> This is an accident of history and a quirk of the English translation. It's not an accident of history. The Nationalists and the Communists had many similar

> This is an accident of history and a quirk of the English translation. It's not an accident of history. The Nationalists and the Communists had many similar influences (e.g., Sun Yat-Sen is revered by both). One of the ideas they shared in common was the idea of creating a national language. The PRC basically adopted the standardized form of Chinese developed by the ROC. > Give it another 40 years or so and the languages will be quite distinct I'm not so sure about this, given the amount of cultural interchange across the strait. Speaking in a more Taiwanese way is actually quite popular in mainland China, where it's considered cute. > There is no country on earth called The Mainland I'm not going to get into the entire nationalist dispute here. "The Mainland" marks out a well defined geographic area that's not quite synonymous with the PRC.