In a surprising revelation, it has been found that nearly 400 million Chinese cannot speak the national language Mandarin. According to reports from the state media, Xinhua news agency, an even larger population cannot speak it well.

The government of China has launched an initiative to unify the nation's language as many are not able to converse in it or are woefully bad at it, reported Reuters. The nation's ruling Communist Party has been constantly striving to unify the country with a single language. China's several dialects have apparently created strife and rivalry.

The country is home to thousands of unintelligible dialects and minority languages. Lack of investment for education in backward and rural areas was cited as one of the reasons for the non-solidarity. Mandarin is formally called 'Putonghua' in China, which means common tongue. This also the goal of the nation's government.

Ministry of Education spokeswoman Xu Mei was quoted by the website as saying that only 70% of the country could speak Mandarin, many of them poorly, and the remaining 30% or 400 million people could not speak it at all.

"This year the ministry will focus on the remote countryside and areas inhabited by ethnic minorities," Mei added.

On the other hand, there are also significant protests that emphasizes the importance of Cantonese, the other Chinese tongue.

[Source: Reuters]

(AW: Sruthi)