Mandarin (simplified Chinese Simplified Chinese Characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo for use in Mainland China. It is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in Mainland China has promoted them for use in printing in an: 官 话; traditional Chinese Traditional Chinese characters refers to Chinese characters in any of the standard sets of Chinese characters which are not the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo or Tōyō kanji. It most commonly refers to characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong, or in the Kangxi Dictionary. The modern shapes of traditional: 官 話; pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or ": Guānhuà; literally "speech of officials" or simplified Chinese Simplified Chinese Characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo for use in Mainland China. It is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in Mainland China has promoted them for use in printing in an: 北 方 话; traditional Chinese Traditional Chinese characters refers to Chinese characters in any of the standard sets of Chinese characters which are not the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo or Tōyō kanji. It most commonly refers to characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong, or in the Kangxi Dictionary. The modern shapes of traditional: 北 方 話; pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or ": Běifānghuà; literally "northern dialect(s)"), is a category of related Chinese dialects Although the English word dialect is often used to translate the Chinese terms huà 话, yǔ 語, or fāngyán 方 spoken across most of northern and south-western China China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin language has more native speakers than any other language. The "standard" in Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, known by various names to native speakers, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore refers to the official standardized language of China based on the Beijing dialect Beijing dialect is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. The Beijing dialect is the basis of Standard Mandarin, which the standard official Chinese spoken language that is used by the People's Republic of China (mainland China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore.

Mandarin is also a general term describing any grade of nobility in the Chinese Imperial Court.

In English, Mandarin can refer to either of two distinct concepts:

• In everyday use Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese or Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, known by various names to native speakers, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan, and is one of the four official languages of Singapore (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu), which is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken Beijing dialect is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. The Beijing dialect is the basis of Standard Mandarin, which the standard official Chinese spoken language that is used by the People's Republic of China (mainland China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore in Beijing Beijing , also known as Peking (pronounced /piːˈkɪŋ/ or /peɪˈkɪŋ/), is a metropolis in northern China and the capital of the People's Republic of China. Governed as a municipality under direct administration of the central government, Beijing borders Hebei Province to the north, west, south, and for a small section in the east, and Tianjin. Standard Mandarin functions as the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China b. ^ Simple characterizations of the political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible, the official language of the Republic of China The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan, is a state in East Asia comprising the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor islands located off the east coast of mainland China. Neighbouring states include the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the west, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south (Taiwan), and one of the four official languages of Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres north of the equator, in the Southeast Asian region of the Asian continent. It is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north, and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the Singapore Strait to its south. A. "Chinese"—in practice Standard Mandarin—is one of the six official languages of the United Nations The United Nations Organization or simply United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of.
• In its broader sense, Mandarin is a diverse group of Mandarin dialects Mandarin , when used in the broad sense to refer to most of the Chinese dialects spoken over northern and southwestern China, covers many variations. This is manifested in two ways: spoken in northern and southwestern China (Guanhua / Beifanghua / Beifang fangyan). This group of dialects is the focus of this article.

The latter grouping is defined and used mainly by linguists, and is not commonly used outside of academic circles as a self-description. Instead, when asked to describe the spoken form they are using, Chinese speaking a form of non-Standard Mandarin will describe the variant that they are speaking, for example Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin , also known as Huguang (湖广), is a branch of Mandarin Chinese spoken widely in southwestern China or Northeastern Mandarin Northeastern Mandarin or Northeast China Dialect is a variety of Mandarin Chinese, known as Dongbeihua , literally "Northeast Speech/Language," or Dongbeiguanhua (东北官话/東北官話; Dōngběiguānhuà) in Mandarin. Northeastern Mandarin is very similar to the Beijing dialect, upon which Standard Mandarin Chinese (Pǔtōnghuà) is, and consider it distinct from "Standard Mandarin" (putonghua); they may not recognize that it is in fact classified by linguists as a form of "Mandarin" in a broader sense. Nor is there a common "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects, because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of its speakers.

Like all other varieties of Chinese Chinese or the Sinitic language (汉语／漢語 Hànyǔ; 华语／華語 Huáyǔ; 中文 Zhōngwén) is a language family consisting of languages which are mostly mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages, there is significant dispute Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus - "turned in an opposite direction," from contra - "against" - and vertere - to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn against." as to whether Mandarin is a language Language is a term most commonly used to refer to so called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. By extension the term also refers to the type of human thought process which creates and uses language. Essential to both meanings is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of or a dialect The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is associated. See Identification of the varieties of Chinese Chinese forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Currently, about one-fifth of the people in the world speak some variety of Chinese as their native language. Internal diversity between the Chinese languages , with respect to grammar, vocabulary, and syntax, is comparable to that of the Romance languages. However, owing to China's for more on this issue.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Name and classification 2 Standard Mandarin 3 Dialects 4 Phonology 5 Vocabulary 5.1 Word formation 6 Syntax 7 Writing system 8 Mandarin literature 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

History

The present divisions of the Chinese language developed out of the different ways in which dialects of Old Chinese Old Chinese , or Archaic Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese spoken from the Shang Dynasty (Chinese Bronze Age, ended in the 11th century BC), well into the Former Han Dynasty (206 BC to 9 AD). There are several distinct sub-periods within that long period of time. The term, in contrast to Middle Chinese and Modern and Middle Chinese Middle Chinese , or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). The term "Middle Chinese", in contrast to Old Chinese and Modern Chinese, is usually used in the context of historical evolved.

Most Chinese living in northern and south-western China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The prevalence of this linguistic homogeneity in northern China is largely the result of geography: much of northern China is covered by plains and is flat. In contrast to this, the mountains and rivers of southern China have promoted linguistic diversity.

Chronologically, there is no clear line to mark where Middle Chinese Middle Chinese , or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). The term "Middle Chinese", in contrast to Old Chinese and Modern Chinese, is usually used in the context of historical ends and Mandarin begins; however, the Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn (中原音韵), a rhyme book A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary used for writing poetry or other genre requiring rhymes. It collates characters by rime and tone, instead of radical. However, a Chinese dictionary collated by rime and tone is not necessarily a rime dictionary (read more about this at Chinese dictionary) from the Yuan Dynasty The Yuan Dynasty , Mongolian: Dai Ön Ulus/Дай Юан Улс), or Great Yuan Empire (simplified Chinese: 大元帝国; traditional Chinese: 大元帝國; pinyin: Dà Yuán Dìguó) was both the continuation of the Mongol Empire and the Mongol founded historical state in Mongolia and China, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. Although the, is widely regarded as a milestone in the history of Mandarin. In this rhyme book we see many characteristic features of Mandarin, such as the reduction and disappearance of final stop consonants A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms. Plosives are oral stops with a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. The term is also used to describe oral stops. Many use the term nasal and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish.

Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in southern China spoke only their local language. Beijing Mandarin became dominant during the Manchu The Manchu people are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (today's northeastern China). During their rise in the seventeenth century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels (such as general Wu Sangui), they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which established a-ruling Qing Dynasty The Qing Dynasty , also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 (with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917). It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China, and from the 17th century onward, the empire established orthoepy The English meaning of orthoepy is correct pronunciation, or the study of pronunciation and how it is used in sentences. This is the only sense in English acknowledged by the OED and Webster's Dictionary. In this sense, its opposite is barbarism academies (simplified Chinese Simplified Chinese Characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo for use in Mainland China. It is one of many standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in Mainland China has promoted them for use in printing in an: 正音书院; traditional Chinese Traditional Chinese characters refers to Chinese characters in any of the standard sets of Chinese characters which are not the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo or Tōyō kanji. It most commonly refers to characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong, or in the Kangxi Dictionary. The modern shapes of traditional: 正音書院; pinyin Pinyin , or more formally Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音), is currently the most commonly used romanization system for Standard Mandarin (标准普通话 / 標準普通話). Hànyǔ (汉语 / 漢語) means the Chinese language, and pīnyīn (拼音) means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or ": Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) in an attempt to make local pronunciations conform to the Beijing standard so that the Emperor could communicate with all officials directly^[2]. These attempts, however, had little success.^{[original research?]}

Zhongguo Guanhua (中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by Étienne Fourmont (with Arcadio Huang Arcadio Huang, also Arcadius Huang or Arcade Huang was a Chinese Christian convert, brought to Paris by the Missions étrangères. He took a pioneering role in the teaching of the Chinese language in France around 1715. He was preceded in France by his compatriot Michael Shen Fu-Tsung, who visited the country in 1684) in 1742^[3]

This situation changed with the widespread introduction of Standard Mandarin as the national language, to be used in education, the media, and formal situations in both the PRC and the ROC (but not in Hong Kong). As a result, Standard Mandarin can now be spoken intelligibly as a second language by most younger people in Mainland China Mainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China on the Asian mainland. This term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau and Taiwan Taiwan, also known as Formosa , is an island situated in East Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China, and comprises most of the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) since the 1950s. The term "Taiwan" has also become a commonly used alternative name both domestically and, with various regional accents. In Hong Kong Hong Kong is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China; the other is Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million and Macau Macau , also known as Macao (pronounced /məˈkaʊ/) is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, the other being Hong Kong. Macau lies on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, bordering Guangdong province to the north and facing the South China Sea in the east and south, because of their colonial and linguistic history, the language of education, the media, formal speech and everyday life remains the local Cantonese Cantonese is a variety of the Chinese language spoken in and around the city of Guangzhou in Southern China, by the majority population of Hong Kong and Macau, and as a lingua franca of Guangdong province, eastern Guangxi province, and some neighbouring areas. It is used in Hong Kong and Macau as the de facto official spoken language of government, although Standard Mandarin is very influential now.

Name and classification

The English English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into South-East Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of term comes from the Portuguese Portuguese ( português or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated from a fusion of the dialect spoken in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal with closely related dialects spoken in territories to the south which had not yet been reconquered by the Christians to the Arabs by the time Portugal was born as a Christian kingdom mandarim or Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other mandarijn, from Indonesian Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries/Malay Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family and the official language of Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia, where in the latter it is standardized as Indonesian. It is one of four official languages of Singapore, and as Indonesian is a working language of East Timor, a consequence of over twenty years of Indonesian administration. It is məntəri, from Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: हिन्दी or हिंदी, IAST: Hindī, IPA: [ˈɦɪndiː] ) is the name given to various Indo-Aryan languages, dialects, and language registers spoken in northern and central India, Pakistan, Fiji, Mauritius, and Suriname. Standard Hindi is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, the official language of the mantri, from Sanskrit mantrin (meaning councilor or minister^[4]); it is a translation of the Chinese term Guānhuà (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話), which literally means the language of the mandarins (imperial magistrates). The term Guānhuà is often considered archaic by Chinese speakers of today, though it is often used by linguists as a collective term to refer to all varieties and dialects of Mandarin, not just standard Mandarin. Another term commonly used to refer to all varieties of Mandarin is Běifānghuà (simplified Chinese: 北方话; traditional Chinese: 北方話), or the dialect(s) of the North, although this term is used less and less among Chinese linguists in favour of "Guānhuà".

Standard Mandarin

Main article: Standard Mandarin

From an official point of view, there are two versions of Standard Mandarin, since the People's Republic of China government refers to that on the Mainland as Putonghua, whereas the Republic of China government refers to their official language as Kuo-yü (Guoyu in pinyin).

Technically, both Putonghua and Guoyu base their phonology on the Beijing accent, though Putonghua also takes some elements from other sources. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school" Standard Mandarin are often quite different from the Mandarin dialects that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect. Putonghua and Guoyu also differ from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and usage.

It is important to note that the terms "Putonghua (Common Language)" and "Guoyu (National Language)" refer to speech, and hence the difference in the use of simplified characters and traditional characters is not usually considered to be a difference between these two concepts.

Dialects

The eight main dialect areas of Mandarin in Mainland China. Main article: Mandarin dialects

There are regional variations in Mandarin. This is manifested in two ways:

1. The varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. These regional differences are rather more pronounced than the differences in the varieties of English found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.^{[citation needed]}
2. Standard Mandarin has been promoted very actively by the PRC, the ROC, and Singapore as a second language. As a result, those who are not native speakers of Standard Mandarin frequently flavour it with a strong infusion of the sounds of their native languages.

Dialects of Mandarin can be subdivided into eight categories: Beijing Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, Ji Lu Mandarin, Jiao Liao Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin, Lan Yin Mandarin, Southwestern Mandarin, and Jianghuai Mandarin. Jin is sometimes considered the ninth category of Mandarin. (Others separate it from Mandarin altogether.)

Phonology

See Mandarin phonology for a description of Standard Mandarin phonology and dialects of Mandarin for an overview of the phonologies of Mandarin dialects.

Unlike Cantonese and Min Nan which are syllable timed languages, Mandarin is a stress timed language (Avery & Ehrlich 1992) like many western languages including English.

Syllables consist maximally of an initial consonant, a glide, a vowel, a final, and tone. Not every syllable that is possible according to this rule actually exists in Mandarin, as there are rules prohibiting certain phonemes from appearing with others, and in practice there are only a few hundred distinct syllables.

Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include:

• the palatalization of velars and alveolar sibilants when they occur before palatal glides;
• the disappearance of final stops and /-m/ (although in many Jianghuai Mandarin and Jin dialects, the glottal stop has been preserved as a final);
• the disappearance of the entering tone (although it has been preserved in many Jianghuai Mandarin and Jin dialects) and the presence of four tonal categories;
• the presence of retroflex consonants (although these are absent in many dialects of Southwestern and Northeastern Mandarin);
• the historical devoicing of plosives and sibilants.

Vocabulary

There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese except Shanghainese. This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than have southern varieties of Chinese, and has needed to deal with many more homophones—usually by forming new words via compounding, or by adding affixes such as lao- (老), -zi (子), -(e)r (兒/儿), and -tou (頭/头). There are also a small number of words that have been polysyllabic since Old Chinese, such as húdié (蝴蝶, butterfly). (Please refer to Matteo Ricci's China in the Sixteenth Century, "All Chinese words, without exception, are monosyllabic." )

The singular pronouns in Mandarin are wǒ (我) "I", nǐ (你/妳) "you", nín (您) "you (formal)", and tā (他/她/它) "he/she/it", with -men (們/们) added for the plural. Further, there is a distinction between the plural first-person pronoun zánmen (咱們/咱们), which is inclusive of the listener, and wǒmen (我們/我们), which may be exclusive of the listener. Dialects of Mandarin agree with each other quite consistently on these pronouns, but not with other varieties of Chinese (e.g., Shanghainese has 侬/儂 non "you" and 伊 yi "he/she").

Other morphemes that Mandarin dialects tend to share are aspect and mood particles, such as -le (了), -zhe (著/着), and -guo (過/过). Other Chinese varieties tend to use different words in some of these contexts (e.g., Cantonese 咗 and 緊/紧). Because of contact with Mongolian and Manchurian peoples, Mandarin has some loanwords from Altaic languages not present in other varieties of Chinese, such as hútong (胡同) "alley". Southern Chinese varieties have borrowed from Tai^[5], Austro-Asiatic^[6], and Austronesian^{[citation needed]} languages.

Word formation

The most common way used to form polysyllabic words in Mandarin is to aggregate words according to their meaning. For instance, the word for "typewriter" is 打字机 dǎ zì jī. The first word means "to strike," used because in typing one's fingers strike the keys. The second word means "character" (and, by extension, "letter"). The third word means "machine." So the combination means "machine for knocking out characters."

Another possibility is to combine two words of similar meaning such as 匆忙 cōng máng, the first meaning "hurried" and the second meaning "busy."

Borrowed words are at times written with a combination of Chinese characters that attempt to approximate the pronunciation of the foreign term. For example, "laser" can be written as 雷射 léi shè. Literally the two Chinese characters mean "thunder" and "to shoot [arrows]" and, by extension, "to radiate."

Syntax

Chinese is similar to English in many of its syntactic characteristics. It frequently forms sentences by stating a subject and following it by a predicate. The predicate can be an intransitive verb, a transitive verb followed by a direct object, a linking verb followed by a predicate nominative, etc.

Chinese differs from English in distinguishing between names of things, which can stand as predicate nominatives, and names of characteristics. Names of characteristics (e.g., green) cannot follow linking verbs. There is no equivalent of the English predicate adjective. Instead, abstract characterizations such as "green," "angry," "hot," etc., stand as complete predicates in their own right. So one says, e.g., 我不累. Wǒ bú lèi. The word-for-word version in English would be, "I not tired."

Chinese differs from English in that it forms another kind of sentence by stating a topic and following it by a comment. In English, speakers generally flag the topic of a sentence by prefacing it with "as for." For instance, one might say, "As for the money that Mama gave us, I have already bought candy with it." Note that the comment in this case is itself a complete sentence with subject, verb, and object. The Chinese version is simply, 妈妈给我们的钱,我已经买了糖了. Māma géi wǒmende qián, wó yǐjīng mǎile táng le. This is translated somewhat directly as, "The money Mom gave us, I already bought candy," lacking a preface as in English.

Chinese does not have tense. Instead it uses a combination of aspect markers and markers of modality. In other words, it employs single syllables that indicate such things as (1) that the subject of the sentence did something that was expected or anticipated, (2) that the subject of the sentence has gone through some experience within a stated or implicit time period, (3) that a statement that was formerly not the case has now become true, i.e., that there has been a change of status, (4) that there still has not been a change in a condition previously noted, etc.

The time that something happened can be given by an explicit term such as "yesterday," by relative terms such as "formerly," etc.

Another major difference between the syntax of Chinese and languages like English lies in the stacking order of modifying clauses. 昨天发脾气的外交警察取消了沒有交钱的那些人的入境证. Zuó tiān fā pí qìde wài jiāo jǐng chá qǔ xiāole méi yǒu jiāo qiánde nà xiē rénde rù jīng zhèng. Using the Chinese order in English, that sentence would be:

"[Yesterday got angry] --> foreign affairs policeman canceled [did not pay] --> [those people]'s visas.

In more ordinary English order, that would be:

The foreign affairs policeman who got angry yesterday canceled the visas of those people who did not pay.

There are a few other features of the Mandarin language that would be unfamiliar to speakers of English, but the features mentioned above are generally the most noticeable.

Writing system

The writing system for almost all the varieties of Chinese is based on a set of written symbols that has been passed down with little change for more than two thousand years. Each of these varieties of Chinese has developed some new words during this time, words for which there are no matching characters in the original set. While it is of course possible to invent new characters (as was done to represent many elements in the periodic table), a more common course of development has been to borrow old characters that have fallen into disuse on the basis of their pronunciations. Chinese Characters were traditionally read top to bottom, right to left, but in modern usage it is more common to read from left to right.

In the original set of characters and definitions (containing more than 40,000 items) there were the demonstrative pronouns "this" (此, cǐ) and "that" (彼, bǐ). But these terms were rare in spoken Mandarin, where "zhè" and "nà" (or regional variants of them) were used instead. There are no components in the original set that have those meanings associated with those pronunciations, so a word pronounced "zhè" (这／這) was borrowed to write "this", and a word pronounced "nà" (那) was borrowed to write "that". Originally, 這 meant "to go forward to meet someone", and 那 was the name of a country (and later became a rare surname).

As with other varieties of Chinese, the government of the People's Republic of China (as well as some other governments and institutions) has put a set of simplified forms into operation. Under this system, the forms of the words "here" (zhèlǐ) and "there" (nàlǐ) changed from 這裏/這裡 and 那裏/那裡 to 这里 and 那里. (See Simplified Chinese for more.)

Mandarin literature

Originally, written Chinese was learned and composed as a special language. It may originally have rather closely represented the way people spoke, but with time the spoken and written languages diverged rather strongly. The written language, called "classical Chinese" or "literary Chinese", is much more concise than spoken Chinese, the main reason being that a single written character is often just what one wants to communicate yet its single syllable would communicate an ambiguous meaning if spoken because of the huge number of homonyms. For instance, 翼 (yì, wing) is unambiguous in written Chinese but would be lost among its more than 75 homonyms in spoken Chinese.

For writing formal histories, for writing government documents, and even for writing poetry and fiction, the written language was adequate and economical of both printing resources and the human effort of writing things down. But to record materials that were meant to be reproduced in oral presentations, materials such as plays and grist for the professional story-teller's mill, the classical written language was not appropriate. Even written records of the words of a famous teacher like Zhu Xi (朱熹；1130-1200) tend strongly to reflect his spoken language. From at least the Yuan dynasty, plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels, such as Shuihu Zhuan (《水浒传》; Outlaws of the marsh), on down to the Qing dynasty novel Honglou Meng (《紅樓夢/红楼梦》; usually translated as "Dream of the Red Chamber") and beyond, there developed a vernacular Chinese literature (白話文學/白话文学; báihuà wénxué). In many cases this written language reflected the Mandarin spoken language, and, since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin speaking regions and beyond.

A pivotal character during the first half of the twentieth century, Hu Shih (胡适), wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ (A history of vernacular literature).

See also

• Chinese grammar
• Confucius Institute

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be and removed. (May 2009)

1. ^ Top Ten Internet Languages - World Internet Statistics
2. ^ 南方口音，北方腔调—人民网
3. ^ FOURMONT, Etienne. Linguae Sinarum Mandarinicae hieroglyphicae grammatica duplex, latinè, & cum characteribus Sinensium. Item Sinicorum Regiae Bibliothecae librorum catalogus…
4. ^ mandarin, Online Etymology Dictionary
5. ^ Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. pp. 36–8. ISBN 0-691-01468-X.
6. ^ Norman, Jerry (1976). "The Austroasiatics in ancient South China: some lexical evidence". Monumenta Serica 32: 274–301.

Further reading

• Chao, Yuen Ren (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00219-9.
• Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-29653-6.
• Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01468-X.
• Novotná, Z., "Contributions to the Study of Loan-Words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese", Archiv Orientalni, (Prague), No.35 (1967), (In English: examples of loan words and calques in Chinese)

External links

• Arch Chinese - Learn To Read And Write Chinese Characters - Online Chinese character stroke order animations for all the simplified and 7,000 traditional characters, along with native speaker pronunciations, character decomposition, writing worksheet generation, example words and sentences, Pinyin table, radical table and character learning flashcards.
• BBC, BBC (this specifically refers to Mandarin Chinese)
• Mandarin - a Category III language Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
• A keyboard for typing Chinese characters for Firefox

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Chinese (Mandarin)

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