Celtic influence

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>DFOKeefe at aol.com writes:

<< One nation with both a class and a regional based system of dialects
 used to be pre-Revolutionary China. >>

-- many Chinese "dialects" are actually separate languages, as distinct as
Spanish and French.  I've personally seen Mandarin and Cantonese speakers try
to communicate, give up, and drop into English instead.

Of course, the _written_ Chinese language, being largely ideographic, was
standard everywhere.  That's one reason why it's of limited value in
reconstructing earlier stages of Chinese, of course, except for poetry.

[ Moderator's note:
  One for two:  The Chinese writing system is not ideographic, but logographic.
  This is a source of endless discussions on various newsgroups; the DejaNews
  search engine can aid anyone interested in following up on the point.
  --rma ]