Things your Chinese instructor probably won't mention
— A (broadly) linguistic perspective of the Chinese language(s)
Chinese language(s): past and present
Disambiguation: Chinese and Mandarin
Genealogy of Chinese languages
- Earliest traceable ancestor: Proto-Sino-Tibetan
- Old Chinese and Classical Chinese
- Language shifting and birth of modern Chinese languages
- Comparison with Latin and development of romance languages
Molecular anthropology of the Han Chinese people and its linguistic connotations
- The O2 paternal haplogroup
Comparison among modern Chinese languages and their close relatives
Language and identity
Same language, different variants
Language variants down geographic and socioeconomic lines
Pluricentric languages: multiple standard variants
- British and American English
- European and Brazilian Portuguese
'Language' or 'dialect'?
- Same language, different names: Hindustani, Czech-Slovak, Serbo-Croatian
- Different 'dialects', same name: Arabic, Chinese
Modern Chinese languages: Mandarin, Cantonese and more
Significant modern standard Mandarin variants
- Standard Chinese Mandarin, standard Taiwanese Mandarin
Mandarin variants farther afield: Malaysia and Singapore
Language and politics
What constitutes a country? A linguistic minefield
- Country, region, territory, jurisdiction, subdivision
Why are there two Chinas? — A brief history of modern China
- Qing dynasty and Japanese colonisation of Taiwan
- Revolution and the birth of Republic of China
- Japanese invasion of China and Second World War: the Asian theatre
- Chinese Civil War: Communist and Nationalist parties
- Nationalist retreat to Taiwan and technically ongoing civil war to this day
Why is there recognition for only one China?
- Second World War and the establishment of post-war international order
- UN General Assembly Resolution 2758
- Right to self-determination in modern international law and its limitations
- Comparison with North/South Korea, North/South Vietnam, East/West Germany
Official territories and actual controlled territories of the two Chinas
- OpenStreetMap: world map by actual physical control
Disambiguation of political terms
- Mainland China, Greater China, PRC (People's Republic of China), ROC (Republic of China)
Alternative names of Taiwan
- Republic of China, Taiwan province of China, Chinese Taipei, The Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu
Alternative names of the Mandarin language and its variants
- 中文，汉语，官话，简体中文，繁体中文，简体字，繁体字，普通话，国语，华语，华文
The modern Sinophone world
Language and ethnic composition of China
- Ethnic and linguistic minorities of China
Languages of Hong Kong and Macau
Languages of Taiwan
- Taiwanese aboriginals and Austronesian peoples
Use of Chinese languages in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore
Chinese diasporas around the world
Imperial China and language contact
Genealogy of languages in East Asia
- Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese
Classical Chinese as a lingua franca of classical East Asia
Language contact and lexical similarity in languages of East Asia
- Borrowing of Chinese vocabulary into East Asian languages in classical times
- Meiji restoration and adoption of Wasei-kango vocabulary into Chinese
- Decline of Classical Chinese and deviation of vocabulary sources in modern times
Writing systems related to Chinese hanzi
- Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana, Korean hanja, Vietnamese chữ Nôm and Zhuang sawndip
Writing systems
Introduction to different types of writing systems
- Alphabet, syllabary, abugida, abjad, hanzi
Genealogy of writing systems
- Egyptian, Chinese, Sumerian, Mayan, independent
Independence of writing systems with respect to languages
Standard writing systems for Chinese languages
- Simplified and traditional Chinese hanzi
Evolution of Chinese hanzi
- Simplified Chinese: how it came to be
Alternative writing systems for Chinese languages
- For Mandarin: Latin alphabet (pinyin), Bopomofo syllabary (zhuyin), Arabic abjad (xiao'erjing)
- For other Mandarinic languages: Cyrillic alphabet (Dungan)
Digital representation of the Chinese languages
Input method: mappings from Latin alphabet to Chinese hanzi
Phonetic mappings and structural mappings
- Popular mappings: pinyin, shuangpin, wubi
Writing and spoken input method
Input method: a software keylogger
Unicode and text encoding
Internet culture in modern China and its linguistic implications
Censorship culture and euphemisms
Urban dictionary for Chinese: 小鸡词典
Language typology
Introduction to Glottolog and WALS
Language families, languages and language variants
Standardised codes for languages
- Glottocode, ISO 639, IETF BCP 47
Ethnologue, SIL and its Christian mission
Standardised codes for writing systems
Standardised codes for countries and areas
Describing a language variant with a combination of parameters