Video: Overview of the Linguistic History of Chinese (Sinitic) Languages

Chinese (Sinitic) language history video

The lowdown on Chinese languages

In this video, Paul gives a great overview of Chinese or Sinitic languages including:

  • their history
  • where they are spoken (global distribution)
  • background on the writing system that unites them
  • how these tonal languages work
  • what other languages have influenced them
  • what regional Chinese varieties exist
  • very much more

Paul includes example samples of the Chinese language to illustrate the main points of how the language works - super helpful for folks just getting started and interesting in general for language geeks like me.

Words from the videographer

This video is all about the Sinitic language family, also known as Chinese!

Fun facts about Chinese speakers

Chinese languages are spoken by nearly 1.3 billion people in China and Taiwan. Close to another million speakers live elsewhere.

Somewhere around 200 million people speak Chinese as a second language.

Mandarin Chinese, the most spoken of Sinitic languages, is used by nearly one billion human beings, making it the most spoken language in the world by population.

About LangFocus

I've been a big fan of the LangFocus YouTube channel for quite some time now.

I visit it regularly to deepen my knowledge about languages in general - the videos are both academic and entertaining, a great combo.

The LangFocus creator, Paul, hails from Canada and is a language lover and polyglot who creates a wide variety of videos about languages and language learning. His work is supported by his listeners via Patreon.

Paul @langfocus you rock

Keep up the goods :) I want to interview you for an upcoming podcast.