Mandarin Course

The Historical Truth of Mandarin
Mandarin, which has been used as the mother tongue in Taiwan, mainland China and some overseas Chinese, is based on Beijing dialect.

Although mandarin has been used after the vernacular revolution at China, the history of the formulation of mandarin language began at the very end of Qing dynasty.
Since the end of Qing dynasty, the Mandarin-making process has been divided into two topics, which are:

1- Standard voice formulation

2- Pronunciation symbols

The standard voice formulation based on the standard of Beijing dialect tone. At the time of Qing dynasty there was a government committee called the uniform pronunciation committee. They integrated the various pronunciations from many different regional dialects in China. As a result, the standard pronunciation dispute occurred. However, Mandarin is different from Beijing dialect. In fact, there are so many differences between the Mandarin and Beijing dialects, people who have ever listened to Beijing dialect will know that.

There are some pieces of information about the Chinese mandarin history that people are talking about in the internet such as:

The Qing Dynasty ended about one hundred years ago. At that time, the Republic of China held a vote which will determine the exact dialect of Mandarin.

There are about six local dialects, which have been selected to participate in this “national language battle”. Finally, the two dialects which were chosen to make the Mandarin language were Beijing and Cantonese. How ever the rumour is not the truth. The truth is, the formulation of Mandarin was achieved after a continually consultations and discussions process.

The following are the events of Mandarin formulation.

1892- A man named “Zhang Lu han” imitated the Roman alphabets and developed the “The first set of symbols in Chinese pinyin system” in Xiamen city.

1900- A man named “Zhao Wan” followed the Japanese Kana to establish the “Mandarin chorus letters system” at Hebei Province.

1902- After going to Japan to study education policy, the Imperial College Teacher “Wu Rulun” realized that it is very important for the people who live in the same country to own the same language.
After returning home, he advocated that the government should choose the Beijing dialect to be the standard national language.

1910- During the Political Consultative Council, Mr. Jiang Qing suggested that the Beijing official language should be renamed Mandarin language.
Also, the Qing government planned to make the Beijing official language as the standard implementation of the country. However, because of the destruction of the Qing dynasty, the project was unsuccessful.

1912 / 07 – The National Government Ministry of Education held a provisional education conference in Peking.

1912 / 08 – They decided to develop the standard polyphone by using the “phonetic alphabet”

1912 / 12- The Ministry of Education established “Uniform pronunciation committee”. Its role consisted in auditing the statutory Mandarin, analyzing the Chinese voice element, and adopting an alphabet for each Chinese voice element.
They decided that every Chinese voice element should correspond to only one alphabet.

1913 / 5- ”The Uniform Pronunciation Committee” approved the standard pronunciation of the 6500 words and developed “39 phonetic symbols”. However, this project was suspended because of the changes of the Minister of Education.

1918 / 11- The Ministry of Education announced the “39 phonetic symbols” which were developed in 1913.

However, it was finally agreed about using only 36 phonetic symbols. The modern Mandarin has been established since then.