What are we calling it?

Everything is Meaningless “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Wisdom is Meaningless 16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. Pleasure is a Ghost I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives. When I found pleasure, it escaped me, and my days...

If you tell someone that you’re learning Chinese, they might ask you, “So, are you learning Cantonese or Mandarin?” Over the years, there’s been some contention about whether or not “Chinese” is a language, and I’ve heard the claim that Chinese isn’t a language several times in my own life. So, which one is it? Is “Chinese” a language or not? The truth is, if you’re studying any of China's 276 indigenous dialects , you’re studying Chinese! At least, you are according to most Chinese people.  Depending on who you ask, Chinese has between 7 to 10 distinct language groups. From a linguistic perspective, these groups are more like separate languages than dialects, but they are still widely considered to belong to a single Chinese language, if only as part of a common cultural/political identity. (It's been said that  a language is a dialect with an army and a navy .) The two most common dialects to study are Mandarin and Cantonese, but they only represent a fraction of China...