ITS GREEK TO ME

Language is a subject that has always fascinated me.  In the U.S., our primary language is English.  From north to south and east to west there are a few minor differences in pronunciation and word usage; there are colloquial terms and different tonal inflection but everyone understands everyone else.  We have a single dictionary.  Not so, everywhere!

In China, language is a different kind of problem.  Mandarin is the standard for almost everyone - that's about a billion people.  When you meet someone say, "Ni hoa." pronounced "Knee how."  meaning "You good." which is their way of saying "Hello!"  (I learned that a long time ago.)  Mandarin is taught to children in most schools.  There are many dialects of Mandarin but just the one language.  EXCEPT . . .

The official language of Hong Kong, Macau and much of southeastern China is Cantonese.  The Chinese language spoken by most people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia is Cantonese.

You may now be asking yourself, "How different could it be?"  This is how different.  If a person only knew Mandarin or only knew Cantonese, he would not know one word of the other's language.  They are about 95% different.  They could not communicate.  Two completely different dictionaries are required.   Even the words they share are spoken differently - pronunciation is different.  Grammar is different. 

So, how do they get along?  Here is the trick.  (Of course, many people are able to speak in both Mandarin and Cantonese.)  The trick is the written languages are the same!  Two languages - spoken differently - but the same when written in standard Chinese characters.  It's amazing.  Each person can read a single newspaper in his own language.   This is the big advantage of written Chinese.  In place of our letters which make words which make sentences which make ideas, Chinese characters speak ideas.  Ideas are universal. 

I'm convinced that some day my ancestors will read CJK - the unified Chinese, Japanese, Korean written language.
忙
怃
玈
两
No, I don't have the slightest idea what this means.