What language represents the Chinese nation? Seemingly a straightforward question, the simplest answer would be what in English we call “Mandarin.” Known as Putonghua (普通话), or the common tongue in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), it is the nation’s official language. Putonghua is the language PRC children learn in schools. It is the language that broadcasts on the nation’s television and radio, that blares in shopping centers, and announces subway stops. It is also the titular Chinese language abroad. Today it is taught in millions of “Chinese” language classes across the world. At the United Nations, translators asked to render speeches delivered in Russian or Arabic into “Chinese” would recite them in Putonghua’s four tones.

But on a day-to-day basis, remarkably few people within the PRC’s borders speak this language exclusively. Nearly 80 percent of PRC citizens grew up speaking one or several fangyan (方言): local Chinese languages that are often mutually unintelligible with spoken Putonghua.