Tinto Talks #36 - 6th of November

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

So church slavonic is a non-impact dialect of "east slavic" ie already gone thru a protestant revolution of bringing peasant and burger and aristo literacy power to east slavic. Whereas catholic latin will have some major issues in getting all that trade etc boosts to language power.
Making one wonder how come lingua franca ever managed to happen. Unless france ackshyoually became protestant

Church Slavonic is its own language distinct from South Slavic or Russian, so no it’s exactly the same as France or Spain having Latin as their clerical language, same family as their common/court language, but still a different language. That said you’ll probably be able to change it and a country like Russia likely will once Russian overtake’s Church Slavonic in language power.

 

[H.A.S.E.V.I.R.]

Church Slavonic is its own language distinct from South Slavic or Russian, so no it’s exactly the same as France or Spain having Latin as their clerical language, same family as their common/court language, but still a different language. That said you’ll probably be able to change it and a country like Russia likely will once Russian overtake’s Church Slavonic in language power.

Orthodox either uses church slavonic or greek for research, unless there is some event or advance that changes this

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

Orthodox either uses church slavonic or greek for research, unless there is some event or advance that changes this

I know that Catholicism and Islam are limited to Latin and Arabic respectively as liturgical languages but I’m not sure if Orthodox is limited to Greek and Church Slavonic specifically, as opposed to being able to freely choose liturgical language and orthodox countries simply starting with those languages. My interpretation was the latter but I suppose both are possible.

 

[Ispil]

For Orthodox it's... complicated. Due to the inherent nature of autocephaly, it basically comes down to whatever the autocephalous archbishop/exarch/patriarch decides should be the language in question which is usually reflective of the country that mostly falls under their jurisdiction. I say usually because the Archbishopric of Ohrid, despite having control over plenty of Bulgaria and Serbia (at least at its conception), kept up with using Greek even after the Byzantines lost control.

Also note that Georgia is Orthodox, too, and their liturgical language is Georgian.

 

[FTPlayz]

May I say that you change the Yugur language from Mongolian to Siberic (Turkic) as it's more accurate to their origins and most of them speak that variety today?

 

[Antimonum]

As already mentioned in an other Thread, Bulgaria used its own language for liturgy at this point in history, there is no sense in the Bulgarian Patriarch caring about a unified Slavic language of liturgy. Bulgaria used old church Slavonic in the 9-11th century for the only reason for beiing literally the same language as old Bulgarian, developed at the beginning from Cyrill and Methodius but finalized development by their Bulgarian disciples in the Preslav and Ohrid Litterary schools. Bulgarian clergy was not interested by 1337 in the Russian redaction of church Slavonic as later during the Ottoman rule, so the liturgical language should be Bulgarian.

 

[Freshplayer]

May I say that you change the Yugur language from Mongolian to Siberic (Turkic) as it's more accurate to their origins and most of them speak that variety today?

Did not realize devs made it Mongolic. Definitely a mistake.

 

[Shaheen_Jc]

Transoxiana was and still is populated by Tajiks. They were the region's first inhabitants before the arrival of the Turks (Uzbeks, etc.). In 1337, the Persian-speaking Tajiks, an Iranian people, were the majority in Transoxiana.

''Black, Edwin (1991). The Modernization of Inner Asia. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 32–33. The administrative and bureaucratic language of towns and khanates was Persian. Whereas Persian was the dominant literary language of the area, Chagatai shared its distinction by being the only Turkic literary language in Central Asia from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century.''

If Persian was the dominant language of the area, it means that the Persian speakers (Tajiks) were the dominant people of the area.

Even to this day, Tajiks are majority in Samarkand and Bukhara.

''Even so, one has merely to spend a few moments on the streets of Samarkandor Bukhara – the country’s second and third largest cities – to realize that mostpassers-by are speaking amongst themselves in Tojikī, not Uzbek.''
Reference : A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East, page 11, Richard Foltz

And you've depicted Khorasanis who speak Turkmen? I'm sorry, but that's absolutely not true, and it's a pity that a strategy game company as respectable as yours makes no effort to accurately describe facts about other continents. Khorasanis speak Persian, Turkmenis are not Khorasanis. Khorasan was the region located in modern day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Turkmenistan (Merv) and Uzbekistan (Samarqand, Bukhara, Ferghana). And in this region, Persian speakers (Tajiks) were in the majority even in 1337. Please correct your errors.

 

[Shaheen_Jc]

There is almost no distinction between Khorasanis and Tajiks. Tajiks are just Persian speakers from Afghanistan, Tajikistan and parts of modern day Uzbekistan (Samarqand and Bukhara and other regions within the country) and this region was called Khorasan.
The Khwarizmian culture is highly inaccurate, it should only be present in Khwarizm region (Near the Aral sea) to a very small extent as most of them were wiped out by the mongol invaders in the 1210s and were replaced by Turks.

Transoxiania's major centers like Samarkand and Bukhara and most of its rural areas as well should instead be majority Persian speaking people (Tajik, even tho I suggest you change it to Khorasani), and there isn't a single credible historian in the world that disagrees with this.

Also do note that there was a small Jewish presence in Bukhara (Bukharan Jews) who spoke Persian.


Even to this day, Samarkand and Bukhara are majority Tajik and I am saying this as someone who has relatives in Samarkand and Bukhara. (I am from Afghanistan)
Here's a quote from a historian on the importance of the Persian (the language of Tajiks who are the only Persian speakers in Transoxiania) in Transoxiania (under chagatai khanate)

''Black, Edwin (1991). The Modernization of Inner Asia. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 32–33. The administrative and bureaucratic language of towns and khanates was Persian. Whereas Persian was the dominant literary language of the area, Chagatai shared its distinction by being the only Turkic literary language in Central Asia from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century.''

If Persian was the dominant language of the area, it means that the Persian speakers (Tajiks) were the dominant people of the area.
Even to this day, Tajiks are majority in Samarkand and Bukhara.

''Even so, one has merely to spend a few moments on the streets of Samarkandor Bukhara – the country’s second and third largest cities – to realize that mostpassers-by are speaking amongst themselves in Tojikī, not Uzbek.''
Reference : A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East, page 11, Richard Foltz


I would also point it the fact that the Afghan culture (which should be replaced by Pakhtun/Pashtun culture) wasn't as dominant in 1337 as shown on the map. Places like Farah province and Zaranj wouldn't and has never been majority Pashtun (Could argue with Farah city as it is half Tajik, half Pashtun today). If you look at the demographics of the Farah province, 70% of its population speak Persian/Dari and only 30% Pashtu. So this proves only 30% of Farah province is Pashtun. (Pashtun immigration to the north of modern day Afghanistan started in the 19th century)

File:Map of Languages (in Districts) in Afghanistan.jpg - Wikipedia​

en.m.wikipedia.org
Source is from the 1985 central statistics office of Afghanistan
Here's a map of the languages of Afghanistan in each district. Dari or Persian Dari is the mother tongue of the Tajiks and Hazaras. So Hazaras would be majority in Bamyian and surrounding areas.

Do note that the migration of Turkic peoples from northern and eastern Central Asia to Transoxania and Afghanistan was a gradual event that took several centuries. Therefore, there were no major Turkic cities in modern Afghanistan in 1337.

Here is a map that better shows the region where the Hazaras live (they also live in the big cities like Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, but they are in the minority):

You have shown Ghor province as being majority Hazara, again that is factually incorrect. Ghor province (the origin place of the Ghurids who were Tajiks/Khorasanis and Kartids were related to Ghurids) was and still is majority Tajik with around 40% of it being Hazaras in the East.

And you've depicted Khorasanis who speak Turkmen? I'm sorry, but that's absolutely not true, and it's a pity that a strategy game company as respectable as yours makes no effort to accurately describe facts about other continents. Khorasanis speak Persian, Turkmenis are not Khorasanis. Khorasan was the region located in modern day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Turkmenistan (Merv) and Uzbekistan (Samarqand, Bukhara, Ferghana). And in this region, Persian speakers (Tajiks) were in the majority even in 1337.


Please do take this into consideration and correct the inaccuracies.
Thank you for taking the time to read this the comment.

 

[MSTVD]

Please add Gutnish, Elfdalian, Scanian, and Norn as dialects of North Germanic

 

[Fueyo222]

Leonese and Castilian aren't the same language, even less so in the 14th century. And Aragonese is quite removed from Castilian, being of the same group as Catalan and Occitan it is most times not even intelligible with Castilian.

Leonese was used as the language of administration in the kindgom of León along with Latin until the 13th century. The period where the game starts it's precisely it's "dark period" (named "Sieglos Escuros", Dark Centuries) until the revival of Asturleonese literature beginning in 1634. But this did not make the language dissapear or suddenly become a dialect of Spanish.

 

[Billybobbill]

In the base game, cultures and culture groups don't have any modifiers. But it's exposed to modders if they want to create a fantasy Orc race with unique modifiers, or give the Welsh culture its historic bonuses for example.

I'm excavating a buried thread, but gotta try: modifiers for cultures and culture groups can be modded in (hurray!), but what about modifiers for language families, languages and dialects?

I soooooo hope it's possible, would ease my modding life by a ton^^

 

[Abu Ahmar]

This looks spectacular. A few points:

Sardinian should be a separate language from Italian. It's a primary branch of the Romance languages in its own right.

Azeri should be the same language as Turkish. Contemporary Azerbaijani and Anatolian Turkish are mutually intelligible and they would have been even closer during the time period in question. The same might even be true of Turkmen.

Cushitic is too broad as a language and should be split into Somali-Afar, Oromo, Beja, etc. I think Cushitic as a language family is fine though.

Uralic is too broad as a language family, I would split it into Finnic and Ugric top level designations. Not sure how you'll be handling language families in the rest of the world, but the general rule of thumb should be that they correspond to individual branches of Indo-European and not to Indo-European itself, for consistency's sake.

The languages of coastal West Africa seem a bit too big to me, there are lots of small languages that aren't represented (like the Gbe languages, Ewe and Fon, between Kwa and Nigerian in what is today Togo and Benin). This is an important distinction between the Sahel belt where pastoralists are able to spread languages widely and the coastal areas where every cluster of a couple dozen villages has its own language.

Very impressed overall, EU4's culture system is one of my biggest pet peeves about the game.

 

[purplephoton]

Cushitic is too broad as a language and should be split into Somali-Afar, Oromo, Beja, etc. I think Cushitic as a language family is fine though.

There was some discussion in the Horn of Africa feedback thread, and the TL;DR is that Cushitic split so long ago that having just an East Cushitic (or, better yet, separate Lowland and Highland East Cushitic) language family makes more sense. Losing South, North, and Central Cushitic is actually not that huge when each of the three is represented by a single culture.

 

[polskaGOLA]

Will cultures that colonize the New World form new cultures? Like Spanish cultures forming Mexican culture when colonizing Central America/the former Aztec Empire?

Currently no. Interested to hear opinions of how that could work though.

Not sure if a system has been figured out yet, but I think tying it to estates and cultural groups in the colonies makes the most sense to try and capture a dynamic system.

Predominance of same-culture burghers --> Colonial culture evolving on similar lines to unionist United States
Predominance of same-culture elites --> Colonial culture evolving on similar lines to Spanish South America, confederate United States
Predominance of native-culture or mestizo peasants --> Colonial culture evolving on similar lines to Mexico, Peru, Paraguay
Predominance of native-culture burghers/elites --> Just a restoration of the native culture upon independence, or if you want to have fun, you can create say a "neo-Aztecan" to show it is a post-colonial native culture modeled after European administration
Predominance of slave estate --> Colonial culture evolving on similar lines to Haiti or West Indies dependent on rebellious level.
Mix of everything --> something resembling Brazil I guess?

The idea being that the relative influence of each estate and culture group within the colony impacting the in-game ideas that take shape in the newly emerged colonial culture and state tag.

The names of the culture should just be based on geography with localization tied to colonial settler (e.g. if Colombia is settled by the Dutch --> Colombianen is created within the Dutch cultural group, similar to say Afrikaners would theoretically.)

 

[Kapitein Grasparkiet]

The categorisation of the Germanic Language Family is incorrect. It should be:
North Germanic/Scandinavian/Nordic: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic etc.

West Germanic -
North Sea Germanic/Ingvaeonic: Low German, English, Frisian etc.
Weser-Rhine Germanic/Istvaeonic: Dutch, Cologne Ripuarian, Luxembourgish, Flemish
Elbe Germanic/Irminonic: High German

 

[Penguin609]

Chinese is the name for a macrolanguage which refers to a group of languages whose speakers believe are Chinese, no matter how different their languages are. By intelligibility there are far more languages that can be divided, which is summarized as "五里不同音，十里不同调 (Languages vary in pronunciation every 5 li and in tone every 10 li)".

Though Chinese languages are so diverse in linguistics, I don't see it necessary to separate them in game. Just leave them into one group. Originating from the same city, my family speaks more than 5 unintelligible "local dialects" of Chinese and this does not make much difference in our cultural identity. Separation does not make sense in real world as people speaking different languages does not make difference necessarily, let alone many peoples are multilingual.

The situation you are describing is a modern day one where Mandarin is now a common tongue and Chinese national identity is strong. Let me offer another perspective that I think is more relevant to the period at hand (14th - 19th century).

Differences in language and hence cultural "dialect group" (籍贯/方言组/民系) were drastic enough to be the basis of bloody conflicts as late as the mid 19th century. There were the Punti-Hakka wars between Cantonese (Yue/Guangzhou) and Hakkas (Kejia), Hakka identity played a major role in the initial phases of the Taiping Rebellion, and Minnan and Hakka settlers fought each other in Taiwan.

Even groups with closely related languages often saw each other as enemies. Hokkien (Minnan from Quanzhou/Zhangzhou/Xiamen) and Teochew (Chaozhou) are sister Southern Min languages and geographically adjacent. But in Singapore the worst ever ethnic riots by an order of magnitude were not between Chinese and Malays (1960s), but Hokkiens and Teochews (Chaozhou) in the 1850s.
There was even a Teochew-led movement to get Cantonese, Hakkas and Hainanese (also Southern Min) to form a united front as "people from Guangdong province" against the Hokkien "people from Fujian province". It didn't matter that linguistically, Hokkiens, Teochews and Hainanese had much more in common vs the other so-called Guangdong people, because they already saw each other as so different as to have no particular kinship with one another.

From my own family experience, these differences in culture and language continued to be a barrier to marriage even amongst overseas Chinese, and it was unusual or even taboo to marry someone from another linguistic community as late as the mid 20th century. Stereotypes abounded about each group. Hokkiens were supposedly robust but coarse, Teochews cultured but arrogant, Cantonese women brusque and Hakka women tough. Every community had their own enclaves (even within a small city like Singapore), cuisine, wedding customs, and even style of opera. Till today, when such identities have greatly faded and far away from China itself, these cultural differences reverberate as politicians choose to deliberately speak in languages like Teochew or Hokkien to pull at heartstrings and win elections.

Entire books could be written about the very varied experiences and influence of the many Chinese "dialect groups" (this term is used in the Southeast Asian sense of a common linguistic community) throughout Southeast Asia. The fact that each community defined by their language has distinct histories and have often come into conflict, is a strong argument for them to be treated as more than just generically "Chinese".

 

[Freshplayer]

Well, it is quite an old reply, and I think your quotation was very misleading and missed my main point.

My basic ideas in the previous post:

1. Do not separate the one single Chinese cultural group into multiple cultural groups
2. Many dialects may not have existed as early as the 14th century
3. Linguistic differences are not always associated with cultural differences

I'm not sure what point you're really against, and I won't claim the idea I had never claimed. Based on your examples, Hokkien and Teochew should be considered two distinct dialects, and their cultural differences are wider than their linguistic differences, which is basically my point over cultures and languages. Furthermore, I think you missed this part of latest division of linguistic distribution.

Sub-Division of Mandarin Dialects Regarding Historical Tone Categories

	Beijing Mandarin	Northeastern Mandarin	Jiaoliao Mandarin	Jilu Mandarin	Central Plains Mandarin	Lanyin Mandarin	Southwestern Mandarin	Jianghuai Mandarin
Historical Unvoiced Entering Tones (古清入)	mixed	mixed, but more departing tones	Rising tone	Yin level tone	Yin level tone	Departing tone	Yang level tone	Entering tone
Historical Semi-Voiced Entering Tones (古次浊入)	Departing tone	Departing tone	Departing tone	Departing tone	Yin level tone	Departing tone	Yang level tone	Entering tone
Historical Fully Voiced Entering Tones(古全浊入)	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Yang level tone	Entering tone

This is the table about criteria of Mandarin subdivisions from Encyclopedia of China, from which we can construct the history of subdivision of Mandarin based on their features.
View attachment 1230791
View attachment 1230801
The map shows how Mandarin evolved during 11-14th century.

• In the 11th century, most of mandarin-speaking areas were under Northern Song Dynasty where the language was standardized based on Bianliang dialect, while Beijing-adjacent areas may speak slightly differently from standard Mandarin.
• When Jurchen occupied northern China in the 12th century, mandarin in the mountainous north and Song territory in the south were more conservative than that in the north plains. The mandarin in the mountainous north later became Jin dialect and the southern mandarin later became Jianghuai dialect.
• During Yuan Dynasty, southern Mandarin spread to Sichuan in the late Yuan Dynasty, where it was strongly influenced by local Bashu dialect, while the "northern mandarin" in the northeast became more innovative under Mongol influence.
• My personal oppinion on Lanyin and Beijing Mandarin: they formed in early Ming Dynasty with clear evident influence from Jianghuai Mandarin. For Lanyin Mandarin, it is more conservative than Zhongyuan Mandarin, which can be abnormal given its multi-lingual location under Tangut, Tibetan, and Uygur influences; only an overwhelming influence from other conservative Mandarin dialects can explain this conservativeness (e.g. massive migration for military garrisons). For Beijing Mandarin, it is clear that the Ming Dynasty Beiing Mandarin was different from that descibed in the book of Zhongyuan Yinyun (中原音韵) druing Yuan Dynasty, while Jiaoliao Mandarin preserve most of phonological features of Yuan Dynasty Beijing Mandarin; Yuan Dynasty Beijing Mandarin and Jiaoliao Mandarin were the same dialect but those in Ming Dynasty were different.

Conclusions:

1. Bashu dialects survived in 1337 but was soon replaced by southern Mandarin from Jianghuai plains. The spread was under strong influence of local dialects and distinguished it from original Jianghuai Mandarin.
2. Dongbei, Jilu, Jiaoliao Mandarins did not exist in 1337 but they are together as a unified dialect in Yuan dynasty. Liu (1995) called this group of Mandarin dialects as "northern Mandarin"/"Beifang Mandarin" (北方官话) while as you see, the term "northern Mandarin" is actually ambiguous.
3. Lanyin Mandarin is closer to Zhongyuan Mandarin but we had no clue they existed in Yuan Dynasty. (I will explain the ethnic distribution of Gansu Province in the later post. )

Recommendations:

1. Make Mandarin dialects as a whole to avoid category changes.
2. Make northern Mandarin as Zhongyuan Mandarin while keep the southern Jianghuai Mandarin.
3. Redesign culture distrbution based on something other than languagues. (Yan, Shangdong, Zhongyuan, Jianghuai, proposed )

Futher research on the southern boundary of Mandarin in Hubei Province: - based on Zhang (1999) and Mou (2016)

View attachment 1230902
This map is intended to present pre-Xinan Mandarin distribution of dialect. Xinan Mandarin was dveloped from Jianghuai Dialect and formed in mid-Ming Dynasty.

First of all, the native language in Hunan and Hubei is Chu Chinese, which is known over two thousands years ago. Linguist Yuen Ren Chao often described the Huangxiao dialects of Jianghuai Mandarin (Chu-Gan-Jianghuai Mix) is typical Chu language for its preservation of ancient lanugae. Also, Xiang was developed from Southern Chu dialect. However, in modern Xinan Dialect, Chu only played a less important role in its composition. Jianghuai is the main source of Xinan Manadrin instead of Chu. Therefore, in the north of Yangtze, 50+% population must be Jianghuai-speaking.

Second, a considerable Bashu-speaking population lived in the major cities along Yangtze River for business. Bashu people occupied the upper Yangtze basin and mountainous section of the river, infusing their language wtih native Chu language.

Third, the north part of Chu modern Ebei Xinan Mandarin, including Jianghuai language island in the west, now is a mix of Zhongyuan, Chu, and Bashu dialect (风烟犹楚蜀，音语带周秦; translate: the landscape is similar to Chu and Bashu while their language sounds like Zhongyuan).

Lastly, Gan language may be removed from the existing map but we don't really know the language before its migration. A plausible arguement is that the regional langugae before is native Chu language.

The culture of the Baoding area, or at least the northern part of Baoding, should be closer to the Yan culture. In terms of dialect, many scholars believe that the dialects of the Baoding and Tangshan areas should be part of the Beijing official dialect.
So I think the old version of the cultural map makes a bit more sense than the new one.View attachment 1294783View attachment 1294782
View attachment 1294781
View attachment 1294780

As for your point against "Mandarin is now a common tongue and Chinese national identity is strong", I feel that your evidence does not really support this idea, although my points had little to do with your point. Essentially, my point is that people believed they were speaking Chinese, regardless of their language's actual category based on modern studies, whether it was Mandarin or not, irrespective of their national identity, whether Chinese or from any foreign country. An interesting example is the claim that Cantonese is closer to Ancient Chinese, as seen in this video.

 

[Penguin609]

Well, it is quite an old reply, and I think your quotation was very misleading and missed my main point.

My basic ideas in the previous post:

1. Do not separate the one single Chinese cultural group into multiple cultural groups
2. Many dialects may not have existed as early as the 14th century
3. Linguistic differences are not always associated with cultural differences

I'm not sure what point you're really against, and I won't claim the idea I had never claimed. Based on your examples, Hokkien and Teochew should be considered two distinct dialects, and their cultural differences are wider than their linguistic differences, which is basically my point over cultures and languages. Furthermore, I think you missed this part of latest division of linguistic distribution.


As for your point against "Mandarin is now a common tongue and Chinese national identity is strong", I feel that your evidence does not really support this idea, although my points had little to do with your point. Essentially, my point is that people believed they were speaking Chinese, regardless of their language's actual category based on modern studies, whether it was Mandarin or not, irrespective of their national identity, whether Chinese or from any foreign country. An interesting example is the claim that Cantonese is closer to Ancient Chinese, as seen in this video.

I don’t quite understand what you mean by my quotation being misleading, because I reproduced it in full. Maybe to respond to your latest summary:

Do not separate the one single Chinese cultural group into multiple cultural groups

• I think there should only be one Chinese Culture Group within the game, but comprising multiple Chinese languages and cultures. If that is what you meant, I agree
• I had interpreted your original comment as "there's no need to separate the Chinese languages, and Chinese should be presented as a single language since it makes no difference to cultural identity", but do let me know if that's not what you meant.
• All in all, I am saying that there were many Chinese "cultures", often (but not solely) defined by language. These differences in cultural self-identification were large enough to result in ethnic division and bloodshed, and have political consequences till the present day in non-mainland Chinese communities such as in Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (though some of these are fading with time in favour of a more unified “Chinese” identity as 华人/汉人.) I don’t think your example of your family situation today is representative of pre-modern China, where speaking different Chinese languages could be a foundational cultural marker. For instance there's a Hakka saying that "Better to sell your ancestral land than forget your ancestral tongue” (宁卖祖宗田不忘祖宗言).

Many dialects may not have existed as early as the 14th century

• On the point of many dialects (or more accurately, Chinese languages) not having existed as early as the 14th century, I don’t disagree, but that wasn’t a point mentioned in your original reply. I would like to now engage with this and say that that doesn’t change the reality that many Chinese languages we are familiar with today did already exist. Most of the southern Chinese language families had already diverged from Mandarin by this point, and there are vernacular texts such as opera scripts from the late Yuan/early Ming period which are written in forms recognisable today as being forms of modern-day languages.

Based on your examples, Hokkien and Teochew should be considered two distinct dialects, and their cultural differences are wider than their linguistic differences, which is basically my point over cultures and languages

• As a speaker of both, they are two sister but distinct languages with different vocabulary, phonology, tones, and literary vs colloquial character readings. They have their own dialects both within and outside China (e.g. Amoy, Taiwan, Penang, Singapore, and Medan Hokkien).
• That aside, I actually agree with your premise that cultural differences are bigger than just linguistic differences. The various Chinese cultures should be defined partly based on language, but linguistic phylogeny is secondary. Overall, I’m generally aligned with the latest map that showed Minnan (Hokkien) and Chaozhou (Teochew) as distinct cultures.
• To give more examples which I had also given in the other thread you linked to: I think Kejia (Hakka) should be a single culture despite there being many varieties of Hakka, but Chaozhou, Fuzhou, Fuqing, Minnan (Quanzhang), Puxian, Qiongzhou, and Wenzhou should be distinct cultures/languages despite them all being varieties of Min. This is a judgment call based on my personal and family experience with Chinese identity in the Southeast Asian diaspora, where these groups all identify as separate peoples under a Chinese umbrella and have no particular affinity for other Min groups over say Cantonese or Hakka people. Just as how Scots and Welsh have no particular cultural affinity vis-a-vis English, despite being more closely related.

Essentially, my point is that people believed they were speaking Chinese, regardless of their language's actual category based on modern studies, whether it was Mandarin or not, irrespective of their national identity, whether Chinese or from any foreign country. An interesting example is the claim that Cantonese is closer to Ancient Chinese, as seen in this video.

• You said that Chinese was a “macrolanguage” and “group of languages whose speakers believe are Chinese”. Yes certainly the speakers all believe they are speaking a Chinese topolect 汉语方言, but so what? It doesn't make cultural identification with their own language, and its distinctiveness from other languages, any less important. When I mix Hokkien and Teochew in my speech by mistake because of how closely related they are, I would always be corrected by my family because they are clear that these are separate languages.

 

[prinscky]

One thing I learned was that the old Tinto maps before Nov 2024 didn't show language beside culture at all, be it location language, court language or market language, even for the map feedbacks. Are there plans to add the language composition in the future? Or are we simply waiting for the global map?