Languages of China

Written languages

The following ethnic minority languages traditionally had written forms that do not involve Chinese characters:

• Tai Lü language – Tai Lü alphabet
• Tai Nüa language – Tai Nüa script
• Dagur language – Manchu alphabet
• Hmongic languages – Hmong writing (Pollard script, Pahawh Hmong, Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong, etc.)
• Kazakh language – Kazakh alphabets
• Korean language – Chosŏn'gŭl alphabet
• Kyrgyz language – Kyrgyz alphabets
• Lisu language – Lisu script
• Manchu language – Manchu alphabet
• Mongolian language – Mongolian writing
• Naxi language – Dongba characters
• Qiang language or Rrmea language – Rma script
• Santa language – Arabic script
• Sui language – Sui script
• Tibetic languages – Tibetan script
• Uyghur language – Uyghur Arabic alphabet
• Xibe language – Manchu alphabet
• Loloish languages – Yi script

Many modern forms of spoken Chinese languages have their own distinct writing system using Chinese characters that contain colloquial variants. These typically are used as sound characters to help determine the pronunciation of the sentence within that language:

• Cantonese – Written Cantonese
• Shanghainese – Written Shanghainese
• Hokkien – Written Hokkien

Some non-Sinitic languages have historically used Chinese characters:

• Korean language – Hanja
• Vietnamese language – Chữ Nôm
• Zhuang languages – Sawndip
• Bouyei language – Bouyei writing (方塊布依字)
• Bai language – Bai writing (僰文)
• Kam language – Dong writing (方塊侗字)

Other languages, all now extinct, used separate logographic scripts influenced by, but not directly derived from, Chinese characters:

• The Jurchens (Manchu ancestors) – Jurchen language – Jurchen script
• The Khitans (Mongolic people) – Khitan language – Khitan large and small scripts
• The Tanguts (Sino-Tibetan people) – Tangut language – Tangut script

During Qing dynasty, palaces, temples, and coins have sometimes been inscribed in five scripts:

• Chinese
• Manchu
• Mongol
• Tibetan
• Chagatai

During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, the official writing system was:

• 'Phags-pa script

Chinese banknotes contain several scripts in addition to Chinese script. These are:

• Latin alphabet (for Chinese)
• Mongolian script
• Tibetan script
• Arabic script (for Uyghur)
• Latin alphabet (for Zhuang)

Other writing system for Chinese languages in China include:

• Nüshu script
• Dongba symbols (pictograph) - Naxi language

Ten nationalities who never had a written system have, under the PRC's encouragement, developed phonetic alphabets. According to a government white paper published in early 2005, "by the end of 2003, 22 ethnic minorities in China used 28 written languages."

Language policy

One decade before the demise of the Qing dynasty in 1912, Mandarin was promoted in the planning for China's first public school system. There is a debated myth, prevalent among speakers of Yue Chinese, that Cantonese lost to Mandarin in a narrow vote on the language of the new Republic of China.

Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) has been promoted as the commonly spoken language for the People's Republic since 1956, based phonologically on the dialect of Beijing, grammatically and lexically on various Mandarin varieties, and stylistically on the writings of Mao Zedong and Lu Xun. Pronunciation is taught with the use of the romanized phonetic system known as pinyin. Pinyin has been criticized for fear of an eventual replacement of the traditional character orthography.

Ethnic minority language policy

The Chinese language policy in mainland China is heavily influenced by the Soviet nationalities policy and officially encourages the development of standard spoken and written languages for each of the nationalities of China. Language is one of the features used for ethnic identification. In September 1951, the All-China Minorities Education Conference established that all minorities should be taught in their language at the primary and secondary levels when they count with a writing language. Those without a writing language or with an "imperfect" writing language should be helped to develop and reform their writing languages.

However, in this schema, Han Chinese are considered a single nationality and the official policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) treats the different varieties of Chinese differently from the different national languages, even though their differences are as significant, if not more so, as those between the various romance languages of Europe. While official policies in mainland China encourage the development and use of different orthographies for the national languages and their use in educational and academic settings, realistically speaking it would seem that, as elsewhere in the world, the outlook for minority languages perceived as inferior is grim. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile argues that social pressures and political efforts result in a policy of sinicization and feels that Beijing should promote the Tibetan language more. Because many languages exist in China, they also have problems regarding diglossia. Recently, in terms of Fishman's typology of the relationships between bilingualism and diglossia and his taxonomy of diglossia (Fishman 1978, 1980) in China: more and more minority communities have been evolving from "diglossia without bilingualism" to "bilingualism without diglossia." This could be an implication of mainland China's power expanding.

In 2010, Tibetan students protested against changes in the Language Policy on the schools that promoted the use of Mandarin instead of Tibetan. They argued that the measure would erode their culture. In 2013, China's Education Ministry said that about 400 million people were unable to speak Mandarin. In that year, the government pushed linguistic unity in China, focusing on the countryside and areas with ethnic minorities.

Mandarin Chinese is the prestige language in practice, and failure to protect ethnic languages does occur. In summer 2020, the Inner Mongolian government announced an education policy change to phase out Mongolian as the language of instructions for humanities in elementary and middle schools, adopting the national instruction material instead. Thousands of ethnic Mongolians in northern China gathered to protest the policy. The Ministry of Education describes the move as a natural extension of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language (Chinese: 通用语言文字法) of 2000.

In 2024, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping called for wider use of Mandarin by ethnic minorities and in border areas. He stated that it is necessary to guide all ethnic groups in border regions to "continuously enhance their recognition of the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party".

Study of foreign languages

Indo-European

English

English has been the most widely-taught foreign language in China; it is a required subject for students attending university.

After the Reform and opening up policy in 1988, English was taught in public schools starting in the third year of primary school. The Economist reported in 2006 that up to one fifth of the population was learning English. Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, estimated that the total English-speaking population in China would outnumber the native speakers in the rest of the world in two decades. In China, English is used as a lingua franca in several fields, especially for business settings, and in schools to teach Standard Mandarin to people who are not Chinese citizens. English is also one of the official languages in Hong Kong, as prescribed by Chapter 1, Article 9 of the Basic Law of Hong Kong.

German

As of 2015, about 170,000 people have studied the German language in China.

Spanish

Due to growing interest in Latin America within China, about 20,000 people in China have studied the Spanish language as of 2016. As of 2018, there are about 120 Spanish-language departments nationwide.

Portuguese

Interest in Portuguese has increased greatly, due in part to Chinese investment in African nations such as Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. Portuguese is also one of the official languages in Macau, although its use had stagnated since the nation's transfer from Portugal to the PRC. It was estimated in 2016 that 2.3% of Macau's locals spoke the language, although with government backing since then, interest in it has increased. Macau is used by China as a hub for learning Portuguese and diplomatic and financial ties with Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries. As of 2018, there are about 40 Portuguese-language departments nationwide.

Russian

Many middle and high schools in China have offered Russian-language courses. For example, Jianwen Foreign Language School, a high school located in the city of Shenzhen, has offered a Russian program since 2011.

Urdu

There have also been a growing number of students choosing to learn Urdu, due to interest in Pakistani culture, close ties between the respective nations, and job opportunities provided by the CPEC.

Arabic

There have been a growing number of students studying Arabic, due to reasons of cultural interest and belief in better job opportunities. The language is also widely studied amongst the Hui people. In the past, literary Arabic education was promoted in Islamic schools by the Kuomintang when it ruled mainland China.

Esperanto

Esperanto became prominent in certain circles in the early 20th century and reached its peak in the 1980s, though by 2024 its prominence had declined.

Japanese

As of 2012, a little over one million people in China were studying Japanese, and there were 16,752 Japanese-language teachers. Learner motivations included interest in Japan's society and culture.

Korean

There are about 2 million Korean language speakers in China.

Korean language education in China began in the year 1945 at the National Oriental Language College. Some non-Korean families have learned Korean because they expect to attain educational success or to increase their business connections with South Korea.