people uses 4 languages. The minorities like Mongolian, Zhuang, Yi and Luoba can speak three different languages. There are many ethnic groups use two languages such as Achang, Menba, Hani, Lahu, Dai, Buyi, Maonan, Kelao, Mulao, Miao, Tu and Yugu and so on.
The statistics in Chinese language Atlas shows that the Chinese language is spoken by the 95% of the Chinese people. Most foreigners may have heard many dialects during the process of learning Mandarin Chinese. The most important dialect in Chinese dialects is the Northern Dialect, which is spread across the vast areas in North Yangtze River and the southwestern provinces. There is a high consistency of Northern Dialect from Nanjing to Urumqi and from Kunming to Harbin. Therefore, there is no communication difficulty even far from thousands of kilometers.
There are about 66 million people in the Northern Dialect areas, and 67% of them speak Chinese language, with a proportion of 64% of the whole population in China. However, linguists point out that the number of the ethnic people who begin to study Mandarin Chinese is increasing with the rapid development of economy and population mobility as well as the rising China’s urbanization levels.
Therefore, teachers in Chinese language school may tell you that many ethnic languages are endangered because many ethnic groups turn to learn Mandarin language and gradually forget their own languages. At present, China‘s local governments at all levels are taking positive measures to rescue the minority languages by various means for the purpose of ensuring the inheritance and development of the total130 ethnic languages.
China is a country with multi-nationality nation. During the process of promoting the Mandarin language, we should take effective measures to remain the minority languages.