International Chinese Language Day (Chinese: 一季中文日) It is observed within the United Nations annually on April 20th. Created in 2010, the event aims to “celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and promote equal use of all six official working languages within the organisation”.
Chinese, particularly written Chinese, is actually a group of languages spoken by the ethnic majority of Han Chinese as well as some other ethnic groups in China.
Mandarin is spoken in Beijing, Shanghai, and large parts of China. However, Cantonese is spoken in Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, and Macao. Many overseas Chinese immigrants come from Guangdong and speak Cantonese.
Mandarin and Cantonese share the same basic alphabet, but as distinct spoken languages and are not mutually intelligible.
About 1.3 billion people, 16% of the world’s population, speak various forms of Chinese as their first language.
The official official language of China is Mandarin, which is based on the Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing. Mandarin is also an official language of Taiwan and one of the four official languages of Singapore.
April 20 was chosen as the date to “honor Cangjie, the legendary figure believed to have invented Chinese characters some 5,000 years ago.”
The Chinese celebrate Guyu (which usually starts around April 20) to honor Cangjie, due to the following legend: When Cangjie invented Chinese characters, gods and ghosts wept and rained millet; The word “Guyu” literally means “millet rain”.
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