Thirty-Eighth Edition - Chinese Languages and Character Sets

Chinese is among the most frequently requested languages and one that elicits many questions from our clients. For example: What character set should be used for Mainland China? What about Taiwan? What version of spoken Chinese is appropriate for Hong Kong? And so on. The purpose of this newsletter is to anticipate and answer some of the questions that you might have, as you contemplate translating your website, product literature, video or other product-related documentation into Chinese.

A brief historical background

The Chinese characters sets are identified as Traditional or Simplified. The distinction was created when, after the Chinese Civil War, the People's Republic of China officially implemented character simplification, first in 1956 and then in 1964.

The Chinese Civil War was a conflict between the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party; KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). It began in 1926, with the takeover of the KMT by General Chiang Kai-shek and ended in 1949 when Communists took control of mainland, forcing the Kuomitang out of the region and into Taiwan and several outlying Fujianese islands.

On October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China (PRC) In December 1949 Chiang Kai-shek proclaimed Taipei, Taiwan, the temporary capital of the Republic of China (ROC).

Character simplification in mainland China is often associated with the Cultural Revolution, but the concept dates back the 1930s and 1940s, during the Kuomintang Government, when many Chinese intellectuals were convinced that character simplification would promote literacy.

Written Communication - Chinese character sets

For websites, product instructions, marketing brochures, and all forms of written communication, it is necessary to select the character set that is appropriate for the region and target audience. For example, the Chinese Traditional character set is suitable for Taiwan, but Chinese Simplified should be selected for mainland China or Singapore. The following table indicates where each character set is used. It also includes information on related character encoded systems.

 

Character	Where used	Character encoded systems (Codesets)
Chinese Simplified	Mainland China (PRC), Singapore and Malaysia	GB2312
		GBK/GBX
		UTF-8 *
Chinese Traditional	Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and most overseas communities	Big Five/Big Five Plus
		eucTW
		UTF-8 *

*Selecting UTF-8 as the default character set, avoids the need to use different codesets for XML Javascripts and other applications. Most browsers handle UTF-8.

The spoken languages of China

If you are considering translating the audio component of a video to be used in China, you need to know which language or dialect is most appropriate for the region where it is intended to be released or distributed. Mandarin is the Chinese language that has the largest number of speakers and it is spoken both in Taiwan and Mainland China. However, Cantonese is more appropriate for Hong Kong and the overseas communities where Chinese migrants have settled.

Most linguists classify all of the variations of Chinese within the Sino-Tibetan language family. The seven main groups are Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, and Min (which linguists further divide into 5 to 7 subdivisions on its own, all of which are mutually unintelligible). The following table highlights some of these languages and/or dialects:
 

Language	Where spoken	Approx. No. of speakers	Remarks
Mandarin (北方话) aka Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua 普通话, based on the Beijing dialect), and Guoyu 國語	Official (spoken) language of Mainland China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC) and Singapore. Also spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, and other Chinese communities around the world.	870 million	Originally, it referred to the language of the "Mandarins", or officials in the Imperial Chinese court. It is now used to describe several related forms of Chinese speech.
Cantonese / Yue (粤语)	Official (spoken) language of Hong Kong. Also spoken in China (PRC) Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Macau, and other countries where Cantonese migrants have settled.	66 million	There are differences of opinion regarding whether Cantonese is a language or a dialect. Cantonese does not have more tone levels than Mandarin (three, excluding the Cantonese low falling tone, that begins on the third level and needs somewhere to fall), but Cantonese does have a more complete set of tone courses. There are sizeable Chinese communities in Canada, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Panama, the Netherlands and other European countries where Cantonese is spoken.
Wu (吴语)	Not an official language anywhere, but it is spoken in China (PRC) Taiwan (ROC), Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries where Wu Chinese migrants have settled.	77 Million
Hakka (客家话)	Not an official language of any particular country or region, but it is spoken in China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries where Hakka Chinese migrants have settled.	34 million
Min (閩方言	Min (閩方言 in pinyin: min3 fang1 yan2) is the general term used to designate a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Taiwan, Guangdong, Hainan and two counties in southern Zhejiang and Zhoushan archipelago off Ningbo. There are many Min speakers also among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.	20 million

We hope that you have found this newsletter about the Chinese languages useful and informative. If you are still unsure about what version of Chinese, written or spoken you should select for your particular application, or if you would like a cost estimate on an upcoming localization project that includes Chinese, please do not hesitate to contact us. One of our representatives will be glad to answer your questions.

References:

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Mandarin_Chinese
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tw.html
http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/profiles/profc01.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Teng-hui