A BILLION VOICES
Languages and Peoples of China
by William S-Y Wang (University of California, Berkeley, USA & Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
This book gives an overview and discussion of the languages and peoples of China. The emphasis of this book is on Putonghua (i.e., Common Speech) which is the most wide spread varieties of the Chinese languages. It also provides discussions on other major dialects related to Putonghua, as well as some of the minority languages that belong to other language families, such as Altaic and Austric. Typically a Chinese community is characterized by several forms of speech: a local vernacular, a regional standard, and also variants with these two overlaid by a variety of national standards. The book offers some insightful remarks on the endangered languages of China, which are the inevitable victims of globalization. This observation is given an in-depth coverage on both the spoken languages, distinguished by their lexical tones, and written languages, well-known for their morphosyllabic orthography. This orthography has the unique distinction of being the oldest one currently in use in the world.
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