Draft:Outline of the Chinese language

See also: Index of the Chinese language

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Chinese:

Chinese (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ; lit. 'Han language' or 中文; Zhōngwén; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language.

What type of thing is Chinese?

Chinese can be described as all of the following:

• Chinese language – as a holistic linguistic entity with wide variation
• the Sinitic languages – a large language family with many mutually unintelligible varieties
  • Standard Chinese
• Chinese characters

Varieties of Chinese

Varieties of Chinese

• Mandarin Chinese
• Jin Chinese
• Wu Chinese
• Gan Chinese
• Xiang Chinese
• Min Chinese
• Hakka Chinese
• Yue Chinese
• Pinghua
• Huizhou Chinese
• Standard Chinese
• Standard Cantonese

History of the Chinese language

• History of the Chinese language

External links

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• Chinese language
• Outlines
• Outlines of languages