China speaks multiple languages

North China provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China, particularly in Fujian province have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese languages. The mandarin group spoken in North China has by the most speakers.

The traditional seven dialect groups first published in Yuan Jiahua's dialectology handbook (1961) are Mandarin, Wu, Gan Xiang, Min, Yue, and Hakka.

Language policy in mainland China

In mainland China, Mandarin (standard Chinese) is used and promoted as the sole dialect (大力推广普通话). The education system is entirely Mandarin-based. Usage of local dialect is tolerated and socially preferred in many informal situations.

Taiwan

Before 1945, most of the population of Taiwan were Han Chinese, who spoke Hokkien or Hakka, with a minority speaking Formosan languages (aboriginals) and Japanese. When the Kuomintang retreated to the island, they brought a substantial influx of speakers of Mandarin (and other dialects from across China), and the use of Mandarin was promoted over the earlier dialects and native languages. From the 1970s, the government further promoted Mandarin, and required Mandarin for official purposes, and increased its use in broadcasting. From the 1990s, Taiwanese native languages were offered again in addition to Mandarin in elementary and middle schools.

Currently, the national languages of Taiwan are Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, and Formosan languages. For announcements in public transport, Mandarin, Hokkien, and Hakka are used.

Singapore

The national language of Singapore is Malay. The four official languages of Singapore are English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, with the lingua franca being English, the de facto main language. Singapore has a bilingual education policy, where all students in government schools are taught English as their first language. Students in primary (since 1960) and secondary schools (since 1966) also learn a second language called their "mother tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are either taught Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil.

The main Chinese dialect is Mandarin. This is in part due to the Speak Mandarin Campaign that was launched in 1979. As part of the campaign, all programmes on TV and radio were only allowed to boradcast in Mandarin.

Since 2000, there has been an renewed interest in the original Chinese varieties among Singaporean Chinese. In 2002, several clan associations started courses in Hainanese and Teochow.

Although the Singapore government maintained a strict language policy to replace Chinese dialects with Mandarin for decades, it appears to have relaxed its stance towards Chinese varieties in recent years. Recently, the government allowed some locally produced dialect shows to be broadcasted in Hokkien and Cantonese.