- second largest language family by number of speakers: ~1.3 billion
- branches: Sinitic (Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min, Hakka) and Tibeto-Burman (Tibetan, Burmese, Bodo, Tamang)
- Mandarin Chinese: most spoken language on Earth (~920 million native speakers)
- tonal languages: pitch distinguishes meaning (Mandarin has 4 tones, Cantonese has 6-9)
- Chinese writing system is logographic: hanzi characters represent morphemes, shared across mutually unintelligible spoken varieties
- literary tradition spanning 3,400+ years from oracle bone inscriptions through classical Chinese
- Chinese characters influenced Japanese kanji, Korean hanja, Vietnamese chu Nom
- the Sinitic branch preserves one of the longest continuous writing (invention) traditions in human history