Why is it that Mandarin and Cantonese are considered dialects of Chinese but Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French are considered separate languages and not dialects of Latin?

Question

Why is it that Mandarin and Cantonese are considered dialects of Chinese but Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French are considered separate languages and not dialects of Latin?

In: Culture

Answer 1

In Arabic, we speak in really different dialects. For example, a Yemeni and a Moroccan would need a translator between them even though they’re both officially speaking Arabic. Why? Pan-Arab Nationalism. Lebanese actually tried to be its own language once but that never caught on.