Chinese is the most widely spoken language in China, and it is also the most widely used language as the first language in the world. In China, besides the Han nationality, Hui and Manchu also basically use or switch to Chinese. Other ethnic groups have their own languages, and many ethnic groups use or use Chinese to varying degrees. ?
Modern Chinese can be divided into standard language and dialect. Mandarin is the standard language of modern Chinese, with Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation, northern dialect as the basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm. The Constitution of People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulates: "The state promotes Putonghua, which is commonly used throughout the country."
The National Common Language and Characters Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) promulgated on June 5438+1October 3 1 2000 confirmed Putonghua as the national common language and characters. Chinese dialects are usually divided into ten dialects: Mandarin, Jin dialect, Wu dialect, Min dialect, Hakka dialect, Cantonese dialect, Hunan dialect, Gan dialect, Hui dialect and Pinghua dialect.
Chinese is an analytical language, generally with 2 to 13 tones. Chinese writing system is a kind of linguistic sign, which has both ideographic and phonetic functions. Chinese includes spoken and written language. The ancient written language is called classical Chinese, and the modern written language is called vernacular Chinese, which is based on modern standard language.
Chinese has a long history and the largest number of users. The number of people who use Chinese in the world is at least 65.438+0.5 billion, accounting for 20% of the world's total population. Chinese is the official language of China, one of the four official languages of Singapore and one of the six working languages of the United Nations. Chinese are mainly distributed in China, as well as Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.