the chinese language is like a big tree. the base of the tree started thousands of years ago. it now has several main limbs. some people call "just a branch" what other people call a main limb, so you can say there are six or seven main limbs. each of these main limbs splits off into branches about the way there are branches of english spoken in great britain, the united states, australia, india, and so forth. just as the romance languages all come from the area around rome and are based on latin, the chinese languages all have some common source, so they keep many common things among them.