Mandarin

Hua Wen

• (Redirected from Chinese)Standard Chinese - Wikipedia
• Taiwanese Mandarin - Wikipedia

As a Japanese, I was not familiar with the word “mandarin” and associated it with a type of orange satsuma mandarin. Audrey Tang calls the language of the manuscript he is writing “traditional-mandarin” ([Github https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/tree/main/contents/ traditional-mandarin]), so I looked up what it means.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/官話

Kanwa (官話) is one of the dialectal divisions of the Chinese language. The name means official language, and is derived from the fact that the political, economic, and cultural center of China has long been in the area where this dialect was used, and that it was used in political and official circles… Mandarin, as it is called in the West, is a dialect of Mandarin. … Around the time of the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) following the Xinhai Revolution (1911), the official Chinese language was renamed the national language. The National Language Movement and the White Language and Writing Movement took place, and the standard for modern standard Chinese was established, with the Beijing dialect being adopted as the standard. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has adopted Mandarin Chinese as its lingua franca, based on the Beijing dialect, the vocabulary of the northern dialect (Guanwu dialect), and the grammar of modern Baijiang, and is promoting policies to promote the use of this lingua franca.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese

After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation, the National Language The People’s Republic, founded in 1949, retained this standard, calling it pǔtōnghuà (simplified Chinese: 普通话; traditional Chinese: 普通話; lit. ‘common speech’). Some 54% of speakers of Mandarin varieties could understand the standard language in the early 1950s, rising to 91% in 1984. Nationally, the proportion understanding the standard rose from 41% to 90% over the same period.

This standard language is now used in education, the media, and formal occasions in both Mainland China and Taiwan, as well as among the Chinese community of Singapore. However in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world, namely Hong Kong and Macau, the standard form of Chinese used in education, the media, formal speech, and everyday life remains the local Cantonese because of their colonial and linguistic history. While Standard Mandarin is now the medium of instruction in schools throughout China, it still has yet to gain traction as a common language among the local population in areas where Mandarin dialects are not native. In these regions, people may be either diglossic or speak the standard language with a notable accent. However since the start of the 21st century, there has been an effort of mass education in Standard Mandarin Chinese and discouragement of local language usage by the Chinese government in order to erase these regional differences.

From an official point of view, the mainland Chinese and the Taiwanese governments maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. The codified forms of both Pǔtōnghuà and Guóyǔ base their phonology on the Beijing accent, and also take some elements from other sources, and deviate from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of “school-standard” Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin varieties that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect.

The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, although simplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore, while traditional characters remain in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. (DeepL)

• After much controversy between proponents of the northern and southern dialects and aborted attempts at artificial pronunciation, the National Language Unification Committee finally decided on the Beijing dialect in 1932; the People’s Republic, established in 1949, maintained this standard and called it “normal speech” (pǔtōnghuà, simplified Chinese: 普通话; traditional Chinese In the early 1950s, 54% of the speakers of the standard language understood it; by 1984, this figure had risen to 91%. Nationally, the percentage of people who could understand Mandarin rose from 41% to 90% over the same period.
• This standard Chinese language is now used in education, media, and official settings in Mainland China and Taiwan, as well as in the Chinese community in Singapore. However, in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world, namely Hong Kong and Macau, due to colonial rule and linguistic history, the standard Chinese used in education, the media, officialdom, and daily life remains Cantonese. Although Mandarin is now used in schools throughout China, it has yet to become the lingua franca of the local population in areas where Mandarin dialects are not the native language. In such areas, people either do not speak Mandarin as their native language or have a pronounced accent in Mandarin. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, efforts have been made by the Chinese government to eliminate these regional differences by providing group education in Mandarin Chinese and encouraging the use of the local language.
• From an official standpoint, the governments of Mainland China and Taiwan maintain their own forms of the standard language under different names; both Pǔtōnghuà and Guóyǔ use the Beijing accent as their phonetic basis, incorporate some elements from other sources, and deviate from the Beijing dialect in lexicon, grammar, and pragmatics The two dictionaries are based on the Beijing accent and are not based on the Beijing dialect. A comparison of the dictionaries produced in the two regions will show that there are few substantive differences. However, both “school standard” Chinese languages are often quite different from standard Chinese spoken according to local customs and are not exactly the same as the Beijing dialect.
• Simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China and Singapore, while traditional Chinese characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

I see. As a foreigner, it is difficult for me to fully understand the situation in Taiwan, but I thought the atmosphere would be something like the following

• In Japan, the eastern dialects came to be considered “standard” due to the fact that the Edo shogunate was located in the east.
  • Although “Tokyo” (Eastern Capital) in the east is somehow regarded as the capital of Japan, there is actually no clear legal provision for it.
  • People in “Kyoto” in the west believe that the emperor is just making a long trip and that Kyoto is the capital of Japan.
• Although the eastern and western dialects have different intonations, there is not much difference in pronunciation itself, and since they share the same script, there is currently no major friction between them.
• If the west and east of Japan were to be in a state where they used different scripts and each called the language they used “standard language,” it would be closer to the relationship between China and Taiwan.
  • If the Tokyo regime in the East were to impose the Eastern dialect on the people in the West by saying, “This is the correct standard language,” there would be a backlash.

relevance - non-standard kana

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This page is auto-translated from /nishio/Mandarin using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.