Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong

What does it mean to speak the Chinese language? The most common answer to this question would be Mandarin, the national language of the People’s Republic of China. Yet within the PRC, the languages spoken on the streets are often not its national language, Mandarin, but rather one of the country's many fangyan, local languages such as Shanghainese or Cantonese or dozens of others. Fangyan are rarely thought of as distinct languages in their own right; instead, they are most often termed "dialects" of Chinese, despite the fact that many are linguistically quite distinct from one another and Mandarin. The purpose of this talk is to explore why Chinese fangyan are so often treated as dialects in public policy, academia, and popular discourse. From missionaries and revolutionaries to bureaucrats and academics, this talk will highlight those who helped solidify and normalize the categorization of fangyan as dialect from the late Qing through the present day, and explore how their translation has shaped and has been shaped by historical power dynamics.