Phnom Penh (FN), Sep. 23 – Chinese, the world’s most spoken language, has over 1.3 billion native speakers. It refers to a group of related dialects, primarily spoken by the Han Chinese in Greater China.

Mandarin, based on the Beijing dialect, is the official language of China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Cantonese is dominant in Hong Kong and Macau.

Though often seen as dialects of one language, the spoken varieties of Chinese are not mutually intelligible.

Written Chinese dates back to the Shang dynasty (c. 1250 BCE). While there are many characters, about 3,000-3,500 cover 99% of modern usage.

This article was originally published on Voronoiapp.
=FRESH NEWS