Literature in Non-Mandarin Dialects
There is also a modest body of literature for Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Taiwanese, which include additional characters for writing the language as spoken. Unlike central Mandarin, these written forms have not been standardized and are used in informal contexts only. They are most commonly used in commercial advertisements, song lyrics sung colloquially in native dialect, and legal records to accurately record dialogue and colloquial expressions. They are often mixed to varying degrees with Classical Chinese and Modern Standard Chinese.
Read more about this topic: Written Vernacular Chinese
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.”
—James Connolly (1870–1916)