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Under "=== Modern borrowings ===" in the paragraph "Western foreign words representing Western concepts have influenced Chinese...", {{zhc|迷你|p=mínǐ|l=miniskirt}} has a typo and syntax error such that the Chinese characters do not show in the final page. Furthermore, the translation for miniskirt should be 迷你裙 mínǐqún.
The title of this article is somewhat misleading. The title of this article is "Chinese language" which is misleading because it suggests that Chinese is one language, when in reality this is far from the truth. Some of the different Chinese "dialects" mutually intelligible to a certain degree, while others are not, thus making some of them their own languages. Maybe the title of this article should be called "Chinese languages". Quinnly9 (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support this move; seems like most of the lead section of the current article is hedging around calling it a "language" anyways (and it really isn't) Oeoi (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article mentions, in the context of lists and dictionaries of chinese words, "head entry" and "head character" as if the reader is supposed to know what that means. I'm a reader and I sure don't. At the point in the article these terms are used, I can't even guess whether they refer to some 'parent' (or root) or to simply the 'first encountered character' (of a word, and if so is there a direction involved (left-to-right, for example)). Here's a suggestion: if you're going to use a term that the reader isn't likely to be familiar with, then define it. Obvious, no? (I couldn't even guess whether a head entry is synonymous with a head character.) I need to know how non-head characters are related to head characters (or entries...ARE there "non-head" entries? No idea.) I understand that language comprehension, even a synthetic written language like standard chinese, requires some boot-strapping. That is, you have to know something about it to learn something about it. (or at least, it's much easier if you do.) But why not make it easier on the reader and DEFINE YOUR TERMS. Heck, maybe go all out and explain them! 98.19.179.27 (talk) 22:05, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move reviewafter discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Oppose. "Chinese" is usually spoken of in the singular and this article needs to approach it that way, so a move would not help. Srnec (talk) 00:13, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support (after a lot of mulling and research). My gut feeling is that the subject of this article is so broad that it should be treated as a broad-concept article, with the plural title to represent its status as a macrolanguage, and maybe more emphasis should be given to the disputed status of "languages" vs "dialects" (to be honest, after looking into this at some length, I feel like this debate should really have its own article!). As mentioned by @Oeoi, the article is currently inconsistent, and frankly so is the whole topic, as there's very little consistency among articles; I don't think it would do any harm to introduce this clarification. "Chinese language" is an inherently ambiguous term, and I don't think we need an article with that title. To address @Srnec's point, Chinese language would stay as a redirect, and the lead would outline the basics (including the fact that Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly-spoken branch), so it shouldn't cause too much confusion for readers. To address @Kwamikagami's point, the Sinitic languages actually also include another branch, Macro-Bai languages, which is a proposed language family thought to have diverged from the Chinese language(s) at Old Chinese. It's much smaller than the Chinese branch, obviously, but it means that Sinitic languages and Chinese languages are in fact not wholly synonymous and so don't cover the same topic.In case anyone is interested in a more detailed explanation of my rationale on this (and/or wants to disagree with my arguments), I've laid out my reasoning at this sandbox (permalink) to avoid dominating this discussion with an essay-length comment (although this one is pretty long already!). It's largely a stream of consciousness that emerged as I read more about the debate, so it might not make much sense, but it does include some background/context as well as discussion of a useful source. Pineapple Storage (talk) 02:25, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After writing the above comment, it's just occurred to me that there's another option—move this article to Chinese languages and make Chinese language a disambiguation page, along the lines of:Chinese language may refer to:
a dab would work; the question is whether one of these topics so dominates that it should be at this location, and your proposal at 'chinese language [disambiguation]' — kwami (talk) 02:34, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose this move because I oppose a dab page. See how quickly you went from telling me Chinese language would stay as a redirect to proposing a dab page? My reasoning's the same as in the case of chimpanzee a few years back. A dab page is impossible for the average user because if they are looking for 'the Chinese language', they will have no idea what to do at a dab page! Just like the average user cannot pick between the common chimpanzee, the bonobo and the genus Pan. They just want to know about chimps! And if the typical user should probably select 'Chinese languages', that is an argument against a move. Srnec (talk) 18:29, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I totally understand where you're coming from, and the only reason I raised the issue of disambiguation is because it hadn't been mentioned before; given that a move has been requested, it's worth discussing all the available options now to avoid repetitive/unnecessary RMs in future. Having said that, I don't think this case is anywhere near as clear-cut as with Chimpanzee; before the RM at Chimpanzee, the disambiguation page only had three links on it, plus a 'See also', and there was an unambiguous primary topic.Re the argument that the article title should be what the average user would think of first, even at the expense of precision, see my reasoning here. Pineapple Storage (talk) 19:10, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I actually really like the disambiguation page solution; it seems like the cleanest way to combine all of the numerous wikipedia articles and their internal conflicts about what to call Chinese Oeoi (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is normal for both regular folks and scholars to speak of "Chinese" as a language. We need an article that explains it concisely in the first paragraph(s). I think this one could do it a bit better, but I do not think a dab page can do it at all. It can just list different things and hope the reader can figure out what they want. Srnec (talk) 23:47, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this makes sense, especially since this relates to all the other articles in the "chinese languages" orbit Oeoi (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. As I said at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China/Archive 31#Potential RM for Chinese language a few years ago: I think "Chinese language" follows WP:COMMONNAME. My impression is that most sources, including many specialist sources, refer to "dialects of Chinese" rather than "Chinese languages". Those who follow the "mutual intelligibility" standard tend to disagree with this and say that Chinese is a family including many different languages. Personally, I like the "mutual intelligibility" standard, but it is certainly not the only standard out there (see Language#Languages and dialects). Of course we should clarify in the article that Chinese includes many mutually unintelligible varieties. See also Ngrams. —Mx. Granger (talk·contribs) 14:01, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"chinese languages" tends to be used to mean the languages of china; for the language family, "sinitic languages" seems to be the norm — kwami (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Really? In my experience authors use "Chinese languages" as a synonym for Sinitic, and use "languages of China" when they mean that. For example, try searching for "Chinese languages" in Google Books or Google Scholar. Kanguole21:21, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
could be, that's just what i recall
you mean they use languages of China when by 'chinese languages' they mean the sinitic languages?
if "Chinese languages" is predominantly a synonym for Sinitic, then i don't have any objection to using it that way on WP — kwami (talk) 21:25, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Chinese languages" is used as a synonym for Sinitic, and "languages of China" refers to the languages spoken in China. Ramsey is an example of the latter usage. Try the searches – the pattern is clear. Kanguole21:48, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
we do have that in Dalby 2015 Dictionary of Languages, and even in Künstler 2019 The Sinitic Languages, but generally only when the context makes the scope unambiguous. Ramsey certainly doesn't use it that way. so far dalby is the only author i've found who uses "Chinese languages" without qualification as a synonym for Sinitic, but even there it's in the context of a series of chapters on individual languages and families, and under the label "Chinese", where the reading "languages of China" would be unlikely. — kwami (talk) 22:11, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A search for "Chinese languages" in Google Books or in Google Scholar reveals any number of authors using the phrase as a synonym for Sinitic languages. Perhaps there are one or two using the phrase in the sense you originally claimed, but I have not found them. (Ramsey mentions the phrase once only, on p16 – he prefers the singular.) Kanguole06:41, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i get tons of Google hits for sinitic languages, very few for chinese that aren't presented in a disambiguating context such as 'Chinese languages or dialects.'
titles don't often tell us what the scope of the phrase is
The Microparametric Syntax of Resultatives in Chinese Languages does use it with the meaning of sinitic [though that's not actually what the dissertation is about], as does Are tones in the expressive lexicon iconic? Evidence from three Chinese languages, though you couldn't determine that just from the title. i can't tell with Contour tones and contrast in Chinese languages, but the author's comparison of 'chinese languages' to 'african languages' suggests that it refers to the languages of china. i don't know what the relative usage is, but the fact that so many authors find it necessary to clarify what they mean by 'chinese languages' suggests that it's not lexicalized as sinitic.. — kwami (talk) 07:45, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are mistaken about Contour tones and contrast in Chinese languages: the author surveys Cantonese, Lungdu, Taishan, Huojia and Hakka. The fact that these authors (and others) baldly refer to "Chinese languages" in their titles indicates that they expect that everyone will know what they mean by the phrase. No evidence has been produced of an author using the phrase in a way that includes non-Sinitic languages of China (or "non-Chinese languages of China" as it's usually phrased). Kanguole08:06, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, this is just even further indication that "Chinese languages" is used to refer to the range of languages/varieties within "Chinese language" whenever authors are using precise terminology, as opposed to generalising. Does anyone know of a precedent for how Wikipedia's article titling policy applies when the WP:COMMONNAME—ie. Chinese language, singular, according to some of the !votes here—is arguably a misnomer? Pineapple Storage (talk) 09:31, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if "Chinese languages" has overtaken "Sinitic languages" as the usual term, that's fine by me. i didn't restrict my search to a particular time. a handful of examples doesn't tell us much, and it's not like ngram is gonna clarify anything, but if people who are more familiar with the recent lit think this would be consistent, sure, why not. — kwami (talk) 10:58, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
not necessarily. in many sources Chinese and Sinitic are synonyms. it's not established that bai or anything else is sinitic but not chinese. — kwami (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, from what I've read it seems that the ambiguity of Bai is acknowledged, but I might be wrong. Coming back to this debate after a few days, to be honest I now feel like Sinitic languages and Chinese language should both redirect to Chinese languagesChinese languages, with a first sentence along the lines of:
Chinese languages, sometimes known as Sinitic languages or as a single Chinese language, are spoken...
with Mandarin Chinese and/or Standard Chinese clearly indicated as the most widely-spoken variety and the standard variety respectively (maybe as a hatnote) and then there should be a chunky §Nomenclature section that explains the various names and terminology, and the debates surrounding it, clearly. But that's just my view, and it might be outside the scope of this RM. Pineapple Storage (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i actually created the Sinitic languages article, but 15 years later there doesn't seem to be much more clarity. anyway, i don't see a problem with calling anything descending from old chinese a 'chinese language' even if the people aren't ethnically chinese. — kwami (talk) 19:09, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes fair enough, there are certainly a lot of grey areas/overlaps/ambiguities when it comes to terminology in the literature, so finding clarity isn't easy. I think the suggestion might have been that most varieties of Chinese get a lot of their traits from Middle Chinese, but Macro-Bai languages started to differ before then; again though, I could be wrong. Having looked at a few more sources, some of them even raise a question mark over whether the Macro-Bai branch is actually more closely related to the Tibeto-Burman languages, so there's definitely a lot of ambiguity. Either way, I'm now leaning more towards somehow combining Chinese language and Sinitic languages under Chinese languagesChinese languages. Pineapple Storage (talk) 00:34, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@Kwamikagami (re your revert of my previous revert of this addition) I'm not about to edit war over this, but is it really necessary/accurate to put justEthnicity = Han Chinese in the infobox? The first sentence of the article literally says spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Han may be the majority, but given the breadth of languages and dialects covered by the term (and by this article) it feels like only including Han in the Ethnicity infobox parameter isn't super accurate, given the large number of other ethnic groups whose languages/dialects also come under 'Chinese'. My instinct is that either the 'Ethnicity' parameter should be skipped, or it should include some indication of the fact that Han isn't the only group—although I'm not sure what would be the best way of briefly summarising this for the infobox. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this! Pineapple Storage (talk) 03:20, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
chinese is id'd as the language of the chinese, which is the point of the that param. it's so that people can navigate easily between the language and ethnicity articles. if there are other notable peoples who speak a variety of chinese as their native language, then of course we should include them as well; if we have an article on the topic we can link to that — kwami (talk) 03:27, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For sure, all I'm saying is that Han Chinese isn't the only Chinese ethnic group (the article for Chinese people even mentions that Outside China, the terms "Han Chinese" and "Chinese" are often wrongly conflated since those identifying or registered as Han Chinese are the dominant ethnic group in China). There are too many Chinese-language-speaking ethnic groups to list in the infobox, which is why I'm not sure about the best way to summarise them, or even which summary article would be the best one to link to... although now that I've remembered that the article for Chinese people exists, I think Ethnicity = Chinese people is probably the best option? Pineapple Storage (talk) 03:35, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, according to the Chinese people article: The Chinese people, or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. (emphasis added) Ethnicity is famously a nebulous concept and can be influenced by a lot of factors, including nationality... Pineapple Storage (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
that's one use of the word, but more commonly 'chinese' means ethnically chinese, just as 'french' and 'german' most often refer to ethnicity, not nationality. this is only a problem of course when a country is named after a nation, which is why persia was renamed to iran.
Okay, but isn't that just another reason why Chinese people is the relevant article to link here? There's no 'nationality' parameter in Template:Infobox language, and as we've established in the recent RM discussion, the "Chinese language" has fuzzy and porous boundaries, and a lot of internal diversity, so (to me, at least) it doesn't make sense to impose such a specific 'ethnic group' assignment as Han Chinese to such a broad language concept.Now that I've looked into it a bit more it does seem like quite a few of the Chinese non-Han ethnic groups (eg. Zhuang people, Miao people) have native languages that are actually not Chinese languages (Zhuang languages are part of the Kra-Dai family, and Hmongic languages are part of the Hmong–Mien family, for instance). Even so, an exception to this seems to be the Hui people, who do speak Chinese specifically; they have been recognised by the PRC as a distinct ethnic group since 1954 according to the article.Anyway, I'm not looking to argue about this, I just thought the issue should be discussed. Pineapple Storage (talk) 06:04, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
which is why i added the hui, even though they arguably are han chinese
again, the parameter is for ethnicity, not nationality. that is not an argument for replacing ethnicity with nationality. countries btw are listed under 'native to'.
the fact that you didn't know that there were other languages spoken in china suggests that you should probably research a topic before suggesting changes, esp when other editors push back — kwami (talk) 06:08, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say I "didn't know there were other languages spoken in China"! I just didn't realise there were quite so many subgroups of Han Chinese; I've always been more focused on the language/linguistic side of things—for instance, when I studied Chinese at degree level (hint hint, I'm not as clueless as you seem to think I am)—so I don't know as much about the structure of the various ethnic groups etc, and exactly how the language diversity compares to the ethnic diversity. For instance, I knew that Wu, Min and Yue were spoken by the Wu, Min and Cantonese/Taishanese respectively, but I didn't realise that those were actually subgroups of Han Chinese ethnicity rather than distinct ethnic groups.Thank you for adding Hui people to the infobox; I was writing (and researching) my previous comment when you made that edit, which is why I didn't see that you'd done it. I would say, the fact that you added that illustrates why this discussion was necessary; the infobox 'Ethnicity' parameter was missing something when it just said Han Chinese, but it wasn't immediately clear to me how this could be rectified, so I brought it to the talk page.Also, while we're giving feedback on each other's approach to this discussion... I would have appreciated a bit less condescension than was present in your last comment. Pineapple Storage (talk) 06:43, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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