Context:

BASIC INFORMATION

China is a multinational country, with a population com­posed of a large number of ethnic and linguistic groups. Almost all its inhabitants are of Mongoloid stock: thus, the basic classification of the population is not so much Han ethnic as linguistic. The Han (Chinese), the largest group, (Chinese) outnumber the minority groups or minority nationalities in every province or autonomous region except Tibet and Sinkiang. The Han. therefore, form the great homoge­neous mass of the Chinese people, sharing the same cul­ture, the same traditions, and the same written language. Some 55 minority groups are spread over approximately 60 percent of the total area of the country. Where these minority groups are found in large numbers, they have been given some semblance of autonomy and self-govern­ment; autonomous regions of several types have been established on the basis of the geographical distribution of nationalities.

The government takes great credit for its treatment of these minorities, including care for their economic well-being, the raising of their living standards, the provision of educational facilities, the promotion of their national languages and cultures, and the raising of their levels of lit­eracy, as well as for the introduction of a written language where none existed previously. In this connection it may be noted that, of the 50-odd minority languages, only 20 had written forms before the coming of the Communists; and only relatively few written languages, for example, Mongolian. Tibetan. Uighur, Kazakh, Tai, and Korean, were in everyday use. Other written languages were used chiefly for religious purposes and by a limited number of persons. Educational institutions for national minorities are a feature of many large cities, notably Peking, Wu­han, Ch'eng-tu. and Lan-chou.

Four major language families are represented in China: the Sino-Tibetan. Altaic. Indo-European, and Austro-Asiatic. The Sino-Tibetan family, both numerically and in the extent of its distribution, is the most important; within this family, Han Chinese is the most widely spoken language. Although unified by their tradition, the written characters of their language, and many cultural traits, the Han speak several mutually unintelligible dialects and display marked regional differences. By far the most im­portant Chinese tongue is the Mandarin, or p'u-l'ung hua, meaning "ordinary language" or "common language". There are three variants of Mandarin. The first of these is the northern variant, of which the Peking dialect, or Peking hua, is typical and which is spoken to the north of the Tsinling Mountains-Huai River line: as the most widespread Chinese tongue, it has officially been adopted as the basis for a national language. The second is the western variant, also known as the Ch'eng-tu or Upper Yangtze variant; this is spoken in the Szechwan Basin and in adjoining parts of south-west China. The third is the southern variant, also known as the Nanking or Lower Yangtze variant, which is spoken in northern Kiangsu and in southern and central Anhwei Related to Mandarin are the Hunan, or Hsiang, dialect, spoken by people in central and southern Hunan, and the Kan dialect. The Hui-chou dialect, spoken in southern Anhwei, forms an enclave within the southern Mandarin area.

Less intelligible to Mandarin speakers are the dialects of the south-east coastal region, stretching from Shanghai to Canton. The. most important of these is the Wu dialect, spoken in southern Kiangsu and in Chekiang. This is followed, to the south, by the Fu-chou, or Min. dialect of northern and central Fukien and by the Amoy-Swatow di­alect of southern Fukien and easternmost Kwangtung. The Hakka dialect of southernmost Kiangsi and north-eastern Kwangtung has a rather scattered pattern of distribution. Probably the best known of these southern dialects is Can­tonese, which is spoken in central and western Kwangtung and in southern Kwangsi a dialect area in which a large proportion of overseas Chinese originated.

In addition to the Han, the Manchu and the Hui (Chinese Muslims) also speak Mandarin and use Chinese characters. Manchu The Hui are descendants of Chinese who adopted Islam and Hui when it penetrated into China in the 7th century. They are intermingled with the Han throughout much of the country and are distinguished as Hui only in the area of their heaviest concentration, the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningsia. Other Hui communities are organised as au­tonomous prefectures (tzu-chih-cfiou) in Sinkiang and as autonomous counties (tzu-chih-hsien) in Tsinghai. Hopeh. Kweichow, and Yunnan. There has been a growing ten­dency for the Hui to move from their scattered settlements into the area of major concentration, possibly, as firm ad­herents of Islam, in order to facilitate intermarriage with other Muslims.

The Manchu declare themselves to be descendants of the Manchu warriors who invaded China in the 17th century and founded the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911/12). Ancient Manchu is virtually a dead language, and the Manchu have been completely assimilated into Han Chinese cul­ture. They are found mainly in North China and the Northeast, but they form no separate autonomous areas above the commune level. Some say the Koreans of the Northeast, who form an autonomous prefecture in eastern Kirin, cannot be assigned with certainty to any of the standard language classifications.

The Chuang-chia, or Chuang, are China's largest minority group. Most of them live in the Chuang Autonomous Region of Kwangsi. They are also represented in national autonomous areas in neighbouring Yunnan and Kwang­tung. They depend mainly on the cultivation of rice for their livelihood In religion they are animists, worship­ing particularly the spirits of their ancestors, The Puyi (Chung-chia) group are concentrated in southern Kwei­chow, where they share an autonomous prefecture with the Miao group. The T'ung group are settled in small communities in Kwangsi and Kweichow; they share with the Miao group an autonomous prefecture set up in south-east Kweichow in 1956. The Tai group are concentrated in southern Yunnan and were established in two autono­mous prefectures—one whose population is related most closely to the Tai of northern Thailand and another whose Tai are related to the Shan people of Burma. The Li of Hai-nan Island form a separate group of the Chinese-Tai language branch. They share with the Miao people a district in southern Hai-nan.