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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.
Sima Guang. The principal text of the Zizhi Tongjian comprises a year-by-year narrative of the history of China over 294 scrolls, sweeping through many Chinese historical periods (Warring States, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms, Jin and the Sixteen Kingdoms, Southern and Northern dynasties, Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties), supplemented with two sections of 30 scrolls each—'tables' (目錄; mùlù ...
Chinese may be viewed either as a holistic unit with great internal topological variation, or as an entire language family comprising many groupings of varieties. Written Chinese makes use of Chinese characters , one of the four independent inventions of writing agreed by scholars, and the only one of these remaining in use.
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 ...
The Chinese Historical Review is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of Chinese Historians in the United States.The journal publishes original research on the history of China in every period, China's historical relations with the world, the historical experiences of the overseas Chinese, as well as comparative and transnational studies of history ...
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.
It arose as a practical measure, due to the mutual unintelligibility of the varieties of Chinese spoken in different parts of China. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined. [2] [3] The language was a koiné based on Mandarin dialects.
Due to a college course he took in Chinese language the year before, the Air Force sent Mote to Harvard where he studied Chinese under John K. Fairbank for a year. In 1944, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (the war-time precursor to the CIA ) as a noncommissioned officer, serving in the China-Burma-India theater of operations until 1946.