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93-452: In addition to its role supporting and consulting local governmental efforts to develop more sustainable transportation, ITDP publishes the magazine Sustainable Transport annually, produces the BRT Standard and other research, and sits on the committee for the annual Sustainable Transport Award . ITDP was founded in 1985 by Michael Replogle and other sustainable transport advocates in

186-496: A bike sharing system regardless of the location, size, or density of the city. The guide is currently available only in English and is free for download in .pdf format from the ITDP website. ITDP works with local governments on the expansion and design of bike lanes, and pedestrian networks throughout the city. In São Paulo , Brazil, ITDP assisted in the design of a pilot bicycle path in

279-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

372-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

465-439: A BRT corridor. The BRT Standard has defined 5 main categories for design with 32 metrics totaling 100 points and an operational deductions category that has 13 metrics totaling 77 points. Together, these form the total score for the corridor. Both design and operations are critical to creating a high quality BRT corridor. Design decisions are often locked in planning and construction. We often see corridors score well here, getting

558-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

651-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

744-546: A bicycle assembly industry in that country. ITDP advocated for the redirection of lending activity by the World Bank and other multi-lateral institutions. Where these global institutions had an exclusive focus on road projects, ITDP worked to open up funding for multi-modal transport solutions. ITDP advocated for sustainable transport initiatives in U.S. transportation policy, influencing the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). Responding to ITDP pressure,

837-400: A bronze or above in design, but then do poorly in operations, dropping their overall score. While operational deductions may bring the overall score down, these are aspects that can be easily improved in order to improve the score. From there, the updated scoring details can be found in the 2024 BRT Standard with detailed guidance on how to score. The Standard only evaluates a corridor and not

930-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

1023-597: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

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1116-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

1209-617: A design and/or consulting capacity in the BRT programs of Ahmedabad , India; Dar es Salaam , Tanzania; Johannesburg , South Africa ( Rea Vaya ); Jakarta , Indonesia ( TransJakarta ); Guangzhou , Lanzhou , and Yichang , China; Mexico City , Mexico, Buenos Aires , Argentina, and more. In June 2007, ITDP published the Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide along with the United Nations Environment Programme ,

1302-690: A former auto industry lobbyist and an aggressive opponent of public transit, threatened to introduce a bill that would kill the IndyGo Blue Line project that was aiming for Gold classification unless IndyGo agreed to share lanes with private civilian cars for at least 70% of the BRT route. Freeman's hostility towards public transit resulted in high costs and land acquisition needs for IndyGo to meet his demands so he would withdraw his anti-transit bill. Freeman withdrew his bill when IndyGo complied with his demands, but by complying, IndyGo faced such difficulty constructing

1395-525: A group of leading BRT engineers, designers, and planners. The Standard has been refreshed by adding, combining, and revising elements based on expert feedback and increasing deductions for operations. The most significant changes include an expanded focus on gender, safety, and access; more attention to climate, greening, and resiliency; an improved passenger and customer experience; and a new focus on business operations. The Technical Committee of The BRT Standard comprises experts on BRT. This committee serves as

1488-492: A light rail or metro system, it is much more reliable, convenient and faster than regular bus services. The three main delays facing public transport are 1) boarding and alighting, 2) intersections, and 3) traffic congestion. BRT solves for all three. With the right features, BRT is able to avoid the causes of delay that typically slow regular bus services, while also improving service quality, safety and security, and passenger experience. There are five essential characteristics of

1581-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

1674-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

1767-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

1860-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

1953-399: A source of technical advice with respect to BRT and is the basis for establishing the credibility of The BRT Standard. The Technical Committee certifies corridors and recommends revisions to The Standard as needed. The Institutional Endorsers are an integrated group of institutions in the fields of city building, public transport systems, and climate change with decision-making abilities over

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2046-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

2139-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

2232-428: A whole system, since different corridors can vary widely in design and quality. Certifying a BRT corridor as G old, Silver, Bronze, or Basic sets an internationally recognized standard for the current best practices for BRT and can only be done with the full score (Design + Operational Deductions) six months after opening to allow usage and operations to be more representative of longer-term patterns. The combination of

2325-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

2418-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

2511-515: Is available for download in .pdf format from the ITDP website. ITDP has initiated advised on a number of projects in cities around the world. ITDP worked with the Mexico City government to provide technical support for the revitalization of Mexico City's Historic Center . ITDP managed the planning and implementation efforts of the revitalization, in addition to promoting street maintenance and cleanliness, supplementation of public security, and

2604-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

2697-410: Is done through designing environments for cycling and walking, fostering the development of pedestrian and transit based real estate development, and creating policies that help turn cultural and physical spaces into economic assets. In November 2013 ITDP published "The TOD Standard" which elaborates in eight key principles for guiding the implementation of transit-oriented development (TOD). The guide

2790-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

2883-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

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2976-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

3069-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

3162-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

3255-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

3348-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

3441-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

3534-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

3627-644: The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the Hewlett Foundation , and Viva . The guide draws from the extensive BRT design experience of Latin American transit planners , and aims to disseminate this information in the US and other countries around the world. The guide is currently available in English , Spanish , Portuguese , and Chinese , and is free for download in .pdf format from

3720-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

3813-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

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3906-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

3999-670: The United States to counteract the spread of costly and environmentally damaging car-centric urban development models, and to promote biking, walking, and public transit in transportation planning . In its first ten years, ITDP worked to support and grow local bicycle industries in Haiti, Nicaragua, Mozambique, South Africa, and West Africa. By 1989, ITDP's Bikes Not Bombs campaign had shipped 10,000 second-hand bicycles to support health and education efforts in Nicaragua and used these to establish

4092-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

4185-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

4278-719: The BRT Standard certification process. The endorsers establish the strategic direction of the BRT Standard, ensure that BRT projects ranked by the scoring system uphold the goals of the BRT Standard, and promote the BRT Standard as a quality check for BRT projects. BRT is a high-capacity bus-based transit system that delivers fast, reliable, high quality, safe, and cost-effective services at relatively low cost, metro-level capacities. It achieves that through dedicated bus lanes that are median aligned, off-board fare collection, level boarding, bus priority at intersections, and fast and frequent operations. Because BRT contains features similar to

4371-407: The BRT Standard was created “to establish a common definition of bus rapid transit (BRT) and ensure that BRT corridors more uniformly deliver world-class passenger experiences, significant economic benefits, and positive environmental impact”. The Standard was developed in response to a lack of consensus among planners and engineers as to what constitutes a true BRT corridor. Without a clear definition,

4464-609: The Blue Line right-of-way that the project was cancelled by city-level political decision-makers. Aaron Freeman's opposition to public transit has been praised by notable anti-transit activist Randal O'Toole , who has attacked BRT proposals on his "Antiplanner" blog. In response to that criticism, those in favor of the Standard point out that the overwhelming majority of the Standard elements work well and would also benefit lower demand systems. Above all, BRT designers should take advantage of

4557-558: The Historic Center, further integrating multi-modal development of the area. ITDP co-founded the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) in 2009 and through that helped secure in 2012 a $ 175 billion 10-year commitment from the world's largest multilateral development banks to support sustainable transport, with annual reporting and monitoring. Working with SLoCaT, ITDP helped mainstream sustainable transport strategies in

4650-647: The ITDP website. In addition, ITDP developed the BRT Standard , a design guide and rating system for Bus Rapid Transit systems around the world. The Standard establishes a common definition for BRT and identifies BRT best practices, as well as functioning as a scoring system to allow BRT corridors to be evaluated and recognized for their superior design and management aspects. It uses a systematic method of evaluating BRT systems, rating their quality as "gold, silver, or bronze". Some systems that had been branded as BRT failed to meet even minimal standards distinguishing BRT from regular urban bus service. A related report on BRT in

4743-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

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4836-597: The Peace Corps put its volunteers on bicycles rather than motorcycles. In the early 1990s, ITDP helped establish the Transport Sector Task Force, an advisory panel to the US Treasury Department's Multi-lateral Development Bank liaison office, to comment on specific transport projects. In its 1994 study "Counting on Cars, Counting Out People" ITDP published a preliminary set of guidelines for reforming

4929-499: The Standard can be used to evaluate existing BRT corridors and certify them as a Basic, Bronze, Silver, or Gold rated corridors. Corridors which fail to meet minimum standards for Basic ratings are not considered to be BRT. The latest edition of the Standard was published in 2024. BRT systems which do not meet the BRT standard ("Not BRT" by the ITDP), but is marketed as BRT, meet the phenomenon known as " BRT creep ". First released in 2012,

5022-405: The Standard provides a scoring tool that can motivate cities to develop high quality mass transit corridors where possible under the city's prevailing financial and spatial conditions. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

5115-514: The US noted that "Some American systems reviewed had so few essential characteristics that calling them a BRT system at all does a disservice to efforts to gain broader adoption of BRT in the United States...These systems, with relatively few BRT characteristics, have helped confuse the American public about what exactly constitutes BRT." ITDP encourages urban design that prioritizes human-powered forms of transportation, such as walking, cycling, and

5208-811: The United Nations' post-2015 development agenda and in discussions of climate change mitigation strategies in the run-up to the 2015 global climate summit in Paris (COP-15). With the University of California Davis, ITDP in 2014 published, A Global High Shift Scenario: Impacts and Potential for More Public Transport, Walking, and Cycling With Lower Car Use, showing how a shift in transport funding to support alternatives to more driving could save over $ 100 trillion cumulatively for consumers and governments by 2050 while cutting cumulative climate change pollution from urban transport by 25% and improving equity of access to opportunities for

5301-503: The World Bank Transport Sector economic appraisal to make it less biased in favor of motorways. The report's key recommendation that economic impacts on non-motorized road users be included in the appraisal has been incorporated into World Bank practice. ITDP has offices in seven countries, with projects and relationships in over 100 cities worldwide. In 2009, former mayor of Bogotá , Colombia Enrique Peñalosa , who

5394-485: The definition of a BRT corridor has been reduced to a minimum of 3 km (1.9 mi) in length. The peak and off-peak frequency design metrics have been removed, and penalties for low peak and off-peak frequencies have been added. An additional point was added to each of the BRT basic elements, to put greater emphasis on the basic elements of a BRT corridor. The 2016 edition proposed six major changes, including greater focus on safety and system operations, separation of

5487-538: The design evaluation (positive points) and operational evaluation (negative points) gives the final score from the BRT Standard. The BRT Standard has been noted as a one-size-fits-all tool that is not context sensitive. Also, pro-car politicians' opposition to public transit may result in higher construction costs and greater land acquisition needs whenever a public transit agency sets a Gold Standard goal. In one recent case in Indianapolis , State Senator Aaron Freeman ,

5580-496: The design score and the full score (i.e. including both design and operations), improved dedicated right-of-way definition, new types of busway alignments, and partial points for onboard fare validation. The latest BRT Standard, 2024 edition, is the product of feedback from BRT practitioners around the world. Suggestions were formulated into concrete proposals and evaluated by the BRT Standard Technical Committee,

5673-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

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5766-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

5859-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

5952-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

6045-433: The flexibility inherent in bus systems and consider lower-standard busway sections to avoid physical or political constraints, especially where such sections can later be upgraded to address future demand increases. There are many situations where lower-grade BRT or non-BRT bus schemes are the appropriate solution to upgrade public transit. The Standard should not be a reason to forgo such improvements. However, in many cases,

6138-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

6231-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

6324-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

6417-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

6510-454: The management and controlling of parking and street vending activity in the area. ITDP claims that this reorientation of the Historic Center towards pedestrian and transit oriented development will reverse decades of deterioration, attract tourism and investment, and improve air quality in the notoriously polluted city. Additionally, ITDP participated as part of the team developing Mexico City's Bicycle Master Plan to design routes that connect to

6603-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

6696-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

6789-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

6882-495: The neighborhood of Butantã . For the project, ITDP commissioned a report for a 58 kilometer feeder network, which will lead cyclists from adjacent streets and sidewalks to the bicycle path. The path will pass through a high-visibility corridor of the city, and if successfully implemented could be expanded to surrounding neighborhoods and throughout the city. Past projects have included a redesign of India's traditional cycle rickshaw in collaboration with local experts, reducing

6975-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

7068-464: The poor. This is available on the ITDP website. BRT Standard The BRT Standard is an evaluation tool for bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors around the world, based on international best practices. The Standard establishes a common definition for BRT and identifies BRT best practices, as well as functioning as a scoring system to allow BRT corridors to be evaluated and recognized for their superior design and management aspects. The Standard

7161-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

7254-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

7347-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

7440-448: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

7533-557: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

7626-511: The term BRT was used for corridors that provided only minor improvements in bus service and lacked the elements of BRT that make it competitive with light rail or metro alternatives. This caused a backlash against the BRT "brand", and confusion as to its benefits. The 2014 edition made some improvements to the methodology, including adjustments to the corridor definition, infrequent-service penalties, and increased emphasis on basics. In order to allow BRT corridors in downtown areas to qualify as BRT,

7719-609: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

7812-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

7905-512: The use of rickshaws. Specifically, ITDP often works with cities to encourage car-free days and bike share programs, create safe streets for pedestrians and cyclists, and provide high-quality bicycles. In December 2013 the ITDP published the Bike-Share Planning Guide with the aim "to bridge the divide between developing and developed countries' experiences with bike-share." The guide is expected to be useful for planning and implementing

7998-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

8091-721: The weight of the vehicles by 30% and adding a multi-gear system to increase efficiency; increasing Africa's cycling capacity while bolstering local industry through the establishment of the California Bike Coalition (CBC); and traffic impact and mitigation analysis along with outreach to local interest groups in the pedestrianization of Malioboro Road in Yogyakarta , Indonesia. ITDP works to integrate transport and smart urban design to help remake cities and suburbs into livable spaces that foster economic opportunities, encourage low carbon lifestyles, and attract residents. This

8184-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

8277-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

8370-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

8463-471: Was conceived by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) in 2012 to ensure that BRT corridors worldwide meet a minimum quality standard and deliver consistent passenger, economic, and environmental benefits. This is of particular relevance in countries where "BRTs qualify for special funding from national or provincial governments. In addition to serving as an overview of BRT design elements,

8556-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

8649-448: Was instrumental in the establishment of that city's TransMilenio BRT system, was elected as President of the Board of Directors of ITDP. Walter B. Hook served as the organizations executive director from 1993 to 2014. Heather Thompson is ITDP's interim CEO. ITDP works to encourage safe, modern, and efficient public transportation systems in cities worldwide. ITDP is currently active in

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