中国方言平台: 乡音苑 “Phonemica”

This American and his country partner build the free internet platform 乡音苑 “Phonemica” collecting 300 Chinese dialects from volunteers of all regions within and outside China.

The French linguists (*) define :
“A Language (语言) is just another ‘successful‘ dialect (方言)”。

“Successful” refers to its official recognition as widely used in business by the country, taught in schools, has grammar rules and written literatures.

Example: English, French, Italian etc were dialects before then the lingua franca Latin , they gradually replaced Latin to become the official language in their country and worldwide.

There are 7 major groups of Chinese dialect, each further divided into many subgroups. Example:
闽语(福建): 闽南 (厦门, 金门…), 闽北, 福州, 兴化, 泉州, 漳州, …

晋语: [Audio]:

http://phonemica.net/storyteller?mid=543748332bd553180882ab50

Sample 29 dialects:

Note: (*)
法国语言学家亨利埃德·怀尔傣（Henriette Walter）在其著作《法语全方位Le français dans tous les sens》中明确指出：“方言是种语言un patois, c’est une langue”，并且说：“法语只是一种成功的方言 le français n’est qu’un…