|
Migao, thanks for that information. Firstly I'm staggered that only 53% of mainland Chinese can communicate in Putonghua. For the purposes I need this calculation for 53% would be the effective figues, not 18%.
I'm talking about the "effective lingua franca for mass media communication". In other words, what "nationwide" broadcast TV shows would be in. That would have to be Mandarin, right?
If only 53% of mainland Chinese can understand Mandarin, there are a lot of mainland Chinese that aren't getting nationwide mass media communication I guess. Ah!!! But wait, in China, almost all TV comes with subtitles, right!! So it doesn't matter which version of Chinese you speak (Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc) you still understand the message if you can be bothered to read the subtitles, since they are the same for all Chinese (except Cantonese-only characters which puts yet another twist on this increasingly complex problem). Then again, probably a lot of people can't for TV ads and the like, and would much rather just listen in the language they can understand.
I've never been to Shanghai (I am actually hoping to correct that anomoly sooner rather than later) - do they broadcast all their TV mostly in Shanghainese there, or Mandarin?
Another factor in all this is that although 47% of the population may not be able to communicate in Putonghua, that does not mean 47% of the wealth is held by non-Putonghua-speaking mainland China residents. I am guessing a very large percentage of the wealth (which I'm guessing is mostly accumulated in the East of China rather than the West) would be held by Mandarin speakers. When I say Mandarin speakers, I mean people who use Mandarin as a lingua franca even though it may not be what they speak at home.
Help! All I need is a percentage. What would the total wealth held by people who can communicate comfortably in Mandarin be as a percentage of the total wealth of people who can communicate comfortably in Cantonese? 100%?
|