In all its forms, Chinese language is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and Standard Chinese ( Putonghua ) is one of the working languages of the United Nations. As the most prominent branch of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, Chinese language is the mother tongue of about 1.3 billion people in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and beyond. Standard Chinese evolved from a group of Chinese dialects known as the Northern dialects, with its phonology based on the Beijing dialect. It is known as  Putonghua  (common language) on the Chinese mainland, and  huayu  (Chinese language) in Singapore and Malaysia.