The languages of China are the languages that are spoken in China. The predominant language in China, which is divided into seven major language groups (classified as dialects by the Chinese government for political reasons), is known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese:汉语; traditional Chinese:漢語; pinyin:Hànyǔ) and its study is considered a distinct academic discipline in China.[5] Hanyu, or Han language, spans eight primary varieties, that differ from each other morphologically and phonetically to such a degree that they will often be mutually unintelligible, similarly to English and German or Danish. The languages most studied and supported by the state include Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Uyghur and Zhuang. China has 299 living languages listed at Ethnologue.[6] According to the 2010 edition of the Nationalencyklopedin, 955 million out of China's then-population of 1.34 billion spoke some variety of Mandarin Chinese as their first language, accounting for 71% of the country's population.[7]