LANGUAGE

By Eric Reilly, rewritten by David Sizer
 ~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~ Have you ever heard anyone speaking Chinese? Chances are that you have, even if you didn’t know it.This is because Chinese is by far the most widely spoken language in the world today. However, you may not have known that there is not only one type of Chinese. There are many different variations of the language, such as Mandarin, Wu, and Cantonese. Mandarin is more popular than all of the other versions of Chinese combined. This is a widely known fact, and is stated on many other websites, such as another one we found, which said that it has “more native speakers than any other language” (Mandarin). The Wu variation of the language is “the second largest language in China and the 10th largest in the world” (Wu). The Wu variation is much smaller than Mandarin, because it only accounts for about one fifteenth of the spoken language in China. The final language that we will talk about is Cantonese, which is even less spoken than Wu. It is only “spoken by about 66 million people mainly in the southeast of China” (Cantonese). It is only the sixteenth most widely spoken language in the world. There are many other dialects in China. There is an amazing 1.176 billion speakers of Chinese in the world, all speaking various dialects. Now you know that not all Chinese is the same.



By David Sizer, rewritten by Eric Reilly
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~ Have you ever seen writing that looked like this: 有您看上去象这个的被看到 的文字? If you have, you’ve read Chinese. It is one of the most interesting languages in the world and it has many unique aspects. It is different from other language because it uses symbols for words, instead of letters. It is a historic language with interesting interpretations and even a new version for modern writing. China’s written language is one of the most historic parts of the Chinese culture. “Chinese is written with characters which are known as hànzi. The characters were originally pictures of people, animals or other things, but over the centuries they have become increasingly stylized and no longer resemble the things they represent” (Ager 1). One quality that makes Chinese different from most other languages is that it is based on pictures of the objects that they represent, similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. They don’t always look like the words that they symbolize, however, because over the years the pictures have changed significantly, and writing has become more complicated than just making drawings. In most cases the meanings have not changed nearly as much as their symbols. Looking at written Chinese is easy, but understanding it is much more difficult. The interpreting system of Chinese can be even more interesting than the symbols themselves. If you compare the interpretation of Chinese to other languages, there won’t be many similarities. For example, in English, the letters only show you how to pronounce a word, not what it means. Chinese is the opposite. Each symbol can be pronounced many ways, but it only has one meaning. This also makes Chinese a unique language. Words and their meanings change in all languages eventually, but in Chinese, the symbols also change over time. As China became more modern, the symbols needed to be simplified. They did this by removing lines form common symbols so they would be easier to write. Changing symbols occurs in very few languages other than Chinese. Chinese is a famous language for all of these unique properties. It is even more complicated than what you see with its unique history, pronunciation, and modernization. Remember, the written language is just a small part of the whole country.  =Works Cited = Ager, Simon. "Chinese script and language." ____Omniglot - a guide to the languages, alphabets, syllabaries and other writing systems of the__  __world__ __. 18 Feb. 2009 . <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Cantonese." Omniglot. Ed. Simon Ager. 4 Mar. 2009 <http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cantonese.htm>.

"Chart Showing How Chinese has Changed" Thinkquest Library. 13 Mar. 2009 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/art/art02.htm> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Chinese Flag." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Wikipedia __ <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Flag_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China.svg> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Chinese Book." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Cornell Library __<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. Cornell University. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/asiaTreasures/japan/Narushima_Ryuhoku_pic.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">

__<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Chinese Comic" <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">__Thinkquest Library__ __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/art/art02.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Eskimo.com __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://www.eskimo.com/~gaspers/ladyjanegrey/life/princepauper3.jpg>. Huang, Liang. "Wu Chinese." UPenn.edu. University of Pennsylvania. 4 Mar. 2009 <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~lhuang3/chineselinguistic/>.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Mandarin Chinese." Wikipedia. 4 Mar. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese>. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Map of China Showing Areas where Different Variations are Spoken." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Wikipedia __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg>. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">"Map of the World Showing where Chinese is Spoken." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> __<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Wikipedia __<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive; color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/New-Map-Sinophone_World.PNG>.