Mandarin- the common
English term for "pǔtōnghùa" (普通話), the national language of
China -"the common language of China, based on the northern
dialects, with the
Beijing phonological system as its norm of pronunciation"- in other words Mandarin is originally the language of north China.
Some of the main features of Mandarin that distinguish it from other dialects are:
-A small number of tonal categories (4 or 5 tones usually)
The third person pronoun is "ta" (他)
The demonstratives "this" and "that" are "zhè" (這) and "nà" (那)
The plural suffix is "mén" (們)
.
Jinyu (Shanxi dialect) is similar to Mandarin except that it has glottal stops on some words where Mandarin does not.
(There is some difference in characters and usage between different chinese dialects)