> People defining dialects because of their political agenda? That is absolutely the case with mainland China where the CCP has weaponised the dialects rhetori

> People defining dialects because of their political agenda? That is absolutely the case with mainland China where the CCP has weaponised the dialects rhetoric and declared all other Chinese languages that are not Mandarin as mere, lowly dialects despite then being closely related, yet different languages and comprising a larger Chinese language continuum. They have their own respective grammatical and, naturally, lexicon differences. Such an attitude is also partially rooted in the history of the development of linguistics in ancient China where it was not recognised as such until the encounter with the linguistic studies in neighbouring ancient India as part of the inevitable cultural exchange, but the western style development of linguistics was always stifled in ancient China due to the «celestial kingdom» concept (i.e. no need to learn barbarian tongues). Predominantly Mandarin speaking young generation (mostly from the north) get a surprise or a few when they 1) come across another Chinese language in writing (officially, it is not meant to exist), 2) realise that the grammar of another Chinese language is incomprehensible to them. It becomes an eye opener to them. The reality is a bit different, as almost everything in the mainland, and most children are bi- or trilingual if they happen to have been born into a family where parents speak at least one other Chinese language. In between peers, they speak their own language reverting to Mandarin when speaking to a person not native to their region. The Taiwanese have eventually got it right, and officially recognise Hokkien as a distinct language and now teach it in school as well as fund the Hokkien studies. Hong Kong and Cantonese are somewhat a grey area at the moment, although Cantonese itself is thriving nevertheless.