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In this very clear yet technical chapter, Robert Ramsey describes the sorts of differences that exist among the contemporary dialects of Chinese, usually divided into seven major groups, each with a large number of subdivisions not all of which are mutually intelligible. He explains the origins of some of these differences as the result of migrations, historical events, and cultural values . Readers will note a pervasive difference between the “north” and the “south,” most of the north being linguistically fairly homogeneous and the south extremely diverse. While south China has a particular character, notable for its romance and good business sense, and north China is regarded as more prosaic, the seat of government rather than revolution, conservative rather than experimental, this difference does not hold for language, with the southern dialects relatively conservative and the northern dialects relatively innovative . (This means that linguistic features that scholars believe existed in earlier periods, such as the Tang dynasty, are retained in more southern dialects but have been eliminated in the northern dialects.) Ramsey assumes that readers know that languages change and that they change in systematic ways—that is, they generally change, not a word at a time, but rather in terms of structures and patterns. A striking difference between the languages of China and American dialects is that, while in the United States most dialect differences have to do with vowels (think of a New Yorker, a South Carolinian, and an Iowan pronouncing the word five), in China many of the differences have to do with consonants . For instance, in most of south China, speakers do not distinguish between the sounds written s and sh, while, in the standard form of the northern dialects, these two sounds are always different. A similar lack of distinction can also be seen between n and l, -n and -ng, and other sounds (so that, e.g., the word Nanjing is pronounced something like “Lanjin” by that city’s inhabitants ). One of the ways that Chinese dialects, and even related languages within a single dialect group, differ is in their tones. Tones are analyzed as both classes and reflexes, that is, in terms of how many different types of tones a 45 S. ROBERT RAMSEY 4 The Languages of China given dialect has and how those types actually actually sound when they are produced. Linguists have been using a five-point scale, with 5 the highest and 1 the lowest, to describe the pattern followed by the pronunciation of a given word—actually, the main vowel of each syllable. Some tones are even or level, others rise or fall, and some both rise and fall. The meanings of words differ according to their tones. Imagine an American parent confronting a defiant toddler who does not want to go to bed. The child says “No!” in a strong, falling tone, while the incredulous parent may ask “No?” in a high-rising tone. If these were Chinese words, they would have totally unrelated meanings. You may notice that language changes reveal relationships among groups that might otherwise be difficult to trace. One of the somewhat surprising conclusions that Ramsey reaches on the basis of his linguistic analysis is that the Cantonese (Yue) languages share many features with the Tai languages , which were spoken when Chinese from the north first migrated south. Anthropologists have often speculated about a “Thai substratum” in southern China, especially in Guangdong and Guangxi, where Southeast Asian features combined with Chinese features to produce a unique hybrid culture quite distinctive from any other. The nature of Chinese writing is often regarded as mystical by those who do not know the language, but the principles are quite simple (see De Francis 1984, 1989). An analogy may be drawn with Arabic numerals. Take the numeral 5. It is pronounced the following ways in various languages: English, five /faiv/ Spanish, cinco /siŋko/ French, cinq /sŋk/ German, fünf /fynf/ Hebrew, chamesh /xameʃ/ Yet the meaning of the symbol remains essentially identical in all these languages . The symbol is used to remind speakers of words that they know. Similarly , the Chinese character , ren, means “person.” It is read differently by speakers of different languages: Mandarin, /ren2/ Cantonese, /yan2/ Shanghainese, /nieng2/ Japanese, /nin/ or /jin/ This demonstration suggests that reliance on a single writing system does not necessarily require—or prove—linguistic identity. Yet Western scholars who would challenge the unity of China’s language(s) are seen as challenging the unity of China itself. Ramsey accepts...

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