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The Chinese language has always consisted of a wide variety of dialects; hence prestige dialects and linguae francae have always been needed. Confucius (c. 551 – c. 479 BC) referred to yayan 'elegant speech' modeled on the dialect of the Zhou dynasty royal lands rather than regional dialects; texts authored during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) also refer to tongyu (通語 'common ...
Standard Chinese is a pluricentric language with local standards in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore that mainly differ in their lexicon. [7] Hong Kong written Chinese, used for formal written communication in Hong Kong and Macau, is a form of Standard Chinese that is read aloud with the Cantonese reading of characters.
The earliest historical linguistic evidence of the spoken Chinese language dates back approximately 4500 years, [1] while examples of the writing system that would become written Chinese are attested in a body of inscriptions made on bronze vessels and oracle bones during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – 1050 BCE), [2] [3] with the very oldest dated to c. 1200 BCE.
Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话; pǔtōnghuà) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it is called either 华语; 華語; Huáyǔ or 汉语; 漢語; Hànyǔ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin.
In mainland China, Mandarin holds the statutory status of standard Chinese, and its promotion is supported by the government, giving it a natural advantage. However, China is home to a rich variety of Natural languages, some of which are still actively developing. The promotion of Mandarin inevitably conflicts with existing regional languages.
Comparing with the previous standards, the changes of the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters include . In addition to the characters from the General List of Simplified Chinese Characters and the List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese, 226 groups of characters such as "髫, 𬬭, 𫖯" that are widely used in the society are included in ...
Standard Chinese is the official language of China [4] and Taiwan, [5] one of four official languages of Singapore and one of six official languages of the United Nations. [6] Recent increased migration from Mandarin-speaking regions of China and Taiwan has now resulted in the language being one of the more frequently used varieties of Chinese ...
Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. [12] In the People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters. [13]