In 1879, according to Isabella Bird, a visitor to the tin mining boomtown of Taiping, Perak, "five topolects of Chinese are spoken, and Chinamen constantly communicate with each other in Malay, because they can't understand each other's Chinese".[The Encyclopedia of Malaysia: Languages & Literature by Prof. Dato' Dr Asmah Haji Omar (2004) .] The Chinese languages spoken in Malaysia have over the years become localized (e.g.
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Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. A variety spoken in a particular region is called a regional dialect (regiolect, geolect); some regional varieties are called regionalects or topolects, especially to discuss varieties of Chinese. In addition, there are dialect varieties associated with particular ethnic groups (sometimes called ethnolects), socioeconomic classes (sometimes called sociolects), or other social or cultural groups. Dialectology is the study of dialects and their geographic or social distribution.
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For example, several varieties of Southwestern Mandarin are not mutually intelligible, and they would be classified as distinct languages within the Mandarin branch of the Chinese (or Sinitic) language family, if it weren't for the dominant social, historical, and political concept of Chinese as a unitary language. Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, the mutually unintelligible varieties of Southwestern Mandarin, and indeed the mutually intelligible dialects within those varieties are all termed "topolects".
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The Chinese language or languages/topolects are largely gender-neutral, and possess few linguistic gender markers. Comprehension of written and spoken Chinese is almost wholly dependent on word order, as it has no inflections for gender, tense, or case. There are also very few derivational inflections; instead, the language relies heavily on compounding to create new words. A Chinese word is thus inherently gender- neutral, but any given word can be preceded by an adjective/root indicating masculinity or femininity.
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The palatal stops , , remain stops only in Min among the Chinese topolects (though also in Japanese and Vietnamese loan words); elsewhere they are conflated with the affricates. The palatal and retroflex sibilants are generally conflated; in Yue and Min, as well as in much of Wu and Mandarin, they are further conflated with the alveolar sibilants. This contrast remains in Beijing, where 'three' is distinct from 'mountain'; both are in Sichuanese and Taiwanese Mandarin. There are numerous more sporadic correlations.
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Chuanqi is a form of Chinese opera popular in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and early Qing dynasty (1636–1912). It emerged in the mid-Ming dynasty from the older form of nanxi. As it spread throughout the empire, it absorbed regional music styles and topolects and eventually evolved into different local genres, among them kunqu. Of the 2000 plus titles recorded in history, over 600 chuanqi plays are extant, including The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu, The Palace of Eternal Life by Hong Sheng, and The Peach Blossom Fan by Kong Shangren.
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Clever, intelligent. () # Surname, family name. () This dictionary entry for shen lists early usage examples, and many of these 11 meanings were well attested prior to the Han Dynasty. Chinese classic texts use shen in meanings 1 "spirit; god", 2 "spirit, mind; attention", 3 "expression; state of mind", 5 "supernatural", and meaning 6 "esteem". The earliest examples of meaning 4 "portrait" are in Song Dynasty texts. Meanings 7-9 first occur in early Chinese dictionaries; the Erya defines shen in meanings 7 "govern" and 8 "cautious" (and 6, which is attested elsewhere), and the Guangya defines meaning 9 "display". Meaning 10 gives three usages in Chinese dialects (technically "topolects", see Fangyan).
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