Divided by a common language

[John Doe]

Chinese characters are like arabic numerals, you can read them in different languages but they mean the same thing.

This has to be the best explanation to the various versions of Chinese and how all can read the script but not talk to each other!!!!
Thank you!

 

[siegecrossbow]

This has to be the best explanation to the various versions of Chinese and how all can read the script but not talk to each other!!!!
Thank you!

Just out of curiosity is there just one written Indian language or are there different written languages corresponding to different spoken languages? We can create a thread in Indian Defence to discuss this if we want to keep this thread on topic.

 

[topjumper]

Not entirely related, but came across this video and thought her accent was quite cute, mandarin definitely sounds softer than cantonese imo.

 

[scuthan]

All chinese dialects are derived from middle chinese except Min dialect, which grow out of old chinese.

Thanks to a great monograph on phonetics (qieyun, 切韵 )written in Song Dynasty (Circa 1000AD), we are able to reconstruct the pronunciation of middle chinese and know waht our ancestors talked like one thousand years ago. but the pronunciation of old chinese is still much left to unknown

here goes some tutorial course for basic middle chinese

and Here is a example of pronunciations of numerals in major chinese dialects, old chinese, tibetan, japanese, Vietnamese, and korean.

Knowing Mandarin, Cantonese and some japanese, I can understand the numerals pronounced in middle chinese the first time I heard it without looking at the subtitle. Really amazing! for me it sounds like Cantonese. the numerals in Lhasa tibetan and Korean are also understandable.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Really amazing! for me it sounds like Cantonese.

You're right, it does sound like Cantonese!

Counting from 1 to 10 in Cantonese also sounds similar to the way that Shanghainese count to ten as well.

 

[Tang0]

Just out of curiosity is there just one written Indian language or are there different written languages corresponding to different spoken languages? We can create a thread in Indian Defence to discuss this if we want to keep this thread on topic.

There are 1,652 different languages spoken in India, although over 70% are derived from two major languages. Dravidian and Sanskrit. The majority of the written languages are derived from Sanskrit, although the Dravidian languages (Like Tamil) have there own unique systems. All of the languages use some form of Indic/Brahmic script. However, the scripts are not interchangeable or understandable to other language speakers in the same family, as the scripts are thought to have diverged well over 2000 years ago. An Indian could explain this in all its gory detail, but to sum it up there are many north Indians with no effective way to communicate with south Indians, unless both have some degree of education.

This leads to factionalism and regionalism within the country, with state governments all having wildly divergent positions from each other. Some are free wheeling capitalists with Islamic influenced social policies, while others are socialist verging on communist with egalitarian social policy.