Hello!
As appears to be the custom, I shall introduce myself.
My name is Quytelda Geiwin. I am an avid conlanger, and I've been following the Omniglot website for a while. I have my own conlang, Tamélin. I have studied Español and Sindarin, as well as French (which I have mostly forgotten) and dabbled in 中文. I speak English natively.
Some other info about me:
Favorite Spoken Languages: Quenya; Finnish; Irish Gaelic
Favorite Written Language: Mandarin Chinese; Sanskrit; Manchu
And that is all about me...

Welcome to the Omniglot forum!
By the way, I think the term "Mandarin" is used specifically to refer a spoken variety of Chinese, that which is the lingua franca & official language of both Chinas. The written language, which is based on but not completely identical to Mandarin, I think is simply called "Chinese" or "Written Chinese".

Mandarin is the only variety of Chinese I have ever studied. I guess maybe I should say "Written Simplified Chinese" or "Written Mandarin Chinese". I do enjoy the look of some traditional characters, just never studied it.

Welcome to the board Geiwin!

So I can I say that Written Chinese is Mandarin with some influences from Classical Chinese?

你這真是錯的離譜了。 所謂的漢文，是指所有漢語方言的種類，而不是指某一個方言。 普通話，或言北京官話，只不過是一種修飾過的北方漢語方言而已，其之形成與人造語言（conlang）差不多。 然而，普通話與文言文又是差之千里萬里了，兩者根本是醜牛頭對不上臭馬嘴。 把話兒說白了，每個漢語方言都有自己獨特的漢文文字及語法，香港的漢語方言在這方面最為明顯。

你这真是错的离谱了。 所谓的汉文，是指所有汉语方言的种类，而不是指某一个方言。 普通话，或言北京官话，只不过是一种修饰过的北方汉语方言而已，其之形成与人造语言（conlang）差不多。 然而，普通话与文言文又是差之千里万里了，两者根本是丑牛头对不上臭马嘴。 把话儿说白了，每个汉语方言都有自己独特的汉文文字及语法，香港的汉语方言在这方面最为明显。

Oh. I confused 普通話 with 漢文, sorry for that.

Yes, this conlanging I was talking about was the influences from Classical Chinese (成語 and many particles), and some borrowing from dialects and langauges from outside to the base of Northern dialects.

I think linguists would say that 閩 dialects are the most obvious digression. (They are usually said not to be descended from Middle Chinese but from some other source of Chinese.)

The Standard Chinese Language does not have borrowings from dialects, it is the other way around. All native speakers of the chinese language speak the Standard Chinese Language with their own dialectal influences (be it vocabularies or pronunciation, or even both).



Actually the 閩系方言 is closer to the ancient pronunciations whilst the northern dialects were influenced by mongolic, turkic and tungusic pronunciations in the eras of the past.

[quote="VROOR"]The Standard Chinese Language does not have borrowings from dialects, it is the other way around. All native speakers of the chinese language speak the Standard Chinese Language with their own dialectal influences (be it vocabularies or pronunciation, or even both)./quote]
This doesn't make any sense; it's also demonstrably wrong. Take the word 的士. Although it originated in Hong Kong Cantonese (as a borrowing from English), it's perfectly well understood in Beijing.

閣下是否懂漢語以及了解漢文化？ 在下敢言您對漢語文化的了解根本就水平還不到家。 北京那兒這幾年以來，除了奧客越來越多之外，奧語影片也是風行。 因此，「的士」本就是奧客帶去的用詞，久而久之北京人當然懂那詞的意思。 但是，這「的士」一詞，北京人雖然能聽懂，自己卻不會去用這詞。 在北京人的口中，「的士」是叫「出租車」。

Do you understand the Chinese language and culture? I dare to conclude your command of the chinese linguistic culture is limited. Beijing has long since been populated and visited by Cantonese as well as dialectal films in Cantonese are popular there from many years. It is of no shock that, Beijingers can understand the dialectal term from Cantonese but, in turn, they themselves do not use the Cantonese dialectal term in their own Beijing dialect. Understanding another dialect's term is NOT equal to adopting those terms into one's own dialect.

Welcome, Geiwin (though I am actually a newbie like you!)!
I haven't got anything to contribute to the debates regarding Chinese dialects, as I'm no expert in this particular field, but I do have a question for you - you say one of your favorite spoken languages is Finnish. Do you speak Finnish? I ask because I have relocated to Hungary and am learning Magyarul (I'm a native English speaker, too). And the two tongues are related; my mother-in-law has said that listening to Finnish is nearly like listening to a nonsense version of Magyarul... what do you like about Finnish best?