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Abstract:Fangyan ... is usually referred to as "Chinese dialects", a phrase generally intended as "dialect of Chinese" and thus "varieties of Chinese". This has been leading a number of specialists and non-specialists alike to treat the Chinese language as a special language, including in it imaginary and not mutually intelligible varieties such as the so called Yue dialect, the Southern Min, the Wu, and even Old Chinese, Classical Chinese, Middle Chinese and Vernacular Chinese. To face this synonymy, unnecessary new translations such as "topolects" and "regionalects" have also been suggested by important scholars such as Mair and Defrancis, respectively. This paper aims at reaching the goal of a standardised terminology among Chinese linguists by underlining the meaning of the words «fangyan ... », «dialect», «language», «variety», and «accent» with reference to the Chinese world, and demonstrates how "groups" such as the Southern Min, the Wu, and the Yue are not dialect nor groups, but branches of languages, containing languages not to be referred to as Chinese dialects / dialects of Chinese in english.
Keywords: Chinese dialects, Hanyu fangyan ... , topolects, regionalects
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)
INTRODUCTION
«Terminology does not matter that much, » a well-known scholar of Chinese told me once, «as long as everybody understands what the other means. It is just a question of agreement on the meaning of some words by a group of people. », and I am very grateful to the person who reminded me of the basis upon which words are defined. I apologise, though, for having to admit that Chinese linguistics does not enjoy so much of an agreement on the meaning of words used by linguists. Terminology does matter, especially when misuse of words may lead non-specialists (and specialists alike, albeit to a different extent) to misunderstanding. I am also firmly convinced that if a scholar calls this A, and I call it B, and some other calls it C, then we are not in the position of achieving any scientific truth: as long as one needs to translate A, B, or C in some other language to fully understand what the other means, no comparison of results can be thoroughly done.2
The damages of a wrong terminology can be seen in...