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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. Ling ...
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 of
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...
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 harmoni ...
,
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, bor ...
, 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 no ...
. It is largely based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. Hong Kong written Chinese, 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 a ...
reading of characters. Like other Sinitic languages, Standard Chinese is a tonal language 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, albeit with many compound words.


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-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. 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 Qu Qiubai (; 29 January 1899 – 18 June 1935) was a leader of the Chinese Communist Party in the late 1920s. He was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China. Early life Qu was born in Changzhou, Jiangsu. His family lived in Tianxiang Lou () l ...
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 and
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
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" 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, bor ...
,
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
,
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 Gui ...
, 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 dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
s 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, 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 book A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the ''Qieyun'' (601), whic ...
s, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation 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'' (), or "official speech", to refer to the speech used at the courts. The term "Mandarin" is borrowed directly from Portuguese. The Portuguese word ''mandarim'', derived from the Sanskrit 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, but later the Beijing dialect became increasingly influential, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various dialects in the capital,
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
. By some accounts, as late as the early 20th century, the position of Nanjing 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 in 1945.


Modern China

After the Republic of China 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 Chinese Communist Revolution, officially known as the Chinese People's War of Liberation in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and also known as the National Protection War against the Communist Rebellion in the Republic of China (RO ...
, 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, slig ...
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 no ...
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 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 ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
.'' 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 of Mandarin dialects in general''. This means that all slang 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 builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
, 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 i ...
, are very similar. (This is similar to the profusion of
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, 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 ...
and Greek 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 conve ...
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 structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes doma ...
and idiom of exemplary modern Chinese literature'', such as the work of Lu Xun, collectively known as " vernacular" (''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 a ...
-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'') 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, has been more politically heated. During the martial law 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 Ta ...
(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 (Taiwan) announced that Taiwanese can use the romanized spellings of their names in Hoklo,
Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
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 List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
and Macau, which are now
special administrative regions The special administrative regions (SAR) of the People's Republic of China are one of the provincial-level administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China directly under the control of its Central People's Government (State Co ...
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 a ...
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 The State Council, constitutionally synonymous with the Central People's Government since 1954 (particularly in relation to local governments), is the chief administrative authority of the People's Republic of China. It is chaired by the p ...
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 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, 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 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 south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
as well. In
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, the use of Cantonese that dominated the
Manhattan Chinatown Manhattan's Chinatown () is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 100, ...
for decades is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the lingua franca of most of the latest
Chinese immigrants Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ...
.


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 w ...
, 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 analysis. Since they occur only before high front vowels, they are in complementary distribution 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 articulat ...
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 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 () i ...
''. 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-lik ...
, 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 areas, as social changes, migrations, and urbanization take place. Due to evolution and standardization, Mandarin, although based on the Beijing dialect, 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'', 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 articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...
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 is the most dominant system globally, while Taiwan stick to the older Bopomofo system.


Grammar

Chinese is a strongly analytic language, having almost no
inflectional morpheme In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...
s, and relying on word order and particles 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 ca ...
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 number ...
. 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 ...
or grammatical tense, 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 ( adjectives, possessives and relative clauses), and verbs also generally follow any modifiers ( adverbs, 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 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 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, 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 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'' in Standard Chinese, written with
traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took a ...
: :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 Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the '' Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are o ...
: :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 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 *
Philippine Mandarin Mandarin Chinese is the primary formal Chinese language taught academically to Chinese Filipinos in Chinese Filipino schools and across other schools and institutions in the Philippines, especially as the formal written Chinese language. Bo ...
* Malaysian Mandarin *
Singaporean Mandarin Singaporean Mandarin () is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken natively in Singapore. It is one of the four official languages of Singapore along with English, Malay and Tamil. Singaporean Mandarin can be classified into two distinct M ...
* Taiwanese Mandarin * 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