This dictionary was called Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use (国音常用字汇 Guóyīn Chángyòng Zìhuì). The linguists kept trying, though, and in 1932, a dictionary of a common language based on northern prestige dialects from in and around Beijing emerged. Unfortunately, this new language was so unlike anything that people actually spoke in real life that it failed to gain widespread acceptance. However, it wasn’t until the republican period that such attempts began to bear fruit.Īfter the Republic of China was founded with Nanjing as its capital, linguists (语言学家 yǔyán xuéjiā) quickly created a new standard language that was based both on northern dialects and on dialects from Nanjing and the surrounding region. In its last years, the Qing dynasty made some attempts to establish a national language, which it dubbed Guoyu 国语 (Guóyǔ). Regular people throughout China spoke a huge variety of different Chinese dialects, and most could not understand or speak 官话 (Guānhuà). Guoyu and the republican periodīefore the establishment of the Republic of China, the 官话 (Guānhuà) spoken court dialects were almost exclusively languages of the elite. The modern term “Mandarin” comes from a Portuguese word used to refer to the language spoken by Chinese officials. Indeed, Beijing dialect (方言 fāngyán) didn’t become the basis for court dialects until the mid-19th century, when only a few decades of the Qing dynasty remained. This common court language was called 官话 (Guānhuà), which can be translated as “court dialect” or “official speech.” It was originally based on Chinese dialects from the area in and around Nanjing, the capital of China during the Ming.īeijing became the capital in 1420, but it took several centuries for this change in geographic location to become reflected in the common court dialect.

To solve this problem, a common language that officials could use to communicate among themselves developed during the Ming (1368–1644 CE) and Qing (1644-1912 CE) dynasties. If officials from different provinces wanted to communicate face-to-face, however, things became much more difficult due to the existence of many different regional varieties of spoken Chinese.

This was because they all learned to read and write the same set of Chinese characters as part of the rigorous classical education that all officials received in preparation for taking the imperial exams. In imperial times, officials from various far-flung Chinese provinces easily communicated with each other in writing. This situation is very different from Romance languages like French or Italian, in which the written language closely resembles its spoken form.įor centuries, the standard language of China was not a spoken language, but a written one. That said, written and spoken Chinese are still quite different and the pronunciation of most characters is not at all obvious just from looking at their written form. Putonghua began as a court dialect used by imperial officials from different provinces to communicate with each other.īefore continuing, it is important to first clarify that written Chinese characters do contain some phonetic components and aren’t completely pictographic as commonly believed. To understand the status of Putonghua in China today, it helps to examine the history of its development. Putonghua, or Standard Mandarin, is the national language of China.

Tong hua meaning