This course introduces basic concepts in linguistics such as consonant, vowel, morpheme, concepts which help students to describe and analyze the structure of the Chinese language, with emphasis on sounds and grammar. Moreover, similarities and differences among major Chinese dialects such as Mandarin, Yue, Min, Hakka, Wu, etc, and between Chinese and other languages will be highlighted. Furthermore, characteristics of the non-Han languages spoken in the neighboring areas will be compared with those of the Chinese dialects in order to highlight the bi-directional influences between Chinese and the non-Han languages, influences which help shape these languages.