Han Chinese speak various forms of the Chinese language; one of the names of the language group is Hanyu, literally the “Han language”. Similarly, Chinese characters, used to write the language, are called Hanzi or “Han characters”.
Language as a Uniting Factor
Despite the existence of many dialects of Chinese spoken languages, one factor in Han ethnic unity is the Chinese written language. This unity is credited to the Qin Dynasty which unified the various forms of writing that existed in China at that time. For thousands of years, Literary Chinese was used as the standard written format, which used vocabulary and grammar significantly different from the various forms of spoken Chinese. Since the twentieth century, written Chinese has been usually vernacular Chinese, which is largely based upon dialects of Mandarin, and not the local dialect of the writer. Thus, although the residents of different regions would not necessarily understand each other’s speech, they would be able to understand each other’s writing.
Han Diversity
In addition to a diversity of spoken languages, there are also regional differences in culture among Han Chinese. For example, China’s cuisine varies from Sichuan’s famously spicy food to Guangdong’s Dim Sum and fresh seafood. However, ethnic unity still exists between these two groups because of common cultural, behavioral, linguistic, and religious practices.
Historical documentation indicates that the Han were descended from the ancient Huaxia tribes of northern China. During the past two millennia, the Han culture (that is, the language and its associated culture) extended into southern China. As Huaxia culture spread from its heartland in the Yellow River Basin, it absorbed many distinct ethnic groups which then came to be identified as Han Chinese, as these groups adopted Han language (or variations of it) and customs. For example, during the Shang Dynasty, people of the Wu area, in the Yangtze River Delta, were considered a “barbarian” tribe. They spoke a distinct language, and were described as being scantily dressed and tattooed. By the Tang Dynasty, however, this area had become part of the Han Chinese heartland, and is today the most densely populated and strongest performing economic region in China, the site of China’s largest city Shanghai. The people in the Wu area today speak the Wu dialects, which are part of the Chinese language family but are mutually unintelligible with other Chinese dialects, and do not see themselves as a separate ethnic group.
The Wu area is one example of many involving the absorption of different cultural groups in contributing toward the diversity of culture and language throughout the Han Chinese ethnic group.
