Standard Chinese

"Huayu" redirects here. For other uses, see Huayu (disambiguation) and Standard Chinese (disambiguation).

Standard Chinese
Standard Mandarin
現代標準漢語; 现代标准汉语
Native to	China
Speakers	L1 and L2: 80% of China
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Mandarin Beijing Mandarin Standard Chinese
Early forms	Proto-Sino-Tibetan Old Chinese Eastern Han Chinese Middle Chinese Old Mandarin Middle Mandarin Beijing Mandarin
Writing system	Chinese characters Mainland Chinese Braille Taiwanese Braille Two-cell Chinese Braille
Signed forms	Signed Chinese
Official status
Official language in	China (de facto, as Putonghua) Taiwan (de facto, as Taiwanese Mandarin) Singapore (as Mandarin) United Nations (as Chinese) Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
Regulated by	China: Ministry of Education Taiwan: Ministry of Education Malaysia: Ministry of Education and Chinese Language Standardisation Council Singapore: Ministry of Education Promote Mandarin Council Philippines: Department of Education Philippine Chinese Education Research Center
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
ISO 639-6	goyu (Guoyu) huyu (Huayu) cosc (Putonghua)
Glottolog	None
Global distribution of Standard Mandarin speakers   Majority native language   Statutory or de facto national working language   More than 1,000,000 L1 and L2 speakers   More than 500,000 speakers   More than 100,000 speakers
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	普通話
Simplified Chinese	普通话
Literal meaning	Common speech
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Pǔtōnghuà Bopomofo ㄆㄨˇ ㄊㄨㄥ ㄏㄨㄚˋ Wade–Giles P'u3-t'ung1-hua4 Tongyong Pinyin Pǔ-tong-huà Yale Romanization Pǔtūnghwà IPA [pʰù.tʰʊ́ŋ.xwâ] Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Póutūngwá Jyutping Pou2 tung1 waa2
Guoyu
Traditional Chinese	國語
Simplified Chinese	国语
Literal meaning	National language
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Guóyǔ Bopomofo ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄩˇ Wade–Giles Kuo2-yü3 Tongyong Pinyin Guó-yǔ Yale Romanization Gwóyǔ IPA [kwǒ.ỳ]
Huayu
Traditional Chinese	華語
Simplified Chinese	华语
Literal meaning	Chinese language
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Huáyǔ Bopomofo ㄏㄨㄚˊ ㄩˇ Wade–Giles Hua2-yü3 Tongyong Pinyin Huá-yǔ Yale Romanization Hwáyǔ IPA [xwǎ.ỳ]

Standard Chinese (simplified Chinese: 现代标准汉语; traditional Chinese: 現代標準漢語; pinyin: Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ), often colloquially called Mandarin Chinese, is the modern standardized form of Mandarin Chinese, largely based on the Beijing dialect. It is the official lingua franca of the People's Republic of China, one of the six official languages of the United Nations, one of the national languages of Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore. It is a pluricentric language with local variations in Mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore, which mainly differ in accent and lexicon. In Mainland China, Standard Chinese is most commonly called Putonghua, while in Taiwan it is most commonly called Guoyu.

Like other Sinitic languages, Standard Chinese is an analytic language with mostly compound words, and has five phonemic tones (four classic tones and a neutral tone) with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object (SVO) word order. Compared with other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese has fewer tones, vowels and final consonants, but more initial consonants.