Chinese Dialects（方言）

The enormousdifferences in Chinese dialects have been a continuing problem ever since Chinabecame an empire in 221 B.C.,and it is one big reason why the country has

remainedimpoverished （贫穷）.Of the600 million people,all but a very small number speak Chinese. But the dialectsvary so widely that the speech of Peking,for

example,is asdifferent from the speech of Cantonas English is from German.

There is,to besure,only one written language for all China,but it bears no phonetic（语音的）relationship to any of the spokendialects.Moreover,it has so many symbols

that only a tinyportion of the population has ever mastered it.

As a result,mostChinese have been isolated for centuries from a free flow of ideas and from theeconomic progress that such a flow produces.Many dynasties tried with little

success to breakdown the wall. After recognizing the importance of having a literate people forworking in a technological world and for developing an effective propaganda

（宣传）machine,thepresent government is putting everything it has into tackling the languageproblem. But the obstacles are so formidable（难以应付的）thatthe results

cannot yet bepredicted.

At the heart of theproblem is the dialects.The dialects prevented the evolution of a singlewritten language based on phonetics.Instead,the Chinese were forced to developa

system that has norelation to sound,and they have clung to it for more than 3,000 years.When thissystem is applied to a whole language,it results in an overwhelming

number of symbols.

There are about50,000 entries in a Chinese dictionary not counting the compounds（复合词）. In order to be literate,aChinese must learn 6,000;to be moderately

educated,12,000.AnEnglish-speaking child,having to conquer only a twenty-six-letter alphabet,hasusually learned to read by the time he begins the third grade.A Chinese

child needs at leastfive more years of elementary learning;in the seventh grade,he can barely reada Chinese newspaper.The main reasonwhy there are a great number of symbols in Chinese language is that______.

A.China failed todevelop a single written language based on phonetics

B.a Chinese child issupposed to learn much more words than his English speaking counterpart

C.enormousdifferences in Chinese dialects

D.the Chineselanguage system has no relation to sound

E.educate morepeople to learn the same language