And yeah, most Chinese are bi-lingual by default. Now I know I can speak tons of northern Chinese languages. That's a big upgrade!
We all learn classical Chinese at school, and that must be a completely different language. Wait, are "classical Chinese" a single language? Should we count each of those spoken in different dynasty and different regions all as different language? Oh man, I can't even count how many languages I can speak
We all learn classical Chinese at school, and that must be a completely different language.
Of course it's a different language. It's not completely different. Languages can be related to each other. Old English is a different language than English. If English was written in Logograms instead of a phonetic alphabet, many of us could probably read Beowulf the same many of you can read the works of 老子.
Again, if I had the Chinese mindset, there would be a language called "Indo European" which would have various dialects like "Persian" and "Russian" and "Icelandic". There would also be "Standard Indo-European" - aka, English. It makes no sense.
If you don't like the translation form 方言 to dialect, should I just call it fangyan or 方言? Or is there a more precise linguistic term for that?
Our definition for "Language" is also different then. Should we call it "Yuyan" instead?
But hundreds of millions of other people in China natively speak hundreds of other mutually unintelligible Chinese languages. Most of them are (at least) bilingual.
Here is a grossly simplified map showing major language groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages_...
For that reason, we define them as dialects not languages. We can "speak" other dialects but we can certainly "read" and understand them.
If you find that definition unsatisfying, sure you can call them different languages. We just call them dialects and that's not going to change.
