Chinese Language Families

汉语言大家庭

The languages in China fall into five language families ： Han-Tibetan, Altaic ,Austro-Asiatic, Malyo-Polynesian and Indo-European. The first one is the biggest,with three major branches and dozens of languages. The three branches are: Zhuang-Dong, Tibeto-Burman and Miao-Yao. The second largest family is Altaic with two major branches: Turkic and Mongol-Tungus. This family of languages is dispersed¹ across the north of China. The big ones are; Mongolian², Uighur, Kazak, Kyrgyz, Uzbek,Manchu and Korean. There are just three languages in the Austro-Asiatic family. They areWa, Blang and Deang. All of them are on the southwestern border. The Malyo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the natives on the Taiwan Island. The Indo-European is the smallest family with only two languages ：Russian and Tajik.

中国的语言分为五大语系：汉藏语系，阿尔泰语系，南亚语系，马来-波利尼西亚语系和印欧语系。第一个是最大的，有三个主要的分支机构和几十种语言。这三大分支分别是：壮侗族，藏缅语族，苗瑶族。第二个最大的家族是阿尔泰语系的两个主要分支：突厥和蒙古 - 通古斯。这个系列的语言在中国北部被分散。最大的是，蒙古族，维吾尔族，哈萨克族，吉尔吉斯族，乌兹别克族，满族和韩族。只有三种语言在南亚语系。他们是佤族，布朗族和德昂族。他们都在西南边陲。马来-波利尼西亚语是由台湾岛内的当地人经常使用。印欧语系是最小的家庭，只有两种语言：俄罗斯语和塔吉克斯坦语。