一个很蠢的问题：Mandarin到底是指咱们现在通用的简体中文还是繁体中文？

Adsion wrote:



非常准确而漂亮的回答！但不知道为什么那么多西方人就知道汉语有Mandarin和Cantonese，不知道Simplified Chinese和Traditional Chinese。其中繁体中文和简体中文都是Mandarin相对应的书面语言（很简单，台湾人写繁体说普通话，广东话的书写形式不是一般懂中文的就能很容易读懂的），而Cantonese只是中国诸多方言中的一种，之所以这种方言在国外广为人知是因为早期出国的华人说Cantonese的占大多数。

经常有客户或潜在客户发来文件要译成Mandarin。谁知道其中的缘由？难道Mandarin一词是国人叫开的？

[Edited at 2012-12-15 15:15 GMT]

James_xia wrote:


如孙先生所提及的“早期出国的华人说Cantonese的占大多数”。正是这一点，使广东话（粤语）成为海外华人百多年来引为为豪的乡音。

近代以下，移居海外去到美洲和欧洲等地并成功立足发展的移民中，以广东和福建的原住民占主流。各地华人整合的结果，最终广东话成为所有早期（改革开放之前）海外华人的共同语（官话）。无论他/她来自中国内地任何地方，若要生存于海外华人圈，学会广东话是基本要求。

十年前，因工作在广东生活过一段时间，与当地人有过密切的接触。俺了解到在广东省境内，通行三种主要方言（细分有十几种）：分布在潮汕地区的潮州话，惠州（惠东）一带的客家话和以广州为中心的广州话。其中的广州话（白话）就是代表整个广东地区和港澳台，以及所有海外早期华人使用的广东话。

广东话有这样的地位，除海外华人发达的原因外，还有一点，就是广东话的用语和结构中包含有中国传统文化的精髓。今天人们读到的秦歌汉赋、唐诗宋词有许多用语和发音在今天的广东话中仍然可以找到。这在客家人的传世著作《客家经典》中都有清楚的记载。这些诗词中的唐音用普通话来读有些是不押韵的，但改用广东话，特别是用客家话来读时，就会发现这些写作的韵律其实是谐调的。:)

这就是为什么Cantonese 被称为Traditional Chinese的来由。

直到蒙古族入住中原，经过明、清以后，北方话的使用成为中原文化的主流，明清小说中也因此随处可见北方方言的影子。

Language

Chinese, mostly of the Cantonese variety, is the third most-spoken language in the United States, almost completely spoken within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, especially in California.[33] Over 2 million Americans speak some variety of Chinese, with Mandarin Chinese becoming increasingly more common due to immigration from mainland China and Taiwan.[33]

In New York City at least, although Mandarin is spoken as a native language among only ten percent of Chinese speakers, it is used as a secondary dialect among the greatest number of them and is on its way to replace Cantonese as their lingua franca.[34] In addition, the immigration from Fujian is creating an increasingly large number of Min speakers. Wu Chinese, a Chinese language previously unheard of in the United States, is now spoken by a minority of recent Chinese immigrants, who hail from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

Although Chinese Americans grow up learning English, some teach their children Chinese for a variety of reasons: preservation of an ancient civilization, preservation of a unique identity, pride in their cultural ancestry, desire for easy communication with them and other relatives, and the perception that Chinese will be a very useful language as China's economic strength increases. Cantonese, historically the language of most Chinese immigrants, is the third most widely spoken non-English language in the United States.[35]