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Standard Chinese ()—in
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...
Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standardized form of
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
that was first developed during the Republican Era (1912‒1949). It is designated as the
official language An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater Chin ...
and a major language in the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...
. It is largely based on the
Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...
. Standard Chinese is a
pluricentric language A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spoken languages, inc ...
with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon.
Hong Kong written Chinese Hong Kong written Chinese (HKWC) is a local variety of Standard Chinese used in formal written communication in Hong Kong. While, like other varieties of Standard Chinese, it is largely based on Mandarin it differs from the mainland's national ...
, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
reading of characters. Like other
Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there ...
, Standard Chinese is a
tonal language Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
with topic-prominent organization and subject–verb–object (SVO) word order. Compared with southern Chinese varieties, the language has fewer vowels, final consonants and tones, but more initial consonants. It is an
analytic language In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of ''helper'' words ( particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections (changing th ...
, albeit with many
compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs wh ...
s.


Naming


In English

Among linguists, Standard Chinese is known as ''Standard Northern Mandarin'' or ''Standard Beijing Mandarin''. Colloquially, it is imprecisely referred simply as ''Mandarin'', even though that name may refer also to the Mandarin dialect group as a whole or its historic standard such as Imperial Mandarin. The name ''Modern Standard Mandarin'' is used to distinguish it from its historic standard. The term "Mandarin" is a translation of ''Guānhuà'' (, literally "bureaucrats' speech"), which referred to Imperial Mandarin.


In Chinese


Guoyu and Putonghua

The term ''Guóyǔ'' (; ) or the "national language", had previously been used by the
Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Q ...
-ruled
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
of China to refer to the
Manchurian language Manchu (Manchu:, ) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qing dyn ...
. As early as 1655, in the ''
Memoir of Qing Dynasty A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...
, Volume: Emperor Nurhaci'' (), it writes: "(In 1631) as Manchu ministers do not comprehend the Han language, each ministry shall create a new position to be filled up by Han official who can comprehend the national language." In 1909, the Qing education ministry officially proclaimed Imperial Mandarin to be the new "national language". The term ''Pǔtōnghuà'' (; ) or the "common tongue", is dated back to 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate Modern Standard Mandarin from
classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
and other
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ...
. Conceptually, the ''national language'' contrasts with the ''common tongue'' by emphasizing the aspect of legal authority.


Usage concern in a multi-ethnic nation

"The Countrywide Spoken and Written Language" () has been increasingly used by the PRC government since the 2010s, mostly targeting students of ethnic minorities. The term has a strong connotation of being a "legal requirement" as it derives its name from the title of a law passed in 2000. The 2000 law defines ''Pǔtōnghuà'' as the one and only "Countrywide Spoken and Written Language". Usage of the term ''Pǔtōnghuà'' (common tongue) deliberately avoided calling the language "the national language," in order to mitigate the impression of forcing ethnic minorities to adopt the language of the dominant ethnic group. Such concerns were first raised by Qu Qiubai in 1931, an early Chinese communist revolutionary leader. His concern echoed within the Communist Party, which adopted the name Putonghua in 1955. Since 1949, usage of the word ''Guóyǔ'' was phased out in the PRC, only surviving in established compound nouns, e.g. ''Guóyǔ liúxíng yīnyuè'' (, colloquially Mandarin pop), ''Guóyǔ piān'' or ''Guóyǔ diànyǐng'' (/, colloquially Mandarin cinema). In Taiwan, ''Guóyǔ'' (the national language) has been the colloquial term for Standard Northern Mandarin. In 2017 and 2018, the Taiwanese government introduced two laws to explicitly recognize indigenous
Formosan languages The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwan ...
and Hakka to be the "Languages of the nation" () along with Standard Northern Mandarin. Since then, there have been efforts to reclaim the term "national language" (''Guóyǔ'') to encompass all "languages of the nation" rather than exclusively referring to Standard Northern Mandarin.


Hanyu and Zhongwen

Among Chinese people, ''Hànyǔ'' (; ) or the "
Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there ...
" refer to all language varieties of the Han people. ''Zhōngwén'' () or the "Chinese written language", refers to all written languages of Chinese (Sinitic). However, gradually these two terms have been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one particular Sinitic language, the Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This imprecise usage would lead to situations in areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore as follows: * (1) A Standard Northern Mandarin speaker approaches speakers of other varieties of Chinese and asks, "Do you speak ''Zhōngwén''?" This would be deemed disrespectful. * (2) A native speaker of certain varieties of Chinese admits that his/her spoken ''Zhōngwén'' is poor. On the other hand, among foreigners, the term ''Hànyǔ'' is most commonly used in textbooks and standardized testing of Standard Chinese for foreigners, e.g. Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi.


Huayu

''Huáyǔ'' (; ), or "language among the Chinese nation", up until the mid 1960s, refers to all language varieties among the Chinese nation. For example, Cantonese films, Hokkien films () and Mandarin films produced in Hong Kong that got imported into Malaysia were collectively known as ''Huáyǔ'' cinema up until the mid-1960s. However, gradually it has been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one particular language among the Chinese nation, Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This term is mostly used in
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
,
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, and the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
.


History

Chinese has long had considerable dialectal variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed, and
linguae francae A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
have always been needed.
Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
, for example, used ''yǎyán'' () rather than colloquial regional dialects; text during the
Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
also referred to ''tōngyǔ'' (). Rime books, which were written since the
Northern and Southern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered a ...
, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard
pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
during those times. However, all of these standard dialects were probably unknown outside the educated elite; even among the elite, pronunciations may have been very different, as the unifying factor of all Chinese dialects, Classical Chinese, was a written standard, not a spoken one.


Late empire

The
Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
(1368–1644) and the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) began to use the term ''
guānhuà Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern Standar ...
'' (), or "official speech", to refer to the speech used at the
courts A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accor ...
. The term "Mandarin" is borrowed directly from Portuguese. The Portuguese word ''mandarim'', derived from the
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
word '' mantrin'' "counselor or minister", was first used to refer to the Chinese bureaucratic officials. The Portuguese then translated ''guānhuà'' as "the language of the mandarins" or "the mandarin language". In the 17th century, the Empire had set up Orthoepy Academies () in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the standard. But these attempts had little success, since as late as the 19th century the emperor had difficulty understanding some of his own ministers in court, who did not always try to follow any standard pronunciation. Before the 19th century, the standard was based on the
Nanjing dialect The Nanjing dialect, also known as Nankinese, or Nanjing Mandarin, is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Nanjing, China. It is part of the Jianghuai group of Chinese varieties. Phonology A number of features distinguish the Nanjing dialec ...
, but later the
Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...
became increasingly influential, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various dialects in the capital,
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
. By some accounts, as late as the early 20th century, the position of
Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...
Mandarin was considered to be higher than that of Beijing by some and the postal romanization standards set in 1906 included spellings with elements of Nanjing pronunciation. Nevertheless, by 1909, the dying Qing dynasty had established the Beijing dialect as (; ), or the "national language". As the island of Taiwan had fallen under Japanese rule per the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, the term referred to the Japanese language until the handover to the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...
in 1945.


Modern China

After the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northea ...
was established in 1912, there was more success in promoting a common national language. A Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was convened with delegates from the entire country. A ''Dictionary of National Pronunciation'' () was published in 1919, defining a hybrid pronunciation that did not match any existing speech. Meanwhile, despite the lack of a workable standardized pronunciation, colloquial literature in written vernacular Chinese continued to develop apace. Gradually, the members of the National Language Commission came to settle upon the Beijing dialect, which became the major source of standard national pronunciation due to its prestigious status. In 1932, the commission published the ''Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use'' (), with little fanfare or official announcement. This dictionary was similar to the previous published one except that it normalized the pronunciations for all characters into the pronunciation of the Beijing dialect. Elements from other dialects continue to exist in the standard language, but as exceptions rather than the rule. After the Chinese Communist Revolution, the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, sli ...
continued the effort, and in 1955, officially renamed ''guóyǔ'' as ''pǔtōnghuà'' (), or "common speech". By contrast, the name ''guóyǔ'' continued to be used by the Republic of China which, after its 1949 loss in the
Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...
, was left with a territory consisting only of
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...
and some smaller islands in its retreat to Taiwan. Since then, the standards used in the PRC and Taiwan have diverged somewhat, especially in newer
vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
terms, and a little in pronunciation. In 1956, the standard language of the People's Republic of China was officially defined as: "''Pǔtōnghuà'' is the standard form of Modern Chinese with the Beijing phonological system as its norm of pronunciation, and Northern dialects as its base dialect, and looking to exemplary modern works in '' báihuà'' 'vernacular literary language' for its grammatical norms." Original text in Chinese: "" By the official definition, Standard Chinese uses: * ''The
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
or sound system of
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
.'' A distinction should be made between the sound system of a variety and the actual pronunciation of words in it. The pronunciations of words chosen for the standardized language do not necessarily reproduce all of those of the Beijing dialect. The pronunciation of words is a standardization choice and occasional standardization differences (not accents) do exist, between Putonghua and Guoyu, for example. * ''The
vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
of Mandarin dialects in general''. This means that all
slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and usage (language), linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of p ...
and other elements deemed "regionalisms" are excluded. On the one hand, the vocabulary of all Chinese varieties, especially in more technical fields like
science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
, law, and
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...
, are very similar. (This is similar to the profusion of
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
and
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words in European languages.) This means that much of the vocabulary of Standard Chinese is shared with all varieties of Chinese. On the other hand, much of the
colloquial Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in convers ...
vocabulary of the Beijing dialect is not included in Standard Chinese, and may not be understood by people outside Beijing. * ''The
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
and idiom of exemplary modern Chinese literature'', such as the work of Lu Xun, collectively known as "
vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
" (''báihuà''). Modern written vernacular Chinese is in turn based loosely upon a mixture of northern (predominant), southern, and classical grammar and usage. This gives formal Standard Chinese structure a slightly different feel from that of the street Beijing dialect. At first, proficiency in the new standard was limited, even among speakers of Mandarin dialects, but this improved over the following decades. A survey conducted by the China's Education Ministry in 2007 indicated that 53.06% of the population were able to effectively communicate orally in Standard Chinese. This rose to over 80% by 2020, with the Chinese government announcing a goal to have 85% of the country speak Standard Chinese by 2025 and virtually the entire country by 2035.


Current role

From an official point of view, Standard Chinese serves the purpose of a lingua franca—a way for speakers of the several mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese, as well as the ethnic minorities in China, to communicate with each other. The very name ''Pǔtōnghuà,'' or "common speech," reinforces this idea. In practice, however, due to Standard Chinese being a "public" lingua franca, other Chinese varieties and even non-Sinitic languages have shown signs of losing ground to the standard. While the Chinese government has been actively promoting ''Pǔtōnghuà'' on TV, radio and public services like buses to ease communication barriers in the country, developing ''Pǔtōnghuà'' as the official common language of the country has been challenging due to the presence of various ethnic groups which fear for the loss of their cultural identity and native dialect. In the summer of 2010, reports of increasing the use of the ''Pǔtōnghuà'' in local TV broadcasting in
Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...
led to thousands of
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
-speaking citizens in demonstration on the street. In both mainland China and Taiwan, the use of Mandarin as the medium of instruction in the educational system and in the media has contributed to the spread of Mandarin. As a result, Mandarin is now spoken by most people in mainland China and Taiwan, though often with some regional or personal variation from the standard in terms of pronunciation or lexicon. In 2020 it was estimated that about 80% of the population of China could speak Standard Mandarin. The Chinese government's general goal is to raise the penetration rate to 85% by 2025, and to virtually 100% by 2035. Mainland China and Taiwan use Standard Mandarin in most official contexts. The PRC in particular is keen to promote its use as a national lingua franca and has enacted a law (the ''National Common Language and Writing Law'') which states that the government must "promote" Standard Mandarin. There is no explicit official intent to have Standard Chinese replace the regional varieties, but local governments have enacted regulations (such as the ''
Guangdong National Language Regulations The Guangdong National Language Regulations ( zh, t=廣東省國家通用語言文字規定) is a set of laws enacted by the Guangdong provincial government in the People's Republic of China in 2012 to promote the use of Putonghua, Standard Mand ...
'') which "implement" the national law by way of coercive measures to control the public use of regional spoken varieties and traditional characters in writing. In practice, some elderly or rural Chinese-language speakers do not speak Standard Chinese fluently, if at all, though most are able to understand it. But urban residents and the younger generations, who received their education with Standard Mandarin as the primary medium of education, are almost all fluent in a version of Standard Chinese, some to the extent of being unable to speak their local dialect. In the predominantly Han areas in mainland China, while the use of Standard Chinese is encouraged as the common working language, the PRC has been somewhat sensitive to the status of minority languages and, outside the education context, has generally not discouraged their social use. Standard Chinese is commonly used for practical reasons, as, in many parts of southern China, the linguistic diversity is so large that neighboring city dwellers may have difficulties communicating with each other without a ''lingua franca''. In Taiwan, the relationship between Standard Mandarin and other varieties, particularly
Taiwanese Hokkien Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about 7 ...
, has been more politically heated. During the
martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...
period under the
Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
(KMT) between 1949 and 1987, the KMT government revived the Mandarin Promotion Council and discouraged or, in some cases, forbade the use of Hokkien and other non-standard varieties. This produced a political backlash in the 1990s. Under the administration of Chen Shui-Bian, other Taiwanese varieties were taught in schools. The former president, Chen Shui-Bian, often spoke in Hokkien during speeches, while after the late 1990s, former President Lee Teng-hui, also speaks Hokkien openly. In an amendment to Article 14 of the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act () passed on 9 August 2019, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The enti ...
(Taiwan) announced that Taiwanese can use the romanized spellings of their names in Hoklo, Hakka and Aboriginal languages for their passports. Previously, only Mandarin Chinese names could be romanized. In
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
and
Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
, which are now special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China,
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
is the primary language spoken by the majority of the population and used by government and in their respective legislatures. After Hong Kong's handover from the United Kingdom and Macau's handover from Portugal, their governments use Putonghua to communicate with the Central People's Government of the PRC. There have been widespread efforts to promote usage of Putonghua in Hong Kong since the handover, with specific efforts to train police and teachers. In Singapore, the government has heavily promoted a " Speak Mandarin Campaign" since the late 1970s, with the use of other Chinese varieties in
broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...
media being prohibited and their use in any context officially discouraged until recently. This has led to some resentment amongst the older generations, as Singapore's migrant Chinese community is made up almost entirely of people of south Chinese descent.
Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
, the initiator of the campaign, admitted that to most Chinese Singaporeans, Mandarin was a "stepmother tongue" rather than a true mother language. Nevertheless, he saw the need for a unified language among the Chinese community not biased in favor of any existing group. Mandarin is now spreading overseas beyond
East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...
and
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
as well. In
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
, the use of Cantonese that dominated the Manhattan Chinatown for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants.


Standard Chinese and the educational system

In both the PRC and Taiwan, Standard Chinese is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Standard Chinese, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week in Taiwan starting in the mid-1990s. In December 2004, the first survey of language use in the People's Republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population, about 700 million people, could communicate in Standard Chinese. This 53% is defined as a passing grade above 3-B (a score above 60%) of the Evaluation Exam. This number increased to over 80% by 2020. With the fast development of the country and the massive internal migration in China, the standard Putonghua Proficiency Test has quickly become popular. Many university graduates in mainland China take this exam before looking for a job. Employers often require varying proficiency in Standard Chinese from applicants depending on the nature of the positions. Applicants of some positions, e.g. telephone operators, may be required to obtain a certificate. People raised in Beijing are sometimes considered inherently 1-A (A score of at least 97%) and exempted from this requirement. As for the rest, the score of 1-A is rare. According to the official definition of proficiency levels, people who get 1-B (A score of at least 92%) are considered qualified to work as television correspondents or in broadcasting stations. 2-A (A score of at least 87%) can work as Chinese Literature Course teachers in public schools. Other levels include: 2-B (A score of at least 80%), 3-A (A score of at least 70%) and 3-B (A score of at least 60%). In China, a proficiency of level 3-B usually cannot be achieved unless special training is received. Even though many Chinese do not speak with standard pronunciation, spoken Standard Chinese is widely understood to some degree. The China National Language And Character Working Committee was founded in 1985. One of its important responsibilities is to promote Standard Chinese proficiency for Chinese native speakers.


Phonology

The phonology of Standard Chinese is based on Northern Mandarin in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, while in Hong Kong and Macau, it is based on Cantonese. Here, the Mandarin-based phonology shall be described. The usual unit of analysis is the syllable, consisting of an optional initial
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
, an optional medial glide, a main vowel and an optional coda, and further distinguished by a tone. The palatal initials , and pose a classic problem of
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
analysis. Since they occur only before high front vowels, they are in
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other e ...
with three other series, the dental sibilants, retroflexes and velars, which never occur in this position. The final, which occurs only after dental sibilant and retroflex initials, is a syllabic approximant, prolonging the initial. The
rhotacized vowel In phonetics, an r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulate ...
forms a complete syllable. A reduced form of this syllable occurs as a sub-syllabic suffix, spelled ''-r'' in pinyin and often with a
diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...
connotation. The suffix modifies the coda of the base syllable in a rhotacizing process called ''
erhua Erhua ( ); also called erization or rhotacization of syllable finals) is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "er" (注音:, common words: 、、) sound (transcribed in IPA as ) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. Erhuayin () ...
''. Each full syllable is pronounced with a phonemically distinctive pitch contour. There are four tonal categories, marked in pinyin with iconic diacritic symbols, as in the words ''mā'' (; "mother"), ''má'' (; "hemp"), ''mǎ'' (; "horse") and ''mà'' (; "curse"). The tonal categories also have secondary characteristics. For example, the third tone is long and
murmured Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
, whereas the fourth tone is relatively short. Statistically, vowels and tones are of similar importance in the language. There are also weak syllables, including grammatical particles such as the interrogative ''ma'' () and certain syllables in polysyllabic words. These syllables are short, with their pitch determined by the preceding syllable. Such syllables are commonly described as being in the neutral tone.


Regional accents

It is common for Standard Chinese to be spoken with the speaker's regional accent, depending on factors such as age, level of education, and the need and frequency to speak in official or formal situations. This appears to be changing, though, in large
urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, ...
s, as social changes, migrations, and
urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...
take place. Due to evolution and standardization, Mandarin, although based on the
Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...
, is no longer synonymous with it. Part of this was due to the standardization to reflect a greater vocabulary scheme and a more archaic and "proper-sounding" pronunciation and vocabulary. Distinctive features of the Beijing dialect are more extensive use of ''erhua'' in vocabulary items that are left unadorned in descriptions of the standard such as the ''
Xiandai Hanyu Cidian ''Xiandai Hanyu Cidian'' (), also known as ''A Dictionary of Current Chinese'' or ''Contemporary Chinese Dictionary'' is an important one-volume dictionary of Standard Mandarin Chinese published by the Commercial Press, now into its 7th (2016) edi ...
'', as well as more neutral tones. An example of standard versus Beijing dialect would be the standard ''mén'' (door) and Beijing ''ménr''. Most Standard Chinese as spoken on Taiwan differs mostly in the tones of some words as well as some vocabulary. Minimal use of the neutral tone and ''erhua'', and technical vocabulary constitute the greatest divergences between the two forms. The stereotypical "southern Chinese" accent does not distinguish between retroflex and
alveolar consonant Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are place of articulation, articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus, alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alve ...
s, pronouncing pinyin ''zh'' ʂ ''ch'' ʂʰ and ''sh'' in the same way as ''z'' s ''c'' and ''s'' respectively. Southern-accented Standard Chinese may also interchange ''l'' and ''n'', final ''n'' and ''ng'', and vowels ''i'' and ''ü'' Attitudes towards southern accents, particularly the Cantonese accent, range from disdain to admiration.


Romanization and script

While there is a standard dialect among different varieties of Chinese, there is no "standard script". In mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia, standard Chinese is rendered in simplified Chinese characters; while in Taiwan it is rendered in traditional. As for the romanization of standard Chinese,
Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
is the most dominant system globally, while Taiwan stick to the older Bopomofo system.


Grammar

Chinese is a strongly
analytic language In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of ''helper'' words ( particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections (changing th ...
, having almost no inflectional morphemes, and relying on word order and
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, fro ...
s to express relationships between the parts of a sentence. Nouns are not marked for
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
and rarely marked for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers ...
. Verbs are not marked for
agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting of ...
or
grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present ...
, but aspect is marked using post-verbal particles. The basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), as in English. Nouns are generally preceded by any modifiers (
adjective In linguistics, an adjective ( abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ...
s, possessives and
relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phraseRodney D. Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum, ''A Student's Introduction to English Grammar'', CUP 2005, p. 183ff. and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments ...
s), and verbs also generally follow any modifiers (
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering q ...
s, auxiliary verbs and prepositional phrases). The predicate can be an intransitive verb, a transitive verb followed by a direct object, a copula (linking verb) ''shì'' () followed by a noun phrase, etc. In predicative use, Chinese adjectives function as stative verbs, forming complete predicates in their own right without a copula. For example, Another example is the common greeting ''nǐ hăo'' (), literally "you good". Chinese additionally differs from English in that it forms another kind of sentence by stating a topic and following it by a comment. To do this in English, speakers generally flag the topic of a sentence by prefacing it with "as for". For example: The time when something happens can be given by an explicit term such as "yesterday," by relative terms such as "formerly," etc. As in many east Asian languages, classifiers or measure words are required when using numerals, demonstratives and similar quantifiers. There are many different classifiers in the language, and each noun generally has a particular classifier associated with it. The general classifier ''ge'' (/) is gradually replacing specific classifiers. In word formation, the language allows for compounds and for reduplication.


Vocabulary

Many
honorifics An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an honorary academic title. It ...
that were in use in imperial China have not been used in daily conversation in modern-day Mandarin, such as ''jiàn'' (; ; "my humble") and ''guì'' (; ; "your honorable"). Although Chinese speakers make a clear distinction between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect, there are aspects of Beijing dialect that have made it into the official standard. Standard Chinese has a
T–V distinction The T–V distinction is the contextual use of different pronouns that exists in some languages and serves to convey formality or familiarity. Its name comes from the Latin pronouns '' tu'' and '' vos''. The distinction takes a number of forms ...
between the polite and informal "you" that comes from the Beijing dialect, although its use is quite diminished in daily speech. It also distinguishes between "''zánmen''" (''we'' including the listener) and "''wǒmen''" (''we'' not including the listener). In practice, neither distinction is commonly used by most Chinese, at least outside the Beijing area. The following samples are some phrases from the Beijing dialect which are not yet accepted into Standard Chinese: * ''bèir'' means 'very much'; ''bànsuàn'' means 'stagger'; ''bù lìn'' means 'do not worry about'; ''cuō'' means 'eat'; ''chūliū'' means 'slip'; ''dà lǎoyermenr'' means 'man, male'. The following samples are some phrases from Beijing dialect which have become accepted as Standard Chinese: * ''èr bǎ dāo'' means 'not very skillful'; ''gēménr means'' 'good male friend(s)', 'buddy(ies)'; ''kōu ménr'' means 'frugal' or 'stingy'.


Writing system

Standard Chinese is written with characters corresponding to syllables of the language, most of which represent a morpheme. In most cases, these characters come from those used in Classical Chinese to write cognate morphemes of late
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...
, though their pronunciation, and often meaning, has shifted dramatically over two millennia. However, there are several words, many of them heavily used, which have no classical counterpart or whose etymology is obscure. Two strategies have been used to write such words: * An unrelated character with the same or similar pronunciation might be used, especially if its original sense was no longer common. For example, the demonstrative pronouns ''zhè'' "this" and ''nà'' "that" have no counterparts in Classical Chinese, which used ''cǐ'' and ''bǐ'' respectively. Hence the character (later simplified as ) for ''zhè'' "to meet" was borrowed to write ''zhè'' "this", and the character for ''nà'', the name of a country and later a rare surname, was borrowed to write ''nà'' "that". * A new character, usually a phono-semantic or semantic compound, might be created. For example, ''gǎn'' "pursue, overtake", is written with a new character , composed of the signific ''zǒu'' "run" and the phonetic ''hàn'' "drought". This method was used to represent many elements in the periodic table. The government of the PRC (as well as some other governments and institutions) has promulgated a set of simplified forms. Under this system, the forms of the words ''zhèlǐ'' ("here") and ''nàlǐ'' ("there") changed from and to and , among many other changes.
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
were traditionally read from top to bottom, right to left, but in modern usage it is more common to read from left to right.


Examples

Article 1 of the ''
Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
'' in Standard Chinese, written with
traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese characters, Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the libian, clerical change and mostly remained in the ...
: :人人生而自由,在尊嚴和權利上一律平等。他們賦有理性和良心,並應以兄弟關係的精神相對待。 Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in Standard Chinese, written with simplified Chinese characters: :人人生而自由,在尊严和权利上一律平等。他们赋有理性和良心,并应以兄弟关系的精神相对待。 The
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...
transcription of the text into
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...
: :''Rén rén shēng ér zìyóu, zài zūnyán hé quánlì shàng yīlǜ píngděng. Tāmen fùyǒu lǐxìng hé liángxīn, bìng yīng yǐ xiōngdì guānxì de jīngshén xiāng duìdài.'' Article 1 of the ''Universal Declaration of Human Rights'' in English: :''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.''


See also

* Chinese speech synthesis *
Comparison of national standards of Chinese The Chinese language enjoys the status as official language in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. It is also widely used in Malaysia. However, the language shows a high degree of regional variation amo ...
* Philippine Mandarin * Malaysian Mandarin * Singaporean Mandarin *
Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Mandarin, ''Guoyu'' ( zh, s=, t=國語, p=Guóyǔ, l=National Language, first=t) or ''Huayu'' ( zh, s=, t=華語, p=Huáyǔ, first=t, l=Mandarin Language, labels=no) refers to Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the ...
* Protection of the Varieties of Chinese


Notes


References


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * Hsia, T., ''China's Language Reforms'', Far Eastern Publications, Yale University, (New Haven), 1956. * Ladefoged, Peter; & Maddieson, Ian (1996). ''The sounds of the world's languages''. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. (hbk); (pbk). * * Lehmann, W. P. (ed.), ''Language & Linguistics in the People's Republic of China'', University of Texas Press, (Austin), 1975. * * Lin, Y., ''Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage'', The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1972. * Milsky, C., "New Developments in Language Reform", ''The China Quarterly'', No. 53, (January–March 1973), pp. 98–133. * Seybolt, P. J. and Chiang, G. K. (eds.), ''Language Reform in China: Documents and Commentary'', M. E. Sharpe (White Plains), 1979. . * Simon, W., ''A Beginners' Chinese-English Dictionary of the National Language (Gwoyeu): Fourth Revised Edition'', Lund Humphries (London), 1975.


External links

* * * Video - Talk by David Moser {{Authority control Languages of China Languages of Taiwan Chinese languages in Singapore Chinese