Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

Hohhot is the provincial capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It is a second-tier city with a population of 1,980,774 in the central urban area and 2,866,615 for the prefecture as a whole (all population figures from 2010 census) (NBS). The largest ethnic groups are Hàn 漢 (84.79%), Mongol (11.51%), Huí 回 (1.92%), and Manchu (1.39%), while all others add up to less than 0.4% (urban districts only). The name of the city is [xox χɔtʰ] 'Blue City' in Mongolian, written Kökeqota ᠬᠥᠺᠡᠬᠣᠲᠠ (Traditional) or Khökh khot Хөх хот (Cyrillic). The current official Chinese name, transli…

English-speaking businesspeople started trading in earnest with Canton in the south of China from the beginning of the 19th century. These traders represented three groups: employees from the East India company; traders with their main offices in Scotland and England, of which Jardine Matheson was the best known company; and American traders. The language of communication among these traders was a form of pidgin English, comprised of a mix between English and Cantonese. Despite being classified …

As in all other places, the languages spoken in prehistorical Hong Kong remain a mystery in the absence of written records. A vast area of Southern China, where Hong Kong is located, was first known to be occupied by the peoples that the Chinese referred to as Bǎi Yuè 百越 ‘one hundred Yuè’ tribes. There is still no consensus as to which languages these people spoke. Previous studies suggest that they were speakers of Austroasiatic-, Kam-Tai-, Hmong-Mien-, or possibly Austronesian-related languages (Norman and Mei 1976; Blust 1984/1985; Lǐ 1990…

HowNet ( zhīwǎng 知网/知網) is an online, common sense knowledge system, which unveils interconcept relations and interattribute relations of the concepts as encoded in the Chinese lexicon and its English counterpart. It is designed as an effective resource for computational linguistics or human language technology. Its history of research and development dated back to 1988. Its first version was released in 2000. The latest released version is HowNet 2013, available on: www.keenage.com (last accessed September 18, 2016).   HowNet consists of three components: (1) a database,…

The so-called ḥP’ags-pa script was invented in the late 13th century and later named after its inventor Lama ḥP’ags-pa (?1235–1280; also known as Blo-gros rGyal-mtshan in Tibetan, Lodoi ǰaltsan in Mongolian), who was a Tibetan scholar and a religious leader. The invention of the script occurred by a 1269 imperial decree issued by Qubilai Khan (1215–1294), the founder of the Yuán dynasty (1271–1368). This new script was originally called Ménggǔ xīn zì 蒙古新字 ‘new Mongol characters’, or simply guó zì 國字 ‘national script’ in Chinese and is referred to as dörbelǰin üsüg ‘square script’ in M…

1. Distribution The Huī 徽 dialects are distributed around the reaches of the Xīn’ān 新安 River in the area of the ancient Huīzhōu 徽州 and Yánzhōu 嚴州 prefectures, in 19 counties and cities of southern Ānhuī and adjoining areas of Jiāngxī and Zhèjiāng. The Huī-speaking population numbers about 3,200,000. Huī dialects can be divided into the following five sub-dialects: Jì-Shè 績歙, Xiū-Yī 休黟, Qí-Wù 祁婺, Yánzhōu, and Jīng-Zhàn 旌占. There has long been a debate about which larger dialect group Huī dialects belongs to. Some scholars consider them Wú 吳 (e.…