Chinese language

History

Most linguists classify all of the variations of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family and believe that there was an original language, called Proto-Sino-Tibetan, similar to Proto Indo-European, from which the Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman languages descended. The relations between Chinese and the other Sino-Tibetan languages are still unclear and an area of active research, as is the attempt to reconstruct Proto-Sino-Tibetan. The main difficulty in this effort is that, while there is very good documentation that allows us to reconstruct the ancient sounds of Chinese, there is no written documentation concerning the division between proto-Sino-Tibetan and Chinese. In addition, many of the languages that would allow us to reconstruct proto-Sino-Tibetan are very poorly documented or understood.

Related Topics:
Language family - Proto-Sino-Tibetan - Proto Indo-European

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Categorization of the development of Chinese is a subject of scholarly debate. One of the first systems was devised by the Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren in the early 1900s. The system has been subjected to numerous revisions, but later recostructions heavily rely on Karlgren's insights and methods.

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Old Chinese ({{zh-tsps|t=????|s=????|p=Shàngg? Hàny?}}), sometimes known as 'Archaic Chinese', was the language common during the early and middle Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC), texts of which include inscriptions on bronze artifacts, the poetry of the Shijing, the history of the Shujing, and portions of the Yijing (I Ching). The phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters also provide hints to their Old Chinese pronunciations. The pronunciation of the borrowed Chinese characters in Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean also provide scholars with some valuable insights. Old Chinese was not wholly uninflected. It possessed a rich sound system in which aspiration or rough breathing differentiated the consonants, but probably had no tones yet. Work on reconstructing Old Chinese started with Qing dynasty philologists.

Related Topics:
Old Chinese - Zhou Dynasty - Shijing - Shujing - Yijing - Qing dynasty

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Middle Chinese ({{zh-tsps|s=????|t=????|p=Zh?ngg? Hàny?}}) was the language used during the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (7th through 10th centuries A.D.). It can be divided into an early period, to which the 切韻 'Qieyun' rhyme table (A.D. 601) relates, and a late period in the 10th, which the 廣韻 'Guangyun' rhyme table reflects. Linguists are confident of having a good reconstruction of how Middle Chinese sounded. The evidence for the pronunciation of Middle Chinese comes from several sources: modern dialect variations, rhyming dictionaries, and foreign transliterations. In addition, ancient Chinese philologists devoted a great deal of effort to summarizing the Chinese phonetic system through "rhyming tables", and these tables serve as a basis for the work of modern linguists. Finally, Chinese phonetic translations of foreign words also provide plenty of clues about the nature of Middle Chinese phonetics. However, all reconstructions are tentative; scholars have shown, for example, that trying to reconstruct modern Cantonese from the rhymes of modern Cantopop would give a very inaccurate picture of the language.

Related Topics:
Middle Chinese - Sui - Tang - Song - Qieyun - Rhyme table - Guangyun - Cantopop

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The development of the spoken Chinese languages from early historical times to the present has been complex. The language tree shown below indicates how the present main divisions of the Chinese language developed out of an early common language. Comparison with the map above will give some idea of the complexities that have been left out of the tree. For instance, the Min language that is centered in Fujian Province contains five subdivisions, and the Mandarin dialects (Beifanghua) also contains nine, such as Yunnan hua and Sichuan hua.

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Most Chinese living in northern China, in Sichuan and in a broad arc from the northeast (Manchuria) to the southwest (Yunnan), use various Mandarin dialects as their home language. The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China is largely the result of geography, namely the plains of north China. By contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity. The presence of Mandarin in Sichuan is largely due to a plague in the 12th century. This plague, which may have been related to the Black Death, depopulated the area, leading to later settlement from north China.

Related Topics:
China - Sichuan - Home language - 12th century - Black Death

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Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese living in southern China did not speak any Mandarin. However, despite the mix of officials and commoners speaking various Chinese dialects, Nanjing Mandarin became dominant at least during the officially Manchu-speaking Qing Empire. Since the 17th century, the Empire had set up orthoepy academies ({{zh-tsps|t=????|s=????|p=Zhèngy?n Sh?yuàn}}) in an attempt to make pronunciation conform to the Beijing standard (Beijing being the capital of Qing), but these attempts had little success. During the last 50 years of the Qing Dynasty, in the late 19th century, the Nanjing Mandarin standard was finally replaced in the imperial court by Beijing Mandarin. For the general population, although variations of Mandarin were already widely spoken in China then, a single standard of Mandarin did not exist. The non-Mandarin speakers in southern China also continued to use their regionalects for every aspect of life. The new Beijing Mandarin court standard was thus fairly limited.

Related Topics:
20th century - Manchu - Qing Empire - Orthoepy

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This situation changed with the creation (in both the PRC and the ROC) of an elementary school education system committed to teaching Mandarin. As a result, Mandarin is now spoken fluently by a majority of people in mainland China and in Taiwan. In Hong Kong, the language of education and formal speech remains Cantonese, but Mandarin is becoming increasingly influential.

Related Topics:
Mainland China - Taiwan - Hong Kong - Cantonese

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