[yau]

there's always a big misunderstanding that mandarin is chinese language for thousands of year, and therefore it's a shame to a chinese who can't speak the language well.

It may be interesting to discuss the real history of mandarin, which is a spoken and written language. I don't have any info , but just want to hear your says.

[Shadowfax]

Is Mandarin the language that Manchurian speaked?

I thought Mandarin was a kind of Chinese. :P

[Yun]

Mandarin is the northern Chinese Beijing dialect, known as Putonghua in mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan. It is now the official language of China, but it is not the form of spoken Chinese used in ancient times.

Ancient Chinese, the spoken Chinese of the Warring States, and Middle Chinese, the form spoken in the Age of Fragmentation and Tang dynasty, have had to be reconstructed from written sources by linguistics experts like the late Bernhard Karlgren. It sounded alot more like Hakka or Hokkien, and also a bit like Cantonese. These dialects are closer to the original Chinese language because the northern dialect has been influenced by the languages of peoples like the Jurchen, Mongols and Manchus.

So when you watch a TV series of the Three Kingdoms or the Warring States, try to imagine the characters speaking in Hokkien or Hakka. It's probably a little more authentic that way.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

Notice in Mandarin there is only 4 sounds of Pin Yin, in Fu Zhou language there is a fifth called the Nu Shen. This sound is not found in Madarin but in ancient Chinese, so ancient speak a language more closer to Fu Zhou hua

[yau]

yun said:

It is now the official language of China, but it is not the form of spoken Chinese used in ancient times.

Not exactly. Mandarin was already an official language in Qing dynasty. In 1720s, Emperor YongZheng even issued a "holy decree" that requested all officials speak mandarin. It was then followed by an establishment of "Correct Pronounication College" in Fuzhou.

Considering that there's no radical change population in northern area between ming and qing dynasty where the capital was located, i believe that mandarin was also an official spoken language, or at least there's no radical difference in the grammer, sentence structure. vocab and accent that may be evolved, however.

warhead, on Jun 23 2004, 03:11 PM, said:

so ancient speak a language more closer to Fu Zhou hua

when you claim that fuzhou language really preserves most elements of ancient chinese language, what is the ancient chinese then?

Does it mean a language spoken by Zhou Kingdom, or language in "central" (中原) region? It seems unclear to the real nature of it.

[Yun]

Quote

Not exactly. Mandarin was already an official language in Qing dynasty. In 1720s, Emperor YongZheng even issued a "holy decree" that requested all officials speak mandarin. It was then followed by an establishment of "Correct Pronounication College" in Fuzhou.

Yau, when I said "ancient" I meant really ancient, as in Tang dynasty and before. Certainly by the time of the Qing dynasty, the Beijing dialect was the form of Chinese spoken by the ruling class.

Quote

Notice in Mandarin there is only 4 sounds of Pin Yin, in Fu Zhou language there is a fifth called the Nu Shen. This sound is not found in Madarin but in ancient Chinese, so ancient speak a language more closer to Fu Zhou hua

It's interesting that you mention the Fuzhou dialect, Warhead... my mother's family are Fuzhou people, and the Fuzhou dialect is very different from the dialect of the rest of Fujian (known as Hokkien or Minnan hua).

Anyway, the deal with the ru sheng 入声 is that the four tones of Mandarin are not the original four tones of ancient Chinese. The original four tones were Ping 平 (flat), Shang 上 (up), Qu 去 (out) and Ru 入 (in). The Ping tone has been split into two tones in modern Mandarin: Yinping 阴平 and Yangping 阳平, corresponding to the first and second tones of Mandarin. The Shang tone corresponds to the third tone, and the Qu tone corresponds to the fourth tone.

The Ru tone has died out in Mandarin, but is still retained in southern dialects like Hokkien (Fujian) and Hockchew (Fuzhou). An example of that is the Hokkien pronunciation of 'Kok' for Mandarin 'Guo' 国 (state, country) - a short, guttural sucked-in sound.

Both ancient Chinese and Mandarin may have four tones, but some Chinese dialects have evolved more than four. This includes Cantonese, which has about nine, and Hokkien, which has seven.

Read more about Chinese tones here:
http://www.glossika....es/tutorial.htm
http://www.chinawest...eConversion.htm

[General_Zhaoyun]

Great info contribution from Yun.

Anyway, I'll add some points to it.

Qinshihuang probably speaks the old chinese language, which sounded more like the dialect Hokkien/Hakka and abit like cantonese.


language vs Dialect

The chinese language (known in the west as "Mandarin chinese") is currently the official language of People's Republic of China and Taiwan (ROC), as well as one of the official languages of Singapore and Malaysia. It is called "Putonghua" in PRC, "Guoyu" in Taiwan and "Huayu" in Singapore/Malaysia. The Chinese has more native speakers than any other language in the world; English ranks second in number of speakers and Spanish third. Mandarin's standard pronunciation is based on the Beijing Dialect.

Most people will tend to think that the chinese spoke of a single chinese language (i.e. Mandarin chinese - the official language). However this is not true, because the spoken chinese comprises of 13 languages, of which the 7 main ones are Mandarin, Xiang, Yue (Cantonese), Min (Hokkien or Taiwanese), Kejia (Hakka), Gan, Wu. All chinese languages employ a common written form and represent a cultural union, but they are mutually unintelligible and have their own dialects, and for these reasons are classified as languages, not dialects. The differences among them are analogous to the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary among the Romance languages.

Most Chinese speak the same language, which Westerners call Mandarin Chinese, the Beijing dialect being the basis for the written standard. Mandarin forms the basis of the official spoken language in China," Putonghua" (a Mandarin dialect), prescribed in 1956 for nationwide use in schools. Mandarin is the official language in Taiwan, and one of Singapore’s official languages.It has been estimated that there are more than 2400 different dialects in China.


(Historical) Development of the language

There were three periods in which the spoken chinese languages were developed :

>>Old (or Archaic) Chinese- from 8th-3rd century BC (Zhou dynasty and Warring states period)

>>Middle (or Ancient) Chinese - from 3rd century BC till 11th century AD (Qin, Han, Sui, Tang)

>>Modern chinese - from 11th century AD onwards (Song, Ming, Qing dynasty)

The modern chinese (or Mandarin) language (from 11th century onwards) evolved from the Old (or Archaic) Chinese (8th-3rd century AD), the sounds of which
have been tentatively reconstructed. As mentioned by Yun, the old chinese sounded alot more like Hakka or Hokkien, and also a bit like Cantonese. These dialects are closer to the original old Chinese language because the northern dialect has been influenced by the languages of peoples like the Jurchen, Mongols and Manchus

The next stage of Chinese language development was Middle (or Ancient) Chinese (to about the 11th century ad). By this time the rich sound system of Old Chinese had progressed far towards the extreme simplification seen in the modern languages. The Middle Chinese language was now under lots of influence from northern tribe's language such as XiongNu, Xianbei, Manchus, Mongols etc. For instance, Old Chinese possessed series of consonants such as p, ph, b, bh (where h stands for aspiration or rough breathing). In Middle Chinese this had become p, ph, bh; in modern Mandarin only p and ph (now spelled b and p) are left.

The Sui and Tang dynasty people speaks Middle Chinese


Mandarin Origin

The western term "Mandarin" is in fact portuguese, meaning "counseller". The Mandarin is generally speaking an educated public official belonging to one of the nine ranks of the upper civil servince in imperial China. The original chinese term was guan (官). Mandarins were recruited through celebrated examination syllabus determined by Confucianism. On successful completion of the examination, a mandarin wore an official robe and a cap button of a particular colour, depending on his rank. The Mandarins, and the scholar-official class associated with them, comprised the ruling elite of China, and had an immense influence on culture and society as a whole. Because the Mandarins spoke a distinct chinese dialect in the chinese court, the language of the Mandarins were also called "Mandarin", which is the official national speech of China.

Some scholars argued that Mandarin comes from the chinese word (Man Da Ren) "满大人", which means "Manchu Great Official". However, Mandarin is not the native language of the Manchus. It's a chinese language that originated from the old chinese during warring states period.

[General_Zhaoyun]

Quote

Not exactly. Mandarin was already an official language in Qing dynasty. In 1720s, Emperor YongZheng even issued a "holy decree" that requested all officials speak mandarin. It was then followed by an establishment of "Correct Pronounication College" in Fuzhou.

Mandarin was in fact already an official language of China ever since the 11th century onwards, spoken by officials in the imperial court. It was a common language spoken in North China with various dialects variant. However, this spoken language wasn't really unified across the whole of China at those times. Each province and region still speaks its own dialect in schools and homes. The south still speaks other dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese etc. For this reason (up to Qing dynasty), the schools in the south still taught in the Hokkien, Cantonese language etc instead of in Mandarin. It was only in 1917 (during republic of China times) that Mandarin was adopted as the national and common language of chinese, that the southern schools began to use Mandarin language as the medium for instruction, at the time when vernacular chinese( 白话文) was adopted as the written form.

In 1956, Putonghua (普通话), a Mandarin dialect based on the standard Beijing dialect, was adopted as the official language of People's republic of China. This Putonghua's writing form uses simplified characters, after a writing reform was carried out.

[Yun]

More about the various Chinese dialects: http://china.asinah....se_dialect.html

[General_Zhaoyun]

I've found an informative post by Meng Tzu at AE

http://www.allempire...sp?TID=269&PN=1

Quote

Chinese words were pronounced differently thousands of years ago!  I can't believe someone can overlook such a simple matter and wrote that load of garbage above.  (If you wrote it, I apologize.)  For example, it has been suggested that Han official dialect sounds a lot like modern Fukien.  Incidentally, Fukien doesn't have the "f" sound.  Any Korean speaker notice something here right away: Korean doesn't have the "f" sound either.  Could it be that those Korean words that have exact Chinese counterparts are phonetically more consistent than Mandarin with written Chinese simply because Korean still retains the sounds that were borrowed from an older form of Chinese a long time ago?  (See more about Mandarin below.)

    Chinese spoken language(s) were faced with constant evolution.  Keep in mind that Mandarin wasn't the official language a long time ago.  It has been suggested that Tang official dialect, for example, sounds a lot like modern Cantonese.  (Some suggested reading Tang poetry in Cantonese would sound a lot smoother than when reading it in Mandarin, while Sung poetry sound smoother in Mandarin than in Cantonese.)  There are so many dialects in China that linguist categorize them as 11 different languages -- a fact that every Chinese must have experienced, such as when a Cantonese who speaks Mandarin very poorly (such as myself) goes to a Shangainese restaurant and feels utterly embarrassed and frustrated.  With different people assimilating into Chinese society, whether by immigration or invasion, the pool of languages changed.  The official language has also changed, perhaps depending which dialect the people of the capital speaks, or what the ruling class speaks.  In Confucius' time, the official language was known as "Ya Yen," or "aesthetic speech," (hence the ancient dictionary was called "Er Ya," "recent aesthetic.")  I'm not sure what the Hans call theirs, and what the Tang call theirs, but as said above, they are different.  Apparently the Sung had another official dialect.  Modern Mandarin might have a lot to do with Mongolians and the other "barbaric" tribes.  I think Ming and Ching continued to use Mandarin as the official dialect (of course Manchurian was also used in Ching; Manchurian might have also influenced Mandarin.)  Sun Yat Sen chose Mandarin as the official dialect of the Republic of China (despite the fact that he was Cantonese.)  PRC kept Mandarin as the official dialect.  So you see, Mandarin is a "late" dialect (it's said to be the Beijingian dialect,) and it's not surprising that it is inconsistent with Chinese script, which was invented in antiquity.

[General_Zhaoyun]

There is a good chinese article about the history of chinese language:

http://chinese.pku.e...id=17445&page=1

[tianzhuwoye]

Just a couple points to raise here. Sorry it’s on an old post, but hey, what’s a couple of months vs. thousands of years of linguistic change?

A fact that applies to all languages is that they change over time. There’s a truckload of reasons for why this happens, and it’s really unfortunate that people tend to highlight ‘foreign contamination’ as THE red light signaling change, or worse, as a corruption of some idealized, pure, ‘correct' original language. Many nations across the world and throughout history have tried to standardize their official languages through governmental intervention, educational programs and so on, but these attempts have always failed. Languages just change (with or without contact with barbarians) and there's no real way to stop that. Also, something like the extremely thought-provoking theory that modern Mandarin pronunciation originates from the accents of native speakers of ‘Manchu’ as they read the characters, if true, doesn’t change the fact that it’s still ‘Mandarin,’ but it does give you an idea of the extent to which languages, and all other social inventions, are hardly eternal and unchangeable.

Really simple examples from relatively recent changes: Who here can use the word ‘whom’ without feeling like a dork? When you say "better than" does it sound more like "better then?" Or, (and I don’t know how this applies outside of the PRC- let me know, thanks!) in relaxed conversation, how do you personally pronounce 谁? How do you pronounce 의 in 존재의 이유? Same example, is it easier to say 재 or 제?

I’m glad to see that people on this board refer to Hakka and Cantonese as languages as opposed to dialects. The classification of languages into families or dialectical branches, while usually a blast, can never be definite or even ‘scientific.’ All languages are made up by their speakers over time- end of story. Think of how you learn languages- you’re born, you hear people around you talking, you start imitating what you hear, and after a while you pick it up. Things change and you pass that on to the people you come into contact with. Language, like culture, depends purely on context. Nobody speaks Mandarin because they’re Han by ‘ethnicity,’ or even because they happened to be born within certain borders. This of course applies to all languages everywhere.

All the so-called ‘differences’ and our neat little categories for organizing them, are usually politically derived. A frequently quoted example comes from northern Europe, where speakers of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, which we’d assume are all separate languages since, hey, that’s three different countries, are easily able to communicate with each other. Going slightly south to Germany, which we might be tempted to view as a unified nation and a single ‘ethnicity,’ it turns out that speakers of ‘German’ in certain areas of this pretty small country (at least when compared to the PRC) are completely unable to understand each other. The ‘German Language’ is just a political label. Obviously in the PRC (and pretty much every other country where ‘cultural heritage’ helps to keep the government in power, which unfortunately in the modern world is just about every country), it’s the same deal, and you can’t refer to Wu or Yue as separate languages because apparently that threatens national security and the disrupts the unity of the motherland.

Also, while it’s always tempting to play around with ‘identity’ and pride, just keep in mind that Fuzhou Hua, Hokkien, Cantonese, the Canadian Frenches, Cheju Island Korean, Galician, Sibe, the Scottish dialects, so on and so on, all have histories as rich, varied and full of changes as Mandarin’s, or any other ‘official’ language.

And real quick… a Quote from above:

"Both ancient Chinese and Mandarin may have four tones, but some Chinese dialects have evolved more than four. This includes Cantonese, which has about nine, and Hokkien, which has seven."

The general consensus appears to be that modern Mandarin has been simplified down to four tones, as opposed to a situation where it has been left behind while the other languages have evolved to become more tonally complex. It's also a simplification process that explains why Mandarin has a smaller phonological inventory- less available 'syllables'- than most of these other languages.

[Gubook Janggoon]

Good points, all very good points.

"is it easier to say 재 or 제?"

I had this same question. (I had to relearn korean after forgetting it after about the 2-3 grade) My mother says the first one is pronounced in the back of the mouth and the latter pronounced in the front of the mouth.

[hansioux]

There are 8 tones in Taiwanese Holo. Acutally 2 of them are the same, so there is really just 7 tones. Which is the same as Tang dynasty language.

The Guangdong people claim their language is older. Or more similar to Tang language becasue they have 9 tones. Or so they say.

I don't really get what is this Hokkien language people keep referring to. Is it refering to all the Hokkien dialects at once? Or is it another way to call Holo dialect? Hokkien as in FuJian in mandarin has more than 18 dialect alone. So what is this wonderful Hokkien dialect?

[tianzhuwoye]

Gubuk Janggoon, on Jan 22 2005, 09:21 AM, said:

"is it easier to say 재 or 제?"

I had this same question.  (I had to relearn korean after forgetting it after about the 2-3 grade)  My mother says the first one is pronounced in the back of the mouth and the latter pronounced in the front of the mouth.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What's happening here is that the sounds that are usually transcribed 'ae' and 'e' are quickly losing their distinction among even native speakers of Korean. For a while it used to be the mark of pure and 'correct' Seoul speech as well as a point of pride to be able to make the distinction since it has been almost completely lost in the Southern dialects. But today, even in Seoul, most young people have a hard time with it. Just part of the way languages change.

Of course, once 'ae' is lost for good, there's going to be a huge pile of homonyms in Korean that’s going to make life hard for everybody. And with time a new distinction will be developed. Apparently, there’s already one in the works:

Since for most people naega ‘I’ and nega ‘you’ (with a topic marker) sound and are pronounced pretty much exactly the same, and ‘me’ and ‘you’ are two words you really want to keep distinguishable in order to salvage any chance of coherent conversation, I wanted to ask Gubuk Janggoon if you or anybody you know uses something that sounds more like ‘niga’ for ‘you?’ Apparently, that’s the trend and it may very well be applied to more words, until, since the ‘i’ sound is already very common in Korean, it creates enough of a new conflict that another new distinction has to be invented.

Purists get pissed off (can i say that here?) when people start speaking the language 'incorrectly' (anybody else old enough to remember the issue with "ain't?") but this is just a reflection of a normal change in of the phonology of Korean. And of course, every other language does the same thing, all the time.