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Chinese varieties and dialects
The term 'Chinese' refers to a group of dialects and local varieties which often are mutually incomprehensible when spoken but share one 'universal' writing system. Chinese writing is logographic, meaning that a symbol represents one word, syllable or concept rather than a sound. Chinese writing has influenced many languages of East Asia, including Japanese. While spoken Chinese varies strongly, written Chinese is comprehensible to all varieties, including Japanese or Korean. This is especially fascinating as Japanese and Korean are not related to Chinese language but have only adopted the writing system!As was mentioned before, Chinese is not a monolithic homogenous structure, but rather a motley concoction of at least 15 major dialects. Within those groups many sub-variations occur which causes some linguists to doubt that Chinese actually is one single language. One of the reasons to consider Chinese to be a single language rather than a family of languages is that its speakers think of it as such.
And now let's have a look at the main varieties of Chinese.
Putonghua: "Normal language". (in English it is called Mandarin)
Mandarin is the most widely spoken form of Chinese. In addition it is official language in People's Republic China and Taiwan. The establishment of elementary schools throughout the two countries greatly advanced the importance of Mandarin as official language.Official parlance insists that there are two different varieties of Mandarin: the one spoken in Taiwan as opposed to the one used in the PRC (People's Republic of China). However, this is based on politics rather than on linguistics as the differences are rather marginal: there are much more variants of Mandarin throughout the two countries.
Beijing hua: "Beijing speak" or "Beijing dialect"
First of all, the Beijing dialect is a dialect, though the one whereon putonghua is based. It is the way common Beijingers speak in their daily life -- with all the features typical for vernacular. Its main distinctions are tonal and sound variations and dialectal expressions.Guoyu: National language
The term is used for the variety of Standard Chinese as accepted in Taiwan. For the most of Taiwanese, it is the medium of education rather than their native language. However, through the decades of standardized compulsory education, it has become the core of vernacular speech for the post-war generations. The younger the person is, the more likely their Standard Chinese will be fluent.
Guoyu's standard form is almost identical to Putonghua, but such typical Beijing phenomena as qing-sheng-fication (light-tone-ization) and er-fication are much less common. Also, some consonants (most notably zh-, ch-, sh-) may be pronounced softer than in Mainland China, while the 3rd tone pronounced in Taiwan as low flat rather than the Mainland way -- sharply falling and then rising back up.
Huayu
This is the Standard Chinese -- as opposed to Chinese dialects -- used as (once again) the medium of education by ethnic Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia and other countries. It is more of a literary tradition, since the vernacular , for the majority of the Overseas Chinese community, is represented by various Chinese dialects. Its written form is also known as Bei-hua. Save Singapore, it almost invariably uses the Traditional script for writing.TV Standard
In a number of countries, the TV speak is considered to be the standard language. However, Beijing TV anchorpersons are (in)famous for their unnatural forced intonations (claimed to add more pathos and dramatism to their commentaries) that they themselves never use in normal conversation.As if to make good for heavy usage of vernacular dialect in Taiwanese daily speech -- or in a bid to out-Mandarin the mainlanders -- the Taiwanese TV folks enunciate in a far more natural fashion than their Beijing colleagues. Nevertheless, they still fall short of what could be called super-correct Chinese -- all because of their Taiwanese consonants and occasional usage of somewhat obsolete forms.
Most probably, the only real speakers of Standard Chinese are professors in major central universities.