LanguageorgroupoflanguagesoftheSino-Tibetanfamily,spokeninChina,Taiwan,HongKong,Singapore,andChinesecommunitiesthroughouttheworld.VarietiesofspokenChinesediffergreatly,butallshareawrittenformusingthousandsofideographicsymbols–characters–whichhavechangedlittlein2,000years.Nowadays,putonghua(‘commonspeech’),basedontheeducatedBeijingdialectknownasMandarinChinese,ispromotedthroughoutChinaasthenationalspokenandwrittenlanguage.
Becausethewritingsystemhasasymbolicform(likenumbersandmusicnotes)itcanbereadandinterpretedregardlessofthereader'sowndialect.TheChinesedialectsaretonal;thatis,theydependonthetoneofasyllabletoindicateitsmeaning:mawithonetonemeans‘mother’,withanothermeans‘horse’.ThecharactersofChinesescriptweretraditionallywrittendownthepagefromrighttoleft.Todaytheyarecommonlywrittenhorizontallyandreadlefttoright,using2,000simplifiedcharacters.AvariantoftheRomanalphabethasbeenintroducedandisusedinschoolstohelpwithpronunciation.This,calledPinyin,isprescribedforinternationalusebythePeople'sRepublicofChinaforpersonalandplacenames(asinBeijingratherthanPeking).Pinyinspellingsaregenerallyusedinthisvolume,buttheyarenotacceptedbythegovernmentofTaiwan.
