Difference between revisions of "Mandarin"

Revision as of 10:44, August 20, 2014

Mandarin is the standard dialect of spoken Chinese. It is referred to as Pǔtōnghuà in China, Guóyǔ in Taiwan, and Huáyǔ in Singapore. In its modern form, Mandarin is based on the dialect of Beijing. Localisms, such as the final r sound favored by Beijing residents, are not part of the standard form.

In imperial times, people in different parts of the empire communicated with each other using written Classical Chinese (wényán wén). By the Tang dynasty (618–907), spoken and written Chinese had diverged into separate languages. At the end of the Tang, China was divided into northern and southern states. The Mongols conquered China in the thirteenth century. They treated North and South China as two units within their larger empire. For example, Marco Polo writes of "Cathay" (North China) and "Manzi" (South China). He does not use any expression that corresponds to the modern concept of "China." By the time China was reunited by the Ming dynasty in 1368, North and South had drifted far apart.

The first Ming emperor selected the Lower Yangtse dialect of Nanjing to serve as the basis of a lingua franca. This is a dialect of the North Chinese type, so it is generally understood in both North and Central China. The imperial lingua franca is referred to as Guānhuà ("officials' speech"). The word "Mandarin," first recorded in Portuguese in 1524, refers to a Chinese official.

Classical Chinese continued to be used for formal writing. But various works of popular literature, such as the novel The Golden Lotus (1610), were written in the Lower Yangtse dialect. In the late nineteenth century, the dialect of Beijing displaced that of Nanjing. Although the dialects of the two cities are mutually intelligible, there is considerable divergence.

Regional language differences mainly concern pronunciation. They are far less noticeable in written form. Written Chinese is classified as either Classical or vernacular (báihuà). In the 1920s, Classical Chinese was displaced by a writing system based on Mandarin. Speakers of other dialects can read generally read Mandarin báihuà without difficulty, even if they do not speak Mandarin.

In the twentieth century, both the Nationalists and the Communists promoted the use of Mandarin. This policy has been resisted occasionally by speakers of other dialects. The popularity of Hong Kong-based pop culture has allowed the Cantonese-speaking South to resist the advance of Mandarin.

References

• Coblin, W. South, "A brief history of Mandarin", Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 120, issue 4, pp. 537–552.