In a busy Chinatown, a foreigner begins switching between four Chinese dialects. Each change triggers surprise and disbelief.

Suxia Chen is a language star with a twist – one of the “foreign” languages she’s learned to excel in is English. Chen is proficient in three Chinese dialects, Cantonese, Fuzhouese and Mandarin, and ...

GROWING UP in the Dabie mountains of western Anhui at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Yu Yan learned from a young age that many innocent acts could get her into trouble, starting with using her ...

(Reuters) - China has been promoting Mandarin as the national language for decades to boost unity in a country with thousands of dialects and minority tongues. Here are some facts about language and ...

SINGAPORE — The Tok and Teo families are a model of traditional harmony, with three generations gathered under one roof, enjoying each other’s company over slices of fruit and cups of tea on a ...

Dialects are an important part of local culture and now many kids even don’t know how to speak their dialects because the dominant use of Mandarin around them. It would be a pity if future generations ...

Up to 40% of China’s minority languages may be at risk of extinction. Phonemica, a project aiming to document China’s threatened languages and dialects through stories told by native speakers, is ...

On a night in late October, Zhao Yuhe was flabbergasted to receive the Best Actress Award at a film festival in Zhanjiang, south China's Guangdong Province. Standing warily in the spotlight on stage, ...

The central government has promoted the use of simplified Chinese characters in printing since the 1950s and '60s to increase literacy. Traditional Chinese characters are still in public use in Hong ...

Alibaba has launched a 100 million-yuan ($15 million) initiative aimed at preserving Chinese dialects, the e-commerce giant’s AI Labs division announced Wednesday, according to a report by The Beijing ...