<p>I think so-called Chinese dialects(中國方言/地方话) <strong>exclude</strong> the languages spoken by the racial/cultural minorities,  which include but are not limited to - Tibetan(藏語), Uyghur(维吾尔語), Hmong(苗語), Manchu(满语), Mogolian(蒙古文), as these languages have absolutely no genealogical relation to Mandarin.</p>
<p><strong>ADD:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dialect is by definition some form of the SAME language. If it's totally different - it's not a dialect, but language of a smaller nation.</p>
<p>Consider <strong>Wenzhou</strong> or other languages - they use Chinese characters but are not understandable to the majority of Chinese. They are totally different, but the Chinese government uses the term 'dialect' everywhere.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would be correct if you stated: &quot;Part of the definitions of Dialect is some form of the SAME language.&quot;</p>
<ul>
<li>Per wiki article <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Dialects</a>, &quot;The more common usage of the term in English refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible, .... <strong>but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity</strong>.....&quot;</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Historical link between Wenzou and China:</strong></p>
<p>About 5000 years ago, Wenzhou was a territory of &quot;东瓯国(瓯越)&quot;, which was one of the native groups in regions identified as &quot;百越&quot; by the Qin Dynasty. 东瓯国 was later annihilated and incorporated by the Han Dynasty. As pointed out by Prof. 林惠祥 of the University in Xiamen, &quot;百越&quot;, &quot;华夏&quot;、&quot;东夷&quot;、and &quot;荆吴&quot; were the 4 primary sources of &quot;<strong>汉族</strong>&quot;, which is the main/largest ethnic group in China. <a href="https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BE%E8%B6%8A/1979157" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BE%E8%B6%8A/1979157</a></p>
<p><a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BA%AB%E5%B7%9E%E4%BA%BA" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>温州人</strong></a></p>
<p>&quot;温州人，人口大部分是<strong>汉族</strong>(see note below)，主要使用<strong>吴语温州话</strong>，但由于地理上的区隔，使温州话口语发展成为一种以有高度分歧音韵的方言。因此，即使是其他吴语方言的使用者也无法理解温州话，使<strong>温州话成为最难懂的汉语方言</strong>。温州话保留了大量其他汉语方言中丢失的古汉语词汇，<strong>为古汉语的“活化石”</strong>，与普通话有明显的语法差异。[9][10]由于温州话高度困难理解，在抗日战争及中越战争时均作军事代号语言。</p>
<p>Note: 汉语 consisted of a group of Chinese language dialects spoken by Han Chinese, and that's why the spoken language of Wenzhou is considered a Chinese dialect rather than a foreign language, albeit it is difficult for the majority of Chinese outside of its community.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T01:20:30.297Z
By these definitions, "Mandarin" was originally a "方言" since historically it was spoken primarily in the region around Beijing? But becomes a "National Language", (named "普通话"), by governmental edict rather than it being a truly transregional lingua franca which it later becomes after 70 years of pedagogical and general usage.  Perhaps the confusion, (argument), stems from a strict, rigid definitive correlation between 方言 & Dialect in the sense that a dialect is a 方言 but a 方言 is not necessarily a dialect?
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T03:30:40.657Z
I like this definition - Mandarin is a group of Chinese language dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T06:44:40.023Z
Just to be clear, you're saying that this isn't done to prevent a schism between the so-called dialects (as per OP's assumption); but rather to _foster_ a different kind of schism, i.e. between the so-called dialects vs the non-dialects?
Flater
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-15T20:51:03.850Z
2024-09-16T19:15:32.833Z
2024-09-16T19:15:32.833Z
r13
<p>It is merely that the term 方言 (literally <em>place speech</em>) is (almost always) incorrectly translated as <em>dialect</em>.</p>
<p>The better translation preferred by linguists is <em>topolect</em> (which may be decomposed into Greek as also <em>place speech</em>).</p>
<p>With either the term 方言 or <em>topolect</em>, there is no presumption that the speech is simply some variant of some language.</p>
<p>Since the official language of the PRC is Chinese and not English, it doesn't really make sense to claim that the PRC government uses the English word <em>dialect</em>. (Though one can certainly <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=dialects+site%3A.gov.cn" rel="nofollow noreferrer">find</a> English-language webpages and documents by the Chinese government that use this word.)</p>
<hr />
<p>One government that did use the English word <em>dialect</em> was that of Singapore (the only Chinese-majority country not claimed by the PRC).</p>
<p>In Singapore, the word <em>dialect</em> was indeed used for political purposes: It was used to deprecate and discourage the use of the Southern Chinese languages commonly spoken in Singapore (Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, Hockchew). Such languages were condemned as &quot;mere dialects&quot; and the status of Mandarin was elevated. (Today, non-Mandarin Chinese languages survive only among the old.)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T06:55:48.260Z
There may be some truth to this. For instance, the phrase 吴方言 (Wu dialect/topolect) is actually about as common as 吴语 (Wu language) on Chinese government websites. If the government were making much of an effort to make Wu out to be "not a language" and *just* a "regional way of speaking," one assumes that they would avoid calling it by the same term as, say, the French language (法语).
Obie 2.0
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2024-09-17T07:01:20.360Z
But one does have to consider the possibility that the "person on the street" in China may not be quite as knowledgeable as the government linguists and copy editors and may see them differently, just as in Mexico, the government will only talk about *lenguas indígenas*, but to many ordinary people, it's *el dialecto maya* but *el idioma español*.
Obie 2.0
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T05:25:49.783Z
2024-09-17T05:25:49.783Z
user103496
<p>A few things to note:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>First, the official term the government uses is 方言, which is best translated as <em>regional speech</em>, as the implication is that although different, all the 方言 are still direct descendants of Middle and Old Chinese(which they are), so the Chinese people still speak variations of the &quot;same language&quot; and we should be &quot;one and united&quot;.</p>
</li>
<li><p>As others have noted, the 方言's of China do not include those spoken by minority groups, such as Korean by 朝鲜族, Mongolian by 蒙古族, Tibetan by 藏族, etc. 方言's are only used to refer to the Sinitic languages spoken in China today.</p>
</li>
<li><p>LINGUISTICALLY SPEAKING, the classification of the current state of 方言's would be that, since they are not mutually intelligible, they are different <em>languages</em>, but all under the Chinese language family.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>However, there is a famous saying in the field of linguistics that &quot;A language is a dialect with an army and navy.&quot; This saying perfectly describes the current situation in the world, not just China. Because China has been mostly united as a single country, and (to a certain degree) in order to maintain peace, the government <strong>wants</strong> the people to think that they speak the same language thus helping with social stability.</p>
<p>In Europe, however, although Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and a few others are all descendants of Latin and a part of the Romance language family, since all the countries declared independence after the fall of the Roman Empire, they call themselves different languages to strengthen their national identity and yes there is more or less a political motive behind all of these. Especially with Spanish and Portuguese, the two languages are <strong>almost mutually intelligible</strong>, yet due to politics and borders we call them distinct languages these days.</p>
<p>Linguistically, the situation in China is not that far different from that of Europe. China's 方言's are all derived from Old &amp; Middle Chinese and are under the Sinitic language family, but are called &quot;dialects&quot;, if you will, due to the political situation in China. Western European languages are either under the Germanic language family (English, German, Dutch, ...) or the Romance language family (French, Spanish, Italian, ...) but they are &quot;distinct languages&quot; due to the political situation there. Heck, had the Roman Empire not fallen, we'd all be speaking &quot;dialects of Latin&quot; now, instead of English or French. The difference between German and Dutch is much smaller than that of Mandarin and Min, so...</p>
<p>There is also the argument that Chinese &quot;dialects&quot; are united by the same writing system, but the situation in Europe is not much different:</p>
<ul>
<li>Mandarin: 速度 sùdù</li>
<li>Cantonese: 速度 cuk1 dou6</li>
<li>Min: 速度 sog4 dou7</li>
<li>Hakka: 速度 suk-thu</li>
</ul>
<p>Pretty neat, huh? Let's see for Europe:</p>
<ul>
<li>English: Velocity</li>
<li>French: Vélocité</li>
<li>Italian: Velocità</li>
<li>Spanish: Velocidad</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, of course Chinese, due to its non-phonetic writing system and long-standing history of unitedness thus communication, there are more words like this in Chinese than in European languages, but the point I want to make here, is that the division of language and dialect is very arbitrary and heavily politics-based. Had Europe been a united country all along, the above languages may as well be considered &quot;modern dialects of Latin.&quot;</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T11:49:42.987Z
As you say, the Chinese term is not actually 'dialect' - this would seem to be a translation by foreign scholars. Also, I think you have chosen an example that appears to be more extreme than it actually is; the transliteration artificially amplifies the nuances in pronunciation, and Westerners have a tradition for exaggerating the differences in languages they have made the effort to understand in depth.
j4nd3r53n
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T12:37:53.947Z
Linguistically speaking, mutual intelligibility alone **does not** warrant status as different languages. It is often used as the _primary_ criterion for distinguishing languages, but never as the _only_ criterion, precisely because there are lots of dialects that _aren’t_ mutually intelligible (e.g., the most strongly divergent variants of Arabic or even English), and also lots of separate languages that _are_ mutually intelligible (Spanish/Portuguese, Bulgarian/Macedonian, Swedish/Norwegian, etc.). Linguists have varying called Chinese variants languages, regiolects, dialects, etc.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
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2024-09-16T21:59:46.607Z
I'm not so sure about Spanish and Portuguese.  I can understand Portuguese to some extent, but after two semesters of it and twenty months of speaking Spanish in Spain/Me2xico/Perú, I'd expect more.  But in contrast, my level B1 in Spanish allowed me to pass an A1 test for Italian without any lessons.
伟思礼
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2024-09-17T06:27:43.940Z
@伟思礼 - I am fluent in Spanish with a C2 certification and I have studied Portuguese a bit. I can understand maybe about 50% of what I hear on the news, particularly Brazilian Portuguese. They are not the same language if mutual intelligibility is the criterion.
Obie 2.0
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2024-09-17T06:33:33.300Z
@JanusBahsJacquet - Arguably, those mutually intelligible languages are actually just dialects of a single language that are considered different for political reasons. Even Catalan and Valencian—two dialects of the same language by most standards, in two small neighboring regions of the same country—occasionally get called different languages, but they are not, any more than Texan and Bostonian are.
Obie 2.0
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2024-09-17T06:34:41.753Z
On the other hand, those mutually incomprehensible dialects are really just different languages that are considered the same for political reasons—different kinds of Arabic are absolutely different languages, and while neither Caribbean English nor Irish English nor Indian English dialects give me much difficulty, once one starts getting into creoles and pidgins—which even some speakers of those languages call "broke(n) English—it is different, because those variants *are* in fact separate languages (usually with a substantial non-English substrate).
Obie 2.0
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2024-09-17T08:35:28.500Z
@Obie2.0 But that’s my whole point: since **there is no actual definition of what constitutes a language vs a dialect**, what you’re doing here is simply reclassifying established languages and dialects based on one criterion and ignoring the others. All languages are defined by a number of criteria, including socio-political factors, and claiming that X and Y are (not) separate languages based only on intelligibility is inherently non-linguistic: linguists _describe_ languages, rather than defining them. Also remember that mutual intelligibility is not binary.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
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2024-09-17T09:31:11.503Z
@JanusBahsJacquet - I don't think that using "sociopolitical factors" is meaningful, though. Saying "I speak English, but you speak American," for instance, is itself non-linguistic and elevates nationalist (or internationalist) sentiments over meaningful understanding of a language. You might as well say "I speak the Tory language, but you speak the Labour language," or "middle-class English and upper-class English are separate languages."
Obie 2.0
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T09:43:30.593Z
@Obie2.0 English (in all its forms) is established worldwide as a single language, just like Arabic is, regardless of how well speakers of different varieties can understand each other. Many speech forms are established as languages or dialects entirely through socio-politico-historical convention (e.g., Urdu/Hindi) – at its core, the very distinction between is somewhat non-linguistic.
Janus Bahs Jacquet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T18:28:53.403Z
I have to agree with Obie (for reasons we both stated) that Portuguese and Spanish are different languages.  And for me, Catalan is just as different from Spanish as is Portuguese.
伟思礼
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T18:34:03.323Z
Regarding "mutual intelligibility is not binary," I've come across more than one instance of X/Y/Z being called dialects when X & Y or Y & Z are mutually intelligible but X & Z are not.
伟思礼
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-19T13:14:42.017Z
good comparison btw Latin and mandarin, basically europe is dividied into separate govts and each govt tries to promote DISTINCT identity but in china sinitic languages are united and the govt tries to promote single identity
ERJAN
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T03:48:12.153Z
2024-09-16T17:26:14.193Z
2024-09-16T17:26:14.193Z
dvx2718
<p>A bit of a political question.</p>
<p>We know there are quite a few major 'dialects' in China that are not even mutually intelligible, since they are not dialects but languages. Dialect is by definition some form of the SAME language. If it's totally different - it's not a dialect, but language of a smaller nation.</p>
<p>Consider Wenzhou or other languages - they use Chinese characters but are not understandable to the majority of Chinese. They are totally different, but the Chinese government uses the term 'dialect' everywhere.</p>
<p>Why did the Chinese government call these languages 'dialects'? Is this to prevent any subnational separatism?</p>

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2024-09-15T17:41:42.327Z
What is weizhou?
kyc
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2024-09-15T18:14:57.637Z
"We know there are pretty big 'dialects' in china that are not even understandable"? You mean these people speak gibberish, which no one understands? Poor souls, unable to communicate!
Pedroski
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-15T19:30:44.160Z
This question is nonsense, because the Chinese government doesn't call its languages "dialects". Chinese uses the word 方言, which primarily means *regional speech*, where "regional" is in the geographic sense. We can say that, for example, Welsh is a 方言 of the UK, even though Welsh is not a dialect of English.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T01:59:31.217Z
"...to prevent any subnation separatism", i.e. "separatism nationalism", being the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental separation. Was that the unspoken intention of the policy makers in1949 when Mandarin as 普通话 was introduced? The case of the Republic of Singapore comes to mind; that country has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Mandarin is called 华语, not 普通话. If the PRC were to do the same, to quell any separatist ambition, to give every language / 方言 a place in the sun, it'll have god knows how many official languages.
Wayne Cheah
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T03:49:18.107Z
Weizhou (涠洲岛; Wéizhōu Dǎo) is China's biggest and youngest volcanic island. It is located 21 nautical miles south of Beihai city in the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea. With about 6km from north to south and 5km from east to west, the island covers a land area of about 25km². https://wikitravel.org/en/Weizhou#:~:text=Formed%20by%20volcanic%20eruptions%20about,corals%20and%20other%20aquatic%20animals.
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T03:54:55.630Z
"they use chinese characters but are not understandable to other majority of Chinese." - it was the main barrier to the unification of China before 普通话 was introduced, albeit sharing the same characters for writing, people from different areas often can't understand each other through speaking only.
r13
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-16T04:55:29.073Z
Should `Weizhou` be `Wenzhou` `温州`? 温州话 has a reputation for being divergent and difficult to understand among Sinitic languages. It seems to fit the context of the question.
Greg Nisbet
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T18:03:18.317Z
@dROOOze I’m not sure I would use Welsh as an example in this case, as it fails one of the key criteria that appears to qualify a language to be considered a 方言 (namely, it’s almost completely unrelated to the ‘primary’ language, being Brittonic Celtic language instead of a West-Sea Germanic language like English). Catalan within Spain, Occitan within France, and Dalecarian within Sweden are likely better analogies here.
Austin Hemmelgarn
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-09-17T18:13:08.703Z
@AustinHemmelgarn I deliberately used Welsh *because* it's unrelated to English - it is a regional spoken language of the UK, like English and Scottish Gaelic. In the loosest usage, 方言 does not imply any shared heritage at all - the term [appeared in the Han dynasty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangyan_(book)) in the titular book, and there was no science of linguistics back then. To attach any sort of meaning to 方言 other than "regional speech localised in a geographical area" is at best anachronistic.
dROOOze
<topolect>
Why did the Chinese government call its actual languages 'dialects'? Is this to prevent any subnational separatism?
# Why did the Chinese government call its actual languages 'dialects'? Is this to prevent any subnational separatism?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-09-15)

A bit of a political question.

We know there are quite a few major 'dialects' in China that are not even mutually intelligible, since they are not dialects but languages. Dialect is by definition some form of the SAME language. If it's totally different - it's not a dialect, but language of a smaller nation.

Consider Wenzhou or other languages - they use Chinese characters but are not understandable to the majority of Chinese. They are totally different, but the Chinese government uses the term 'dialect' everywhere.

Why did the Chinese government call these languages 'dialects'? Is this to prevent any subnational separatism?

**Tags:** topolect

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: What is weizhou?  
> **username_2**: "We know there are pretty big 'dialects' in china that are not even understandable"? You mean these people speak gibberish, which no one understands? Poor souls, unable to communicate!  
> **username_3**: This question is nonsense, because the Chinese government doesn't call its languages "dialects". Chinese uses the word 方言, which primarily means *regional speech*, where "regional" is in the geographic sense. We can say that, for example, Welsh is a 方言 of the UK, even though Welsh is not a dialect of English.  
> **username_4**: "...to prevent any subnation separatism", i.e. "separatism nationalism", being the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental separation. Was that the unspoken intention of the policy makers in1949 when Mandarin as 普通话 was introduced? The case of the Republic of Singapore comes to mind; that country has four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Mandarin is called 华语, not 普通话. If the PRC were to do the same, to quell any separatist ambition, to give every language / 方言 a place in the sun, it'll have god knows how many official languages.  
> **username_5**: Weizhou (涠洲岛; Wéizhōu Dǎo) is China's biggest and youngest volcanic island. It is located 21 nautical miles south of Beihai city in the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea. With about 6km from north to south and 5km from east to west, the island covers a land area of about 25km². https://wikitravel.org/en/Weizhou#:~:text=Formed%20by%20volcanic%20eruptions%20about,corals%20and%20other%20aquatic%20animals.  
> **username_5**: "they use chinese characters but are not understandable to other majority of Chinese." - it was the main barrier to the unification of China before 普通话 was introduced, albeit sharing the same characters for writing, people from different areas often can't understand each other through speaking only.  
> **username_6**: Should `Weizhou` be `Wenzhou` `温州`? 温州话 has a reputation for being divergent and difficult to understand among Sinitic languages. It seems to fit the context of the question.  
> **username_7**: @username_3 I’m not sure I would use Welsh as an example in this case, as it fails one of the key criteria that appears to qualify a language to be considered a 方言 (namely, it’s almost completely unrelated to the ‘primary’ language, being Brittonic Celtic language instead of a West-Sea Germanic language like English). Catalan within Spain, Occitan within France, and Dalecarian within Sweden are likely better analogies here.  
> **username_3**: @username_7 I deliberately used Welsh *because* it's unrelated to English - it is a regional spoken language of the UK, like English and Scottish Gaelic. In the loosest usage, 方言 does not imply any shared heritage at all - the term [appeared in the Han dynasty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangyan_(book)) in the titular book, and there was no science of linguistics back then. To attach any sort of meaning to 方言 other than "regional speech localised in a geographical area" is at best anachronistic.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_11 on 2024-09-16. Score: 10 | Accepted answer

A few things to note:

* First, the official term the government uses is 方言, which is best translated as *regional speech*, as the implication is that although different, all the 方言 are still direct descendants of Middle and Old Chinese(which they are), so the Chinese people still speak variations of the "same language" and we should be "one and united".
* As others have noted, the 方言's of China do not include those spoken by minority groups, such as Korean by 朝鲜族, Mongolian by 蒙古族, Tibetan by 藏族, etc. 方言's are only used to refer to the Sinitic languages spoken in China today.
* LINGUISTICALLY SPEAKING, the classification of the current state of 方言's would be that, since they are not mutually intelligible, they are different *languages*, but all under the Chinese language family.

However, there is a famous saying in the field of linguistics that "A language is a dialect with an army and navy." This saying perfectly describes the current situation in the world, not just China. Because China has been mostly united as a single country, and (to a certain degree) in order to maintain peace, the government **wants** the people to think that they speak the same language thus helping with social stability.

In Europe, however, although Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and a few others are all descendants of Latin and a part of the Romance language family, since all the countries declared independence after the fall of the Roman Empire, they call themselves different languages to strengthen their national identity and yes there is more or less a political motive behind all of these. Especially with Spanish and Portuguese, the two languages are **almost mutually intelligible**, yet due to politics and borders we call them distinct languages these days.

Linguistically, the situation in China is not that far different from that of Europe. China's 方言's are all derived from Old & Middle Chinese and are under the Sinitic language family, but are called "dialects", if you will, due to the political situation in China. Western European languages are either under the Germanic language family (English, German, Dutch, ...) or the Romance language family (French, Spanish, Italian, ...) but they are "distinct languages" due to the political situation there. Heck, had the Roman Empire not fallen, we'd all be speaking "dialects of Latin" now, instead of English or French. The difference between German and Dutch is much smaller than that of Mandarin and Min, so...

There is also the argument that Chinese "dialects" are united by the same writing system, but the situation in Europe is not much different:

* Mandarin: 速度 sùdù
* Cantonese: 速度 cuk1 dou6
* Min: 速度 sog4 dou7
* Hakka: 速度 suk-thu

Pretty neat, huh? Let's see for Europe:

* English: Velocity
* French: Vélocité
* Italian: Velocità
* Spanish: Velocidad

Now, of course Chinese, due to its non-phonetic writing system and long-standing history of unitedness thus communication, there are more words like this in Chinese than in European languages, but the point I want to make here, is that the division of language and dialect is very arbitrary and heavily politics-based. Had Europe been a united country all along, the above languages may as well be considered "modern dialects of Latin."

> **Comments:**
> **username_12**: As you say, the Chinese term is not actually 'dialect' - this would seem to be a translation by foreign scholars. Also, I think you have chosen an example that appears to be more extreme than it actually is; the transliteration artificially amplifies the nuances in pronunciation, and Westerners have a tradition for exaggerating the differences in languages they have made the effort to understand in depth.  
> **username_13**: Linguistically speaking, mutual intelligibility alone **does not** warrant status as different languages. It is often used as the _primary_ criterion for distinguishing languages, but never as the _only_ criterion, precisely because there are lots of dialects that _aren’t_ mutually intelligible (e.g., the most strongly divergent variants of Arabic or even English), and also lots of separate languages that _are_ mutually intelligible (Spanish/Portuguese, Bulgarian/Macedonian, Swedish/Norwegian, etc.). Linguists have varying called Chinese variants languages, regiolects, dialects, etc.  
> **username_14**: I'm not so sure about Spanish and Portuguese.  I can understand Portuguese to some extent, but after two semesters of it and twenty months of speaking Spanish in Spain/Me2xico/Perú, I'd expect more.  But in contrast, my level B1 in Spanish allowed me to pass an A1 test for Italian without any lessons.  
> **username_10**: @username_14 - I am fluent in Spanish with a C2 certification and I have studied Portuguese a bit. I can understand maybe about 50% of what I hear on the news, particularly Brazilian Portuguese. They are not the same language if mutual intelligibility is the criterion.  
> **username_10**: @username_13 - Arguably, those mutually intelligible languages are actually just dialects of a single language that are considered different for political reasons. Even Catalan and Valencian—two dialects of the same language by most standards, in two small neighboring regions of the same country—occasionally get called different languages, but they are not, any more than Texan and Bostonian are.  
> **username_10**: On the other hand, those mutually incomprehensible dialects are really just different languages that are considered the same for political reasons—different kinds of Arabic are absolutely different languages, and while neither Caribbean English nor Irish English nor Indian English dialects give me much difficulty, once one starts getting into creoles and pidgins—which even some speakers of those languages call "broke(n) English—it is different, because those variants *are* in fact separate languages (usually with a substantial non-English substrate).  
> **username_13**: @username_10 But that’s my whole point: since **there is no actual definition of what constitutes a language vs a dialect**, what you’re doing here is simply reclassifying established languages and dialects based on one criterion and ignoring the others. All languages are defined by a number of criteria, including socio-political factors, and claiming that X and Y are (not) separate languages based only on intelligibility is inherently non-linguistic: linguists _describe_ languages, rather than defining them. Also remember that mutual intelligibility is not binary.  
> **username_10**: @username_13 - I don't think that using "sociopolitical factors" is meaningful, though. Saying "I speak English, but you speak American," for instance, is itself non-linguistic and elevates nationalist (or internationalist) sentiments over meaningful understanding of a language. You might as well say "I speak the Tory language, but you speak the Labour language," or "middle-class English and upper-class English are separate languages."  
> **username_13**: @username_10 English (in all its forms) is established worldwide as a single language, just like Arabic is, regardless of how well speakers of different varieties can understand each other. Many speech forms are established as languages or dialects entirely through socio-politico-historical convention (e.g., Urdu/Hindi) – at its core, the very distinction between is somewhat non-linguistic.  
> **username_14**: I have to agree with username_10 (for reasons we both stated) that Portuguese and Spanish are different languages.  And for me, Catalan is just as different from Spanish as is Portuguese.  
> **username_14**: Regarding "mutual intelligibility is not binary," I've come across more than one instance of X/Y/Z being called dialects when X & Y or Y & Z are mutually intelligible but X & Z are not.  
> **username_0**: good comparison btw Latin and mandarin, basically europe is dividied into separate govts and each govt tries to promote DISTINCT identity but in china sinitic languages are united and the govt tries to promote single identity  

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### Answer by username_5 on 2024-09-15. Score: 2

I think so-called Chinese dialects(中國方言/地方话) **exclude** the languages spoken by the racial/cultural minorities, which include but are not limited to - Tibetan(藏語), Uyghur(维吾尔語), Hmong(苗語), Manchu(满语), Mogolian(蒙古文), as these languages have absolutely no genealogical relation to Mandarin.

**ADD:**

> Dialect is by definition some form of the SAME language. If it's totally different - it's not a dialect, but language of a smaller nation.
>
> Consider **Wenzhou** or other languages - they use Chinese characters but are not understandable to the majority of Chinese. They are totally different, but the Chinese government uses the term 'dialect' everywhere.

It would be correct if you stated: "Part of the definitions of Dialect is some form of the SAME language."

* Per wiki article [Dialects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect), "The more common usage of the term in English refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible, .... **but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity**....."

**Historical link between Wenzou and China:**

About 5000 years ago, Wenzhou was a territory of "东瓯国(瓯越)", which was one of the native groups in regions identified as "百越" by the Qin Dynasty. 东瓯国 was later annihilated and incorporated by the Han Dynasty. As pointed out by Prof. 林惠祥 of the University in Xiamen, "百越", "华夏"、"东夷"、and "荆吴" were the 4 primary sources of "**汉族**", which is the main/largest ethnic group in China. <https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%99%BE%E8%B6%8A/1979157>

[**温州人**](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BA%AB%E5%B7%9E%E4%BA%BA)

"温州人，人口大部分是**汉族**(see note below)，主要使用**吴语温州话**，但由于地理上的区隔，使温州话口语发展成为一种以有高度分歧音韵的方言。因此，即使是其他吴语方言的使用者也无法理解温州话，使**温州话成为最难懂的汉语方言**。温州话保留了大量其他汉语方言中丢失的古汉语词汇，**为古汉语的“活化石”**，与普通话有明显的语法差异。[9][10]由于温州话高度困难理解，在抗日战争及中越战争时均作军事代号语言。

Note: 汉语 consisted of a group of Chinese language dialects spoken by Han Chinese, and that's why the spoken language of Wenzhou is considered a Chinese dialect rather than a foreign language, albeit it is difficult for the majority of Chinese outside of its community.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: By these definitions, "Mandarin" was originally a "方言" since historically it was spoken primarily in the region around Beijing? But becomes a "National Language", (named "普通话"), by governmental edict rather than it being a truly transregional lingua franca which it later becomes after 70 years of pedagogical and general usage.  Perhaps the confusion, (argument), stems from a strict, rigid definitive correlation between 方言 & Dialect in the sense that a dialect is a 方言 but a 方言 is not necessarily a dialect?  
> **username_5**: I like this definition - Mandarin is a group of Chinese language dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese  
> **username_8**: Just to be clear, you're saying that this isn't done to prevent a schism between the so-called dialects (as per OP's assumption); but rather to _foster_ a different kind of schism, i.e. between the so-called dialects vs the non-dialects?  

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### Answer by username_9 on 2024-09-17. Score: 1

It is merely that the term 方言 (literally *place speech*) is (almost always) incorrectly translated as *dialect*.

The better translation preferred by linguists is *topolect* (which may be decomposed into Greek as also *place speech*).

With either the term 方言 or *topolect*, there is no presumption that the speech is simply some variant of some language.

Since the official language of the PRC is Chinese and not English, it doesn't really make sense to claim that the PRC government uses the English word *dialect*. (Though one can certainly [find](https://www.google.com/search?q=dialects+site%3A.gov.cn) English-language webpages and documents by the Chinese government that use this word.)

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One government that did use the English word *dialect* was that of Singapore (the only Chinese-majority country not claimed by the PRC).

In Singapore, the word *dialect* was indeed used for political purposes: It was used to deprecate and discourage the use of the Southern Chinese languages commonly spoken in Singapore (Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka, Hainanese, Hockchew). Such languages were condemned as "mere dialects" and the status of Mandarin was elevated. (Today, non-Mandarin Chinese languages survive only among the old.)

> **Comments:**
> **username_10**: There may be some truth to this. For instance, the phrase 吴方言 (Wu dialect/topolect) is actually about as common as 吴语 (Wu language) on Chinese government websites. If the government were making much of an effort to make Wu out to be "not a language" and *just* a "regional way of speaking," one assumes that they would avoid calling it by the same term as, say, the French language (法语).  
> **username_10**: But one does have to consider the possibility that the "person on the street" in China may not be quite as knowledgeable as the government linguists and copy editors and may see them differently, just as in Mexico, the government will only talk about *lenguas indígenas*, but to many ordinary people, it's *el dialecto maya* but *el idioma español*.  

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