Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860–1960.

In this well-researched book, Gina Anne Tam relates the lesser known story about the ongoing relevance in terms of what constitutes Chinese national identity of so-called I fangyan i ( ), often misleadingly translated "dialects" but more appropriately termed "regional languages." In a game of one-upmanship, scholars of Hakka origin sought evidence in ancient texts that their language was closer to the original Han language than the language of Cantonese speakers. Tam demonstrates that divergent views about the relative status and value of different I fangyan i played an important role in debates about what constituted Han ethnicity. [Extracted from the article]