The History of the Chinese Language and Its Development
November 22, 2021, at 06:30 AM
Source: kompas.com
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Portions of this article were generated with the assistance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT
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Chinese language originates from northern Chinese dialects, known as Putonghua in China and Guoyu in Taiwan, and is also an official language in Singapore. Among roughly 200 Chinese language varieties grouped into 13 categories, Putonghua is the most dominant. While the term “Mandarin” comes from Portuguese via Malay. By 2010, it had 955 million speakers. Despite its popularity, it is considered difficult to learn because it uses hanzi, requiring mastery of about 3,000 characters.
Writer: Tito.Hilmawan.Reditya
KOMPAS.com – Aside from English and Korean, one of the most popular languages in the world is Chinese language (Mandarin). Its popularity continues to grow as more foreign speakers show interest in learning it. As China continues to advance, Chinese language has also risen in prominence, becoming one of the world’s leading languages.
History of Chinese Language
According to Britannica, the language originated from the dialects of the Chinese language. The early spreading of Chinese language began in the northern and southwestern regions of China. Then dialects from northern China are commonly known as Putonghua or Guoyu.
Over time, Putonghua became the official language of China, while Guoyu was established as the official language of Taiwan. Putonghua is also one of the four official languages used in Singapore. The Chinese language has about 200 regional varieties spread across the country. From these 200 varieties, linguists classify them into 13 major dialect groups. Seven of the most widely spoken dialects include Putonghua, Yue, Xiang, Min, Gan, Wu, and Hakka.
The word “Mandarin” is commonly used to describe the Chinese language. In English, the term “Mandarin” is borrowed from the Portuguese word mandarim, which originally came from the Malay language. In a historical context, the term Mandarin was used by foreigners to refer to the high-ranking officials of the Qing Dynasty. These officials included nobles, ministers, and members of the royal court. During that era, such officials were known as Mandarens. The Mandarens, or Manchu officials, had their own linguistic structure and writing system, which eventually evolved into what is now known as Mandarin.
Chinese Language Development
As one of the world’s oldest languages, Chinese language recorded 955 million native speakers in 2010. The figure is remarkably high. This is because Chinese language is used as a mother tongue, unlike English which serves as an international language.
Even so, Chinese language is known as one of the most difficult languages to learn. In terms of written characters, Chinese language does not use the alphabet. It has its own writing system, known as Chinese characters, which differ greatly from the Latin alphabet. Therefore, to master Chinese language fully, non-native speakers must learn around 3,000 Chinese characters.