Are the Chinese Dialects Mutually Intelligible?

In most cases, a substantial NO is in favor of this argument. According to lexical statistical data of any two languages within the Sinitic branch (for example Wu and Mandarin), the data will always reveal that there is less intelligibility between them than any two Romance languages in Europe. For example, French has lexical similarity of about 75% to several other Romance languages.

In comparison, Mandarin has 31% lexical similarity with Wu (Shanghaiese) and 19% with Yue (Cantonese). Compare this with European languages of separate branches: English and Russian have 24%, French and German have 29%, English and French have 27%, and two Germanic languages: English and German have 60% (source: Ethnologue), which is still twice as high as Mandarin and Wu. What this is saying is that Mandarin and Wu are different enough lexically, that they could belong to different branches of Sinitic.

Lexical statistics is not all that influences mutual intelligibility. An American may not understand ... more.

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