Chinese language

Influence on other languages

See the article on Philippine loanwords from Chinese languages.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Throughout history Chinese culture and politics has had a great influence on unrelated languages such as Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese. Korean and Japanese both have writing systems employing Chinese characters (Hanzi), which are called Hanja and Kanji, respectively.

Related Topics:
Chinese culture - Politics - Korean - Vietnamese - Japanese - Chinese character - Hanja - Kanji

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Vietnamese term for Chinese writing is Han Tu, which was the only available form to express the language until the 14th century, used almost exclusively by Chinese-educated Vietnamese elites. Vietnamese was, from the 14th century to the end of the 19th century, written with Chu Nom, which was a modified Chinese script that incorporated sounds and syllables appropriate for native Vietnamese speakers. However, this has now been completely replaced by a modified Latin script that incorporated a system of diacritical marks to indicate the tones, as well as modified consonants. The Vietnamese language has mixed with multiple elements similar to Cantonese in regards to the specific intonations and rather sharp consonant endings. However, there is a slight influence from Mandarin due to the sharper vowels and, along with Mandarin, have the "kh" sound that is non-existent in other Asiatic languages.

Related Topics:
Han Tu - Chu Nom

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In South Korea, the Hangul alphabet is generally used, but Hanja is used as a sort of boldface. (In North Korea, Hanja has been discontinued.) Since the modernization of Japan in the late 19th century, there has been debate about abandoning the use of Chinese characters, but the practical benefits of a radically new script have so far not been considered sufficient.

Related Topics:
South Korea - Hangul - Hanja - North Korea

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Languages within the influence of Chinese culture also have a very large number of loanwords from Chinese. In Korean 50% or more of the vocabulary is of Chinese origin and the influence on Japanese and Vietnamese has been considerable. 10% of Philippine language vocabularies are of Chinese origin. Chinese also shares a great many grammatical features with these and neighboring languages, notably the lack of gender and the use of classifiers. The Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese languages as a whole have also seemed to the retain sounds of Classical Chinese that can otherwise be found only in the south of China.

Related Topics:
Loanword - Gender - Classifier

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~