Actually, Hanyu only means Chinese speech (or language) where "Han" (as you
mention) refers to the majority ethnic Chinese group. It does not refer
specifically to any dialect, however, and the Han people speak a large
variety.
The official national language of China is called "Putonghua" and refers to
the "common" or "popular" language (or speech), which not too surprisingly
is the dialect spoken in Beijing.
The name "Mandarin" has additional class connotations--it refers to the
language that was once spoken in the court in Beijing, so it is really not
accurate to call Putonghua Mandarin, but Mandarin is the most common name
for the official national Chinese language in English and given the few
alternatives this isn't going to change soon
@D.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
To: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
Cc: "Unicode Mailing List" <unicode@unicode.org>; "'Edward Cherlin'"
<edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu>; "'Thomas Chan'"
<thomas@atlas.datexx.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 4:11 AM
Subject: Re: RECOMMENDATIONs( Term Asian is not used properly on Computers
andNET)
> Marco Cimarosti scripsit:
>
> > Or "Hanyu", in fact, which is the normal name for "Mandarin" in
Mandarin.
>
> I believe, however, that this term is relatively recent in its current
> sense, and is part of the effort the PRC government makes to distinguish
> between "zhongguo" as a political term and "han" as an ethnic one.
>
> --
> John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
> One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
> --Douglas Hofstadter
>
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