China is home to a wide variety of people from diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds, which gives rise to a large range of languages. In fact, there are at least 10 main families of languages that are being spoken in China, some of which are so different native speakers would not be able to understand each other.
A family of language is a language group consisting of many types of language with the same roots. For example, Russian language is from Indo-European family whereas ‘Standard Chinese’ would belong to the Sino-Tibetan family.
The official national language of China is the ‘Standard Chinese’ (known as Putonghua in China), which is actually a form a Mandarin based on the Beijing dialect. Many regions have their own official languages and dialects as well. For example, Mongolian for Inner Mongolia and Cantonese for Hong Kong.
Here are the 10 known language families and the number of official ethnicities which speak these languages in China:
1. The Sino-Tibetan family: consists of 19 official ethnicities (including the Han and Tibetans)
2. The Tai–Kadai family: consists of several languages spoken by the Zhuang, the Bouyei, the Dai, the Dong, and the Hlai (Li people). 9 official ethnicities.
3. The Hmong–Mien family: consists 3 official ethnicities
4. The Austroasiatic family: consists of 4 official ethnicities (the De’ang, Blang, Gin (Vietnamese), and Wa)
5. The Turkic family: consists of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Salars, etc. 7 official ethnicities.
6. The Mongolic family: consists of Mongols, Dongxiang, and related groups. 6 official ethnicities.
7. The Tungusic family: consists of Manchus (formerly), Hezhe, etc. 5 official ethnicities.
8. The Koreanic family: consists of the Korean language
9. The Indo-European family: consists of 2 official ethnicities (the Russians and Tajiks (actually Pamiri people). There is also a heavily Persian-influenced Äynu language spoken by the Äynu people in southwestern Xinjiang who are officially considered Uyghurs.
10. The Austronesian family: consists of 1 official ethnicity (the Gaoshan, who speak many languages of the Formosan branch), 1 unofficial (the Utsuls, who speak the Tsat language but are considered Hui.)
Let’s take a deeper dive into the different language families spoken in China!
1) Sino-Tibetan Languages
A collection of more than 400 languages (including Standard Chinese) that make up one of the largest language families in the world. Native speakers include varieties of Chinese (1.3 billion), Burmese (33 million), and the Tibetic languages (6 million). Old Chinese is the oldest recorded Sino-Tibetan language thus far, with inscriptions dating as far back from 1200 BC