question 4

    I consider myself a native speaker of both Chinese and Mongolian. I think for both Chinese and Mongolian, there are certain standards to be followed in writing. 

    Mongolian language is very diverse and has many dialects. The differences between the dialects sometimes can be so huge that people from different regions would not be able to understand each other. For example, I can understand Mongolian people from my province, but won’t be able to understand the Mongolian people from another province or another country very well. Even though spoken Mongolian are diverse, written Mongolian can be understood by almost all the Mongolian people around the world who can read and write. Written Mongolian is less diverse and conforms to certain rules.

    Spoken Chinese is also very diverse and there are many dialects. I think the diversity of spoken Chinese is a lot greater than Mongolian; sometimes Chinese people from neighboring villages cannot understand each other.  However, many dynasties in Chinese history had standard spoken Chinese called “Guanhua”; shortly after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mandarin has become the standard spoken Chinese across the nation on top of the dialects. The standard writing system using simplified Chinese characters was advocated and developed since 1919 and was promoted further after the foundation of the PRC.

    From my point of view, the standards of writing in Chinese are created to unify the country for political purposes. With different writing standards, Chinese people from different provinces would be able to fully understand what has been written. For example, people from Guangdong province speak Cantonese, and they have a special writing system which is based on spoken Cantonese. If all the official documents in Guangdong are written in this system, few people from other regions would be able to understand them.