I know that many people would disagree with this definition (since technically I am calling Sichuanhua Putonghua since it can be mutually understood), but you have to draw the line somewhere. This is also the same paradigm I would use to say that because of mutual intelligibility, Putonghua, Sinchaunhua, Yunnanhua, and many of the Northern dialects are the same language, but different dialects. Whereas the various tongues spoken in Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Hunan, I would classify as different languages because they are not mutually intelligible.

The original point of my post however, is that when people in Fuzhou speak Putonghua, they are actually easier to understand than many Northerners, since their dialect cannot be understood by your average Chinese. Whereas, somebody from rural Hebei can get away with speaking their dialect to a Beijinger, and still be understood.

As for Hunan, I do remember in my trip there, that the Hunanese tend to throw dialect words into their Putonghua rather liberally. Interestingly enough, this is almost never done in Fuzhou. (possible linguistics theses for somebody here??) There are many words which come from the dialect, 调羹 instead of 勺子 comes to mind, but these are still always spoken with Putonghua pronunciation, not the way they would be in the dialect.

Furthermore, I think it is difficult to assess the intelligibility of a dialect as a laowai. You can certainly assume a dialect is intelligible, since if we understand it, than the Chinese certainly do, but determining non-intelligibility is a little trickier. While you may have had trouble communicating in Hunan, my guess is that a Chinese (not from Hunan) wouldn’t have had such difficulty, just as I’d imagine a Beijinger could have understood those boys from Hebei. Same thing in English. I know many Chinese people with impeccable English, but sit them down with a Jamaican, and they’re lucky if they can catch 20% of what’s said.

Good discussion.

My experience of Changsha- where I started learning Chinese- is perhaps one very big reason why I doubt your claim, Ben. Many times in markets I would have to ask three times how much something cost before I could get a response I could understand- and that meant them replying three times with three sets of hand-signals. And no, I had no reason to believe they took my repeated questions as an odd, laowai way of bargaining. I had many similar experiences. And then I moved to Taiyuan and had to totally readjust not only my accent but my grammar.

And then one day in Tongzhou in the far southeastern corner of Beijing, my wife and I were on a minibus and this old guy jumped on and he had to repeat the name of his destination at least five times before the ticket seller understood. Trouble is, I understood him first time. Ticket seller asked old guy where he’s from. He said Hunan.

My wife’s Jiuma is from a very remote county of northwestern Hebei right up by the Shanxi border, what should be a Jin-speaking area. Of all my extended in-laws, hers is the accent that gives me the most trouble. But then, just before last Spring Festival, we were up in Ma’s home village in Huailai County visiting Dajiu and Jiuma and I suddenly realised that certain of Jiuma’s sentence patterns, pronunciations and rhythms were oddly familiar, like what I’d heard when I lived in Taiyuan.

There is, apparently some discussion about whether Jin is a branch of Mandarin (like the dialects of Sichuan and Yunnan) or a separate ‘language’, like those of Fujian, Hunan, and Guangdong.

So I would say that many people speak something approaching Putonghua, but with a heavy accent (true of the whole country, sure, but….) and so hugely influenced by the grammar of their local dialect as to make their Putonghua not really Putonghua. I don’t know where you’d draw the line, how you’d sort the Putonghua-speakers from the non-Putonghua-speakers, but this is a very real problem.

It’s a figure released by the Chinese Government, specifically the State Working Committee of Chinese Language.

It is their function to promote Putonghua (Mandarin) so they are probably manipulating the figure up, not down.

I certainly know many Chinese who can’t speak it.

This is exactly the point I was trying to reiterate. Putonghua ability is not necessarily a North-South division. There are many more factors at work, namely as you mention, social class. My guess is that these kids probably will not learn to code-switch however, unless they get a job in a city. By the age of 12, the critical period is basically over, and adding another language or dialect is considerably difficult (not necessarily impossible though). Small children in Fujian are usually code-switching by about 4 or 5, thus they grow up speaking both their dialect and Putonghua with native fluency. Granted, learning Putonghua is of much greater importance for the Fujianese, because unlike these kids in Hebei, nobody will understand them if they speak their dialacts away from home.

As for the 99% of Fuzhouren under 65 speaking Putonghua, I am going to stand by my figure. I have heard that 54% Putonghua statistic as well and have always felt it’s baloney. I have several theories as to the origins of this stat. Firstly, I have a feeling that people who only speak dialects such as Sichuan hua or Henan Hua (both generally intelligable to Chinese from other regions) are not considered as “putonghua” speakers While technically, they are not speaking putonghua, including them in this statistic gives the impression that they are unable to communicate with putonghua speakers, which is not the case. Secondly, I believe it is entirely possible that the “study” which arrived at the 54% statistic may have only included those who speak putonghua as a first language. There is a wide misconception (held by many Chinese as well) that people in places such as Fujian do not speak Putonghua. While there are very few places in Fujian where Putonghua is the first language, thesedays almost everybody is completely bilingual. If you were to just pick a random Fujian locale (other than Fuzhou or Xiamen) and stand on a street corner and listen, you’d probably hear about 90% dialect, 10% Putonghua. But if you were a laowai or waidiren and were to walk around talking to locals, you’d find that they can all communicate in Putonghua as well. Generally speaking, the only people in Fujian you will run into with whom you cannot communicate in Putonghua, are those who live high up in mountains (or on islands) and were educated before the establishment of the PRC.

So for Fuzhou city itself, it is almost unheard of for a local (under 65）not to speak Putonghua. If we were going for the entire province, I would give a ballpark figure maybe at very lowest of around 80%, and that’s conservative.
With that high of a percentage of Fujian ren speaking Putonghua, I am highly skeptical of a national average of 54%. But I can certainly see how you could manipulate the data to come up with such a figure.

Even more importantly, in a country like China there is absolutely no way to do a scientifically bound linguistic survey to figure out how many people do in fact speak Putonghua. Even if there was, I don’t buy that 54% figure.

First, remember that in China, like in every other country, all the best teachers and educational resources go to the cities, while the rural areas make do with whatever’s left over. It’s quite possible that those kids’ teachers didn’t necessarily speak the best Putonghua.

My wife is from a rural area even closer to Beijing- Yanqing County, which is Beijing’s northwestern corner. She does a lot of code-switching between standard Putonghua and Yanqinghua- and yes, there is quite a distinct difference. Basically, as soon as we cross Badaling or whenever she’s talking to one of her family members (apart from myself, of course) she switches to Yanqinghua. The rest of the time she speaks Putonghua. I presume that with time the kids you were talking to will learn to do the same.

And remember that poorer areas and poorer people tend to get less education. It’s entirely possible that these kids will never learn proper Putonghua and go through their lives with strong local accents marking them out as poor, rural folk.

And I would be very, very surprised if 99% of Fuzhouren under 65 really could speak Putonghua. Firstly, last I heard only 54% of Chinese people speak Putonghua- and that’s an official government figure from only a couple of years ago. Secondly, my experience suggests that no matter where you are in China- even here in Beijing- ability to speak Putonghua is closely linked with educational levels and social status. More educated people are more likely to speak standard Putonghua, less educated people tend to speak dialect. But again, that’s true of pretty much every country.

By the way, today’s post takes about 30 seconds or so to load here in Shanghai. But even though the page is fully loaded, Firefox is still saying that it is “Transferring data from http://www.benross.net...”