what dialect do most chinese speak?
Chinese
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 Standard Mandarin , a variety of Mandarin based on the Beijing dialect , is the official national language of China and is used as a lingua franca in the country between people of different linguistic backgrounds . 

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 Chinese characters are also used within China to write non @-@ Han languages . The largest non @-@ Han group in China , the Zhuang , have for over 1300 years used Chinese characters . Despite both the introduction of an official alphabetic script in 1957 and lack of a corresponding official set of Chinese characters , more Zhuang people can read the Zhuang logograms than the alphabetic script . 

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 Chinese dialects vary by not only pronunciation , but also , to a lesser extent , vocabulary and grammar . Modern written Chinese , which replaced Classical Chinese as the written standard as an indirect result of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 , is not technically bound to any single dialect ; however , it most nearly represents the vocabulary and syntax of Mandarin , by far the most widespread Chinese dialect in terms of both geographical area and number of speakers . This version of written Chinese is called Vernacular Chinese , or 白話 / 白话 báihuà ( literally , " plain speech " ) . Despite its ties to the dominant Mandarin dialect , Vernacular Chinese also permits some communication between people of different dialects , limited by the fact that Vernacular Chinese expressions are often ungrammatical or unidiomatic in non @-@ Mandarin dialects . This role may not differ substantially from the role of other linguae francae , such as Latin : For those trained in written Chinese , it serves as a common medium ; for those untrained in it , the graphic nature of the characters is in general no aid to common understanding ( characters such as " one " notwithstanding ) . In this regard , Chinese characters may be considered a large and inefficient phonetic script . However , Ghil 'ad Zuckermann ’ s exploration of phono @-@ semantic matching in Standard Chinese concludes that the Chinese writing system is multifunctional , conveying both semantic and phonetic content . 

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 There are as many as 292 living languages in China . The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino @-@ Tibetan language family , which contains Mandarin ( spoken natively by 70 % of the population ) , and other Chinese varieties : Wu ( including Shanghainese ) , Yue ( including Cantonese and Taishanese ) , Min ( including Hoochew , Hokkien and Teochew ) , Xiang , Gan , and Hakka . Languages of the Tibeto @-@ Burman branch , including Tibetan , Qiang , Naxi and Yi , are spoken across the Tibetan and Yunnan – Guizhou Plateau . Other ethnic minority languages in southwest China include Zhuang , Thai , Dong and Sui of the Tai @-@ Kadai family , Miao and Yao of the Hmong – Mien family , and Wa of the Austroasiatic family . Across northeastern and northwestern China , minority ethnic groups speak Altaic languages including Manchu , Mongolian and several Turkic languages : Uyghur , Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Salar and Western Yugur . Korean is spoken natively along the border with North Korea . Sarikoli , the language of Tajiks in western Xinjiang , is an Indo @-@ European language . Taiwanese aborigines , including a small population on the mainland , speak Austronesian languages . 

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 The variation in vocabulary among dialects has also led to the informal use of " dialectal characters " , as well as standard characters that are nevertheless considered archaic by today 's standards . Cantonese is unique among non @-@ Mandarin regional languages in having a written colloquial standard , used in Hong Kong and overseas , with a large number of unofficial characters for words particular to this dialect . Written colloquial Cantonese has become quite popular in online chat rooms and instant messaging , although for formal written communications Cantonese speakers still normally use Vernacular Chinese . To a lesser degree Hokkien is used in a similar way in Taiwan and elsewhere , although it lacks the level of standardization seen in Cantonese . However , the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China is currently releasing a standard character set for Hokkien , which is to be taught in schools and promoted amongst the general population . 
