Re: Half of all Chinese people can't speak Mandarin!


"John Swindle" <jcswindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:HZtme.12406$Ri3.8774@xxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Tak To" <takto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:nKadnTRQkb4EhgTfRVn-sg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> David Wright Sr. wrote:
>>
>>> "Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs.tsktsktsk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>> news:d79q38$8v5$1
>>> @news7.svr.pol.co.uk:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/05/23/2003256286
>>>>>The National Language Commission's survey also found that many of the
>>>>>53 percent of China's 1.3 billion people who can speak Mandarin are not
>>>>>frequent Mandarin users.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Just taking your statement at face value, 47 percent of speakers must,
>>>>therefore, be frequent speakers of Mandarin.
>>>>
>>> . . .
>>>
>>> I read the above as 53% *can* speak Mandarin implying that 47% *can't*
>>> speak Mandarin. The rest of the passage was only about a certain number
>>> of that 53% who *can* speak it, but don't use it frequently.
>>
>> See the original Chinese version in, for example,
>>
>> http://www.chinanews.com.hk/cgi-bin/shownews.pl?filename=1226003.cns&date=20041226&type=
>>
>> It says that 53% can use Putonghua "for social interaction"
>> (<jiao1 ji4> ??). Presumably more people know PTH, but not
>> as fluently. Also, 86% use a Sinitic (Han) language for
>> social interaction.
>>
>> The $64,000,000 question is, of course, in this study, how
>> is PTH differentiated from other dialects of Mandarin? IIRC,
>> about 75% of all Chinese (Han) speakers speak a dialect of
>> Mandarin. Given the scale of ths survey, the question is
>> probably left for the surveyees themselves to decide. It is
>> quite possible that over-confident fellow with a thick, say,
>> Shaanxi accent may think himself capable of PTH whereas
>> a timid guy with a mild Nanjing accent might think he has
>> not mastered PTH yet.
>>
>
> The article in English in Taipei Times isn't a direct translation
> of the one in Chinese in China News, but they clearly have a
> common source.
>
> The latter says 53% can speak Putonghua, 86% can speak
> a Chinese dialect (Hanyu fangyan), and 5% can speak a
> minority language. Lee Sau Dan pointed out that 86%
> speaking a Han language seemed low, since over 90% were
> ethnically Han and even more than that should speak a Han
> language.
>
> I wonder if all who said they spoke Putonghua were counted
> as speaking a Chinese dialect (Hanyu fangyan). If not, and
> if the questions were separate, maybe some Putonghua
> speakers denied speaking any local dialect, and maybe some
> failed to answer the question.

I guess it's that old perennial problem of the sample frequency. If you
sample an area, like, say Shenzhen today, you'd get a lot of people from the
provinces. If you sample an area like Beijing, naturally, you get a lot of
Beijing dialect speakers (which is very different in it's vocabulary to PTH,
even though the PTH sounds are modelled on it). If you sample a load of
people up and down the country, then, how big was the sample in each case,
and crucially, where were they taken, and what criteria makes for a good
speaker of the PTH standard, the accent, the vocabulary, a mixture of both
or what...?


>
> As for defining who speaks Putonghua vs Mandarin--in
> English I can't even ask the question properly. For
> "putonghua" I say "Mandarin," as did the Taipei Times.
> How do you make the distinction in Chinese? I think I've
> seen maps in Chinese showing where the major languages
> are spoken, but I can't immediately find such a map and
> can't remember what the Mandarin group is called.
>

LSD says "guanhua" (the language of the officials, i.e. the mandarins), but
that's kinda dated. I prefer to call Mandarin like that of Beijing dialect,
beifanghua (northern dialects). Even that is a bit of a misnomer. The
Mandarin speaking group is generally split into several regions, and some
have occlusive endings, thus a Ru tone, so far from Beijing-like. They span
from Sichuan to Heilongjiang. Southern Chinese dialects occupy the south
eastern quarter of the country, if you want to schematically represent China
as a square divided into four regions.

Dyl.


.

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