The following passage is adapted from an article published in 1981.

Chinese is a language of many distinct dialects that are often mutually unintelligible. Some linguists have argued that a new dialect of Chinese has evolved in the United States, which is commonly used in the Chinatown section of San Francisco. The characterization of this "Chinatown Chinese" as a distinct dialect is based primarily on two claims: first, that it is so different from any other dialect used in China that a person newly arrived from that country might have a difficult time communicating with a Chinese American in San Francisco who speaks nominally the same language as the newcomer, and, second, that no matter which of the traditional Chinese dialects one speaks, one can communicate effectively with other Chinese Americans in San Francisco so long as one is proficient in the uniquely Chinese-American terminologies.

Regarding the first claim, much of the distinctive vocabulary of Chinatown Chinese consists of proper names of geographical places and terms for things that some people, especially those born and raised in villages, had never encountered in China. Some are transliterated terms, such as dang-tang for "downtown." Others are direct translations from American English, such as gong-ngihn ngiht ("labor" plus "day") for "Labor Day." However, the core of the language brought to the U.S. by Chinese people has remained intact. Thus, the new vocabulary has supplemented, but not supplanted, the traditional language in the traditional dialects. In fact, normal conversations can be conducted fairly readily between Chinese-speaking Chinese Americans and new arrivals from China, provided that they speak the same traditional Chinese dialect as each other. Terms not familiar to the newcomer, most of which would name objects, places, and events that are part of the local experience, can easily be avoided or explained by the speaker, or their meaning can be inferred from the context. The supposed language barrier is, therefore, mostly imaginary.

The second claim—that the sharing of a uniquely Chinese-American vocabulary makes possible communication among Chinese Americans no matter what their basic dialect of Chinese may be—is a misleading oversimplification. While many Chinese-American speakers of other Chinese dialects have become familiar with Cantonese, now the most common dialect of Chinese spoken in the U.S., through watching Cantonese movies and by hearing that dialect in Hong Kong, Guandong, or the U.S., this is not the same thing as sharing a single unique dialect. Moreover, the dialects of Chinese can differ markedly in their systems of sounds and, to some extent, in grammar and vocabulary, and these differences persist among Chinese-American speakers of these various dialects. Hence, even a common vocabulary for such things as names of U.S. cities, street names, and non-Chinese items does not guarantee mutual intelligibility because these words constitute only a minute percentage of each dialect and are generally peripheral to the core vocabulary.