Chinese-speaking world
| Sinophone | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 漢語圈 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 汉语圈 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Han language circle | ||||||||
|
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| Traditional Chinese | 操漢語者 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 操汉语者 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Han language-speaking person(s) | ||||||||
|
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Hànyǔquān |
| Wade–Giles | Han-yü-ch'üan |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | cāo Hànyǔzhě |
| Wade–Giles | ts'ao Han-yu-chê |
Chinese-speaking world or Sinophone or sinophone is a neologism that fundamentally means "Chinese-speaking", typically referring to a person who speaks at least one variety of Chinese. Academic writers use Sinophone "Chinese-speaking regions" in two ambiguous meanings: either specifically "Chinese-speaking areas where it is a minority language, excluding China and Taiwan" or generally "Chinese-speaking areas, including where it is an official language". Many authors use the collocation Sinophone world to mean the overseas Chinese regions of diaspora outside of Greater China, and some for the entire Chinese-speaking world. Mandarin Chinese is the most commonly spoken language today, with over one billion people, approximately 20% of the world population, speaking it.
's etymology is from "China; Chinese" (cf. Sinology) and "speaker of a certain language" (cf. Arabophone).
Edward McDonald (2011) claimed the word sinophone, "seems to have been coined separately and simultaneously on both sides of the Pacific" in 2005, by Geremie Barmé (Australia National University) and Shu-Mei Shih (UCLA). Barmé (2008) explained the "Sinophone world" as "one consisting of the individuals and communities who use one or another—or, indeed, a number—of China-originated languages and dialects to make meaning of and for the world, be it through speaking, reading, writing or via an engagement with various electronic media." Shih (2004:29) noted, "By "sinophone" literature I mean literature written in Chinese by Chinese-speaking writers in various parts of the world outside China, as distinguished from "Chinese literature"—literature from China." Nevertheless, there are two earlier sinophone usages. Ruth Keen (1988:231) defined "Sinophone communities" in Chinese literature as "the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and the U.S." Coulombe and Roberts (2001:12) compared students of French between anglophones "with English as their mother tongue" and allophones (in the Quebec English sense) "without English or French as their mother tongue", including sinophones defined as "Cantonese/Mandarin speakers."
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