[文学]ABriefIntroductionofChineseLanguage.ppt

A Brief Introduction to theChinese Language Keqian Xu, Ph.D. A very old yet still living language: Several thousand years long history, ever changing, but never interrupted. Belong to the “Sino-Tibetan” language system. More people speak Chinese than any other language in the world. One of the five official languages of UN. About 2 million American residents are Chinese home speakers. 60% of Korean vocabulary comes from Chinese. Written Japanese has several thousand characters borrowed from Chinese. It has been estimated that until the 18th century more than half of the worlds printed books were in Chinese. Some confusing terms： Chinese Language 中文 Hanyu 汉语 Mandarin 官话 Putonghua 普通话 Is Cantonese Chinese? Yes! It’s only one of the many dialects of Chinese (Yue Dialect). The difference is mainly in pronunciation, slightly in vocabulary and grammar, but not in writing system. The Map of Chinese Dialects Northern Wu Yue Min Xiang Gan Hakka What is “Pin Yin”? The Romanized phonetic spelling system created in 1950’s for Mandarin or standard Chinese (Putonghua) It is based on Beijing Dialects, a branch of the Northern dialects of Chinese language It uses 25 letters in English except “ V ”. Chinese (Mandarin) Phonetics Initials (consonants) Finals (a vowel, or a combination of vowels, sometimes with a nasal at the end) Tones (four distinct and one light tones) Each Chinese character corresponds to one syllable. A syllable is consist of an initial, a final and a tone. 21 initials (consonants) 35 finals 4 tones，and a light tone 妈 妈 骑 马，马 慢， 妈 骂 马。 Mother is riding on a horse, the horse walks too slow, so mother curses it. Combinations of initials and finals, plus several special cases, result in 411 possible combinations. Applying the four tones, we get a total of around 1,600 unique syllables. Zhōng Guó Měi Guó 中 国 美 国 China USA Běi Jīng 北京 Nán Jīng 南京 Dōng Jīng 东京 Why not use “Pin Yin” to replace Chinese characters a