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Xiang or Hsiang (Chinese: 湘; Changsha Xiang: [sian˧ y˦˩], [2] Mandarin: [ɕi̯aŋ˥ y˨˩˦]), also known as Hunanese, is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in northern Guangxi and parts of neighboring Guizhou, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces.
Similar phrases are known in the West, such as "Burning one's boats", "burning one's bridges", "Point of no return" or "Crossing the Rubicon". Another example is 瓜田李下 ( guātián lǐxià ⓘ 'melon field, beneath the plums', whose meaning relates to the appearance of misconduct or impropriety.
Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; as of 2024, nearly 100 000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters ...
"row" — objects which form lines (words 詞 / 词, etc.); occupations in a field (idiom, spoken language); 行 could also be pronounced as xíng, see below. 盒: hé hap6: hap6 objects in a small "box" or case (e.g. mooncakes, tapes) 戶 / 户: 户: hù wu6: wu6 households (户 is common in handwritten Traditional Chinese) — household ...
Loanwords have entered written and spoken Chinese from many sources, including ancient peoples whose descendants now speak Chinese. In addition to phonetic differences, varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese and Shanghainese often have distinct words and phrases left from their original languages which they continue to use in daily life and sometimes even in Mandarin.
In 2010, Tibetan students protested against changes in the Language Policy on the schools that promoted the use of Mandarin Chinese instead of Tibetan. They argued that the measure would erode their culture. [10] In 2013, China's Education Ministry said that about 400 million people were unable to speak the national language Mandarin.
A page from the Yiqiejing yinyi, the oldest extant Chinese dictionary of Buddhist technical terminology – Dunhuang manuscripts, c. 8th century. There are two types of dictionaries regularly used in the Chinese language: 'character dictionaries' (字典; zìdiǎn) list individual Chinese characters, and 'word dictionaries' (辞典; 辭典; cídiǎn) list words and phrases.
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the city of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family .