Chinese Language in Culture

CHINESE LANGUAGE IN CULTURE

Chinese Language in Culture

COM200: Interpersonal Communication

Tymothy Kennedy

Instructor: Selena Smith

May 3, 2011

Chinese Language and Culture

Cultures have their own language. We all communicate in different ways, but language is one of the main components for how interaction occurs. It is a natural process that we begin hearing at the moment of birth. Most of what we hear as children is often repeated; that is how we initially learn. We may have not known why or what we were saying, but we reciprocated the words. The first time I heard a different language was when I was about 7 years old. My family and I were at a national park. I remember hearing a gentleman talking and I did not have a clue what he was saying. My dad told me that the man was Chinese; and to quit staring. Every corner of the earth has people with their own customs and language. The Chinese language is very unique and contains a rare form of substance.

China has about 50 different categories of the language itself. There are two elements to the Chinese language: the written language, based on individual signs called characters, each of which signifies an idea or thing; and the spoken language, which includes many different dialects. Chinese written language originally had no alphabet, but it was easily understood by literate Chinese; no matter what dialect they spoke. The spelling and many exclusive sounds are from the Latin alphabet called Pinyin. (Halsall, P. 1995) There are, however, more components to the language, which may seem confusing to those not familiar with the system.

As there are many different subcategories of the Chinese language, there are even more tones. The tones are important as they differentiate the vast collection of words. Three of the dialects spoken are; Mandarin, Cantonese, and Putonghua. Putonghua is the most accepted one and is the official language of government and education. Everyone is expected to learn to speak it. Primary and secondary schools are utilizing the Putonghua language as the core study of programs in Hong Kong.

With the Putonghua language being expected of the Chinese culture, Mandarin is the most spoken form. In fact, Mandarin Chinese is the official language of China and Taiwan, and is one of the official languages of Singapore. In English, it is often just called "Mandarin" or "Chinese". In China, it is called Putonghua, meaning "common speech", while in Taiwan it is referred to as Guoyu - "the national language."

To be more specific, Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language.