also drawn from other northern varieties. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the standard was known as Pǔtōnghuà (普通话/普通話, literally "common speech"), but was defined in the same way as Guóyǔ in the Republic of China now governing Taiwan. It also became one of the official languages of Singapore, under the name Huáyǔ (华语/華語, literally "Chinese language"). Although the three standards remain close, they have diverged to some extent. Most Mandarin speakers in Taiwan and Singapore came from the southeast coast of China, where the local dialects lack the retroflex initials /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ found in northern dialects, so that many speakers in those places do not distinguish them from the apical sibilants /ts tsʰ s/. Similarly, retroflex codas (erhua) are typically avoided in Taiwan and Singapore. There are also differences in vocabulary, with Taiwanese Mandarin absorbing loanwords from Min Chinese, Hakka Chinese, and Japanese, and Singaporean Mandarin borrowing words from English, Malay, and southern varieties of Chinese. Eastern South Slavic (Bulgarian–Macedonian–Gorani–Paulician) Some linguists and scholars, mostly from Bulgaria and Greece, but some also from other countries, consider Eastern South Slavic to be a pluricentric language with four standards: Bulgarian (based on the Rup, Balkan and Moesian ("Eastern Bulgarian") dialects), Macedonian (based on the Western and Central Macedonian dialects), Gorani (based on the Torlakian dialects), and Paulician (including Banat Bulgarian). Politicians and nationalists from Bulgaria are likely to refer to this entire grouping as 'Bulgarian', and to be particularly hostile to the notion that Macedonian is an autonomous language separate from Bulgarian, which Macedonian politicians and citizens tend to claim. As of 2021, the hypothesis that Eastern South Slavic, 'Greater Bulgarian', 'Bulgaro-Macedonian', or simply 'Bulgarian', is a pluricentric language with several mutually intelligible official standards in the same way that Serbo-Croatian is, and Czechoslovak used to be, has not yet been fully developed in linguistics; it is a popular idea in Bulgarian politics, but an unpopular one in North Macedonia. English English is a pluricentric language, with differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling, etc., between each of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, North America, the Caribbean, Ireland, English-speaking African countries, Singapore, India, and Oceania. Educated native English speakers using their version of one of the standard forms of English are almost completely mutually intelligible, but non-standard forms present significant dialectal variations, and are marked by reduced intelligibility. British and American English are the two