Members of the largest indigenous minority speak a dialect of Malay.
Few healthcare providers, in either the public or private sector, speak the languages or dialects of minority ethnic groups.
The letter v is unused (except in spelling foreign languages, languages of minority nationalities, and some dialects), despite a conscious effort to distribute letters more evenly than in Western languages.
China's governing Communist Party has promoted Mandarin for decades to unite a nation with thousands of dialects and numerous minority languages, but that campaign has been hampered by resistance that has sometimes led to violent unrest as well as by the country's size and lack of investment in education, especially in poor rural areas.
However, the indigenous minority groups have their own languages and dialects, some of which are Tibeto-Burman languages.
Some minorities claim to have their own language, but research indicates that they widely use Han dialects, for example the She minority.
They are the world's largest stateless minority, and although they are divided by nationality, dialect, custom, allegiances and religion, they share a common desire: to be able to express their ethnic identity and to govern themselves in the areas in which they live.
In Canada, only a minority of the emigrant Chinese Indonesian community speak a Chinese dialect.
Interviews were conducted by anthropologists from Simao Institute of Parasitic Disease Control who have worked extensively among minority populations in this region and that speak several local dialects.
Earmarked funds and material support are provided, and bilingual education policy (Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua and ethnic dialect) is carried out, aiming for a holistic development of the ethnic minority groups.
