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‘Chinese’ comprises a number of separate spoken languages which share the same writing system.
There are a number of different spoken languages within the overall Chinese ‘category’. Thus people who speak only Cantonese cannot converse with those who speak only Mandarin. However, they will be able to communicate in writing because the writing system is independent of the pronunciation – see below.
The main spoken languages are:
There are two main forms of written Chinese:
Simplified Chinese characters were introduced as a standard written form by the mainland Chinese government during the 1950’s as part of major efforts to improve literacy among the general population.
Traditional Chinese is used in Taiwan, and in established overseas Chinese communities. Traditional Chinese is the norm in Hong Kong but students are not penalised for using simplified characters as a form of speedwriting in examinations.
Written Chinese script can be used across the various Chinese languages because it is not phonetic. Chinese characters are often called “ideograms” because they represent ideas, not sounds, much as the numerals 1, 2, 3 etc do.
Phonetics: Occasionally Chinese characters are used phonetically, for example to render western names in Chinese script. If a separate meaningful Chinese name is not invented, then personal, company and brand names are often written by selecting those appropriate Chinese characters which are as close as possible to the sound of the western name. Care must be taken that the correct regional language is used as the phonetic reference, and checks made regarding the pronunciation in the languages of other regions in which the name could appear.
Classical Arabic, the language of the Holy Quran, has set the standard for the Arabic language throughout the Arab and Islamic world for 1300 years.
The grammar of ‘modern standard Arabic’, the official language of government and education in the 22 Arab countries, is close to classical Arabic. Modern standard Arabic is used in most printed material and formal speech.
Over this 1300-year period, different parts of this vast cultural region have had differing patterns of history and cultural contact, leading to much fragmentation of the spoken colloquial forms of the language.
The main regional groupings of varieties of Arabic are:
Colloquial forms of the language are used in speaking, including entertainment media, such as TV programmes, films and plays and popular songs.
Output from Egypt has dominated the media, such that the Egyptian form of spoken Arabic is understood by most of the Arabic-speaking world.
Arabic script runs from right to left, but numbers will still look as though they run from left to right, to western eyes. In Arabic the smaller units of numbers are read first.
The set of numbers used in Europe are known as ‘Arabic numerals’. In most of the Arabic-speaking world, a set of numbers more closely resembling those in use in India, is used.
Arabic script is also used in modern Persian, Kurdish and Urdu. The script is also used for Punjabi in Pakistan, and among communities originating there.
Microsoft recognises 16 different versions of “Arabic” for spelling and grammar.
English is the most widely-used language in the world: for about 1 trillion speakers, it is their first or second language.
English is the official language for most of North America and it is also an official language in India, plus its neighbours (a major factor in its head count) where it is also the lingua franca, used in the media, by government and by the judicial system, much of the latter having been built on English precedents dating back to Queen Victoria.
English is the required language for international air traffic control communications and an increasing number of global corporations elect to use English for their internal communications.
It follows that most translation requirements in the global translation market are into or out of English, and consequently, the widest choice of expert translators is for translation work to or from English.
Neither US English nor British English can claim to be closer to the ‘true’ or ‘original’ form. Both US and British English developed after their partial separation from the 17 th century onwards.
One or two grammatical patterns standard to US English would be considered incorrect in the UK and vice versa. The main difference is in the words used in ‘domestic’ non-technical vocabulary; the sort of vocabulary most susceptible to regional variation in any language.
Due to variations in spelling and grammar, Microsoft offers English (UK) and English (US) versions plus 16 other variations in addition.
Spanish comes third in the world after Chinese and English, in terms of the numbers of native speakers. It is the lead language for most of Central; and South America, apart from Brazil.
The main regional variation in the Spanish language is accent, rather than choice of vocabulary.
In most of Latin America, (but not in most of Mexico, Peru and Uruguay) the separate singular form of ‘you’ is not used.
Portuguese is one of the major world languages, with around 180 million speakers. Portuguese was the first modern European language to be spread outside Europe by colonisation.
The differences between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese are analogous to those differences between US English and British English: some differences in spelling and a larger number of differences in vocabulary.
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