LANGUAGE

Josh Lieb 3/10/09 Period 4 Chinese Language

 **What is Mandarin?** Mandarin is a very popular language in China. It was first used way back in the 18th century. Have you heard of a language so old? It's alphabet is a lot different than ours and is harder to understand. It is a really cool language to study.

The history of Mandarin is a lot more interesting than ours. Mandarin was spoken by officers back in the 1700s/1800s. The word comes from the phrase "guanya" which means official language. The word guanya is Portuguese. Isn't it strange that a Chinese language came from a Portuguese word? It is quite surprising. (Map of Portugal [Online Image] Available http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/images/flags/portugal_map.gif, March 11, 2009)

The alphabet is harder to understand than the history. The alphabet has many more letters and vowels than ours does. It could take years to master the alphabet. "The Chinese also learn their written language with the help of an alphabet"(http://kayara.blogspot.com/2008/01/mandarin-teaching-alphabet.html). The alphabet has over forty vowels and thousands of symbols. If you thought other languages were hard, this one tops them all! (Mandarin Symbols [Online Image] Available http://www.tangren.ch/images/Sprachkurse/zhongwen.gif)

The Mandarin dialect (language) is used a lot. In fact, many places in the world other than China use it. It is one of the main languages of Singapore and is used commonly in Brazil. This is weird since the language is hard to understand. Many people like it, I don't know why...

(Map of Singapore [Online Image] Available http://www.a1singaporehotels.com/images/singapore-map.jpg)

As you have seen from my above description, Mandarin is an interesting language. It is definitely worth studying. Many people around the world use it despite its challenging features. Mandarin's background has made it a language of the past, and most certainly the future.  __**Works Cited**__ Links: http://kayara.blogspot.com/2008/01/mandarin-teaching-alphabet.html http://www.omniglot.com/writing/mandarin.htm

Pictures: http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/images/flags/portugal_map.gif http://www.a1singaporehotels.com/images/singapore-map.jpg http://www.tangren.ch/images/Sprachkurse/zhongwen.gif