History of Standard Chinese facts for kids
Standard Chinese is a common way of speaking Mandarin Chinese. It's the official language in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. It helps people from different parts of these countries understand each other.
Why a Common Language?
The Chinese language has many different ways of speaking, called dialects. Because of this, people have always needed a common language that everyone could understand. This common language helped people communicate, especially in government and education.
For example, a long time ago, Confucius (who lived around 551-479 BC) talked about "elegant speech." This was a special way of speaking based on the language used in the royal lands of the Zhou dynasty. Later, during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), people also used a "common language" to talk across different regions.
Over many centuries, scholars wrote special dictionaries called Rime dictionaries. These books helped show how words should be pronounced in a standard way. However, these standard ways of speaking were mostly known by educated people. Most regular people still spoke their local dialects.
Imperial China's Official Speech
During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and Qing dynasty (1644–1912), the language used at the royal court was called Guanhua (官話), which means 'official speech'. At first, this official speech was based on the dialect of Nanjing. But over time, the Beijing dialect became more and more important. Even though many different dialects were spoken in Beijing, the capital city, the Beijing dialect started to become the standard.
The word "Mandarin" comes from this time. It referred to the language spoken by the upper classes and government officials in the 19th century. This old Mandarin was very similar to today's Standard Chinese. It had some polite words that we don't use much today, like jian (賤, meaning 'my humble') and guì (貴, meaning 'your honorable'). The grammar and most of the words were almost the same as they are now.
Even Europeans knew about Guanhua a long time ago. A person named Matteo Ricci, who worked in China from 1582 to 1610, wrote about it. He said it was "a spoken language common to the whole Empire, known as the Quonhua, an official language."
In the 1600s, the Qing government tried to make everyone speak with the Beijing standard. They even set up special schools called orthoepy academies (正音書院). But these schools didn't have much success. Even in the 1800s, the emperor sometimes had trouble understanding his own government ministers!
Later, in 1909, the Qing government officially named imperial Mandarin as Guoyu (国语; 國語), meaning the 'national language'. This idea of a "national language" was inspired by Japan, which had also created a standard Japanese language.
Modern Standard Chinese
After the Republic of China was formed in 1912, there was a bigger push to create a common national language. A group of people from all over the country met to decide on the pronunciation. They had a hard time agreeing because some wanted a northern way of speaking, and others wanted a southern way.
They tried to create a dictionary that mixed different pronunciations, but it was too complicated. So, they decided to focus on the Beijing dialect. This was because the Beijing dialect was already seen as important and respected.
In 1932, a new dictionary was published. It made the pronunciations of all Chinese characters match the Beijing dialect. Even though some people wanted to include southern Chinese ways of speaking, the government strongly supported Guoyu as the one national language.
After the People's Republic of China was set up in 1949, they continued this effort. In 1955, Guoyu was renamed Putonghua (普通話), meaning 'common speech'. In Taiwan, however, Standard Chinese is still called Guoyu. The way people speak in mainland China and Taiwan has changed a little bit over time, but they are still mostly the same.
In places like Hong Kong and Macau, people mostly speak Cantonese. But more and more, people there are also learning and using Standard Chinese.
Today, thanks to schools and media, most people in mainland China and Taiwan can speak Standard Chinese fluently. It helps everyone communicate and understand each other across the country.
