Popular Science | Little-known facts about Mandarin: How did the ancients speak “Mandarin”?

People who love costume dramas must have had a dream: if one day they could travel back to ancient times, they would be able to reach the peak of their lives with the wisdom of modern people.

However, if you really go back to ancient times, you will not understand what others are saying at all.
Perhaps, some people will ask, without "Mandarin", how did the ancients communicate? How did "Mandarin" come into being?

In fact, hidden in the language is a history of China.

01

The earliest "Mandarin"

In 560 BC, Jin State summoned the northern princes to discuss how to attack Chu State. However, Chu State was powerful at that time and had just defeated Wu State, an ally of Jin State. Jin State, the leader of the northern alliance, was increasingly weak and angry about its inability to lead the people to attack Chu State, but it needed to find a way to vent its anger. Therefore, Fan Xuanzi, a minister of Jin State, focused on Ju Zhi, the leader of the northern Jiang Rong, accusing the Rong people of sabotaging and provoking the northern princes, which led to the division of the southern expedition to Chu State. As the leader of the Rong people who did not speak the same language as the ancestors of the Huaxia people in the Central Plains, Ju Zhi was neither humble nor arrogant at this time, and recited a poem from the Book of Songs: Green Flies on the spot: "The buzzing green flies stop at Fan. How can a gentleman not believe in slanderous words?"

The Rongdi language was not compatible with the Chinese language, but Juzhi could recite the Book of Songs and debate with the rulers and ministers of various vassal states. This involves a language issue, that is, what language did Juzhi speak that could be understood by the people of various vassal states who also spoke various dialects? Could it be that the ancient Chinese in the pre-Qin period already spoke a national common language similar to today's Mandarin? The answer to this is given in the Analects.

The Analects of Confucius records that "The Confucius's elegant words, namely, those of Poetry, Book of History, and those of ceremonies, are all elegant words." This means that when Confucius was reciting the Book of Songs and Book of History and presiding over ceremonies, he was speaking "elegant words" - and elegant words are the oldest national common language in Chinese history.

For Confucius, who had 3,000 disciples, how to communicate with disciples from various vassal states and promote his ideas to monarchs of various countries when traveling around the countries could only be done through "Ya Yan", a common language of the ancient Huaxia people.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Confucius often preached "Ya Yan". Linguists point out that in ancient times, "Ya" and "Xia" were interlinked. The so-called Ya Yan refers to the ancient Heluo language that was passed down by the Xia Dynasty and widely used in the Yellow River and Luoshui areas today. Since the capitals of the Xia Dynasty, Shang Dynasty and Zhou Dynasty were all in the Heluo area, after the Eastern Zhou Dynasty moved its capital to Luoyi, as the common language for various vassal states to communicate with the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Ya Yan began to lean towards Luoyang pronunciation. This is the ancient source of the "Luoyang reading pronunciation" widely used by the Han people in later generations. In short, whether it was Juzhi, the leader of the Rong people in the northwest, or Confucius in today's Shandong area, they all spoke the Han "Mandarin" during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period - Ya Yan. The ancient Heluo language behind Ya Yan is the common ancestor of the Wu dialect that is popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang today, as well as the Min dialect, Hakka dialect, and Cantonese dialects that exist in Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan.

The ancient Huaxia people, who had many dialects, were closely united through the elegant language. It was also through the elegant language that the communication between countries during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Confucius' travels to various countries, and the speeches of various philosophers were made clear and understandable.

02

The Evolution of Mandarin

From the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the Western Jin Dynasty, the capitals of various Chinese dynasties basically moved from west to east in the Chang'an and Luoyang areas of the Yellow River and Luo River. In particular, the Eastern Zhou, Eastern Han and Western Jin dynasties all had their capitals in Luoyang. This made the elegant language "Luoyang reading pronunciation" in the ancient Heluo language gradually become the common language respected by ancient Chinese.

After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, although China experienced a period of great division during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589) for nearly two hundred years, and northern ethnic minorities continued to move south, China's elegant music system did not suffer major damage, but instead continued to consolidate.

During the turbulent times of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, both the Xiongnu noble Liu Yuan, who established the Han Kingdom in the Western Jin Dynasty, and the later Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, highly advocated sinicization and Chinese. This meant that despite the turmoil in the entire north for more than 200 years during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the elegant Chinese pronunciation derived from the ancient Heluo language has been preserved in the north - because at that time, whether it was the Northern Wei Dynasty or the Southern Dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen, they were always moving in one direction, that is, the traditional Luoyang reading pronunciation. Although the southern gentry at that time believed that the Jinling elegant pronunciation was the orthodoxy of the Central Plains and that the southern pronunciation retained more of the characteristics of the Luoyang elegant pronunciation, there was not much difference in the standard language between the north and south of China during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

The Sinicization reforms of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty made the standard language basically consistent during the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

After the Sui Dynasty unified the north and south, phonologist Lu Fayan wrote "Qieyun" to standardize the national standard language at that time, and re-integrated the Southern Dynasty Jinling Yayin and the Northern Dynasty Luoxia Yayin, which were isolated during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, to form the new official Yayin system of the Sui Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty, which inherited the Sui Dynasty system, also inherited the Yayin that had been passed down from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the Luoyang reading pronunciation that was formed after the Qin and Han dynasties unified the empire as the official language. Until the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the Northern Song Dynasty, Luoyang reading pronunciation, as an ancient national common language, still had a very high status.

After that, the political, economic and cultural center of Chinese history moved eastward, so the "standard pronunciation" or "refined pronunciation" of the Song and Yuan dynasties was based on the dialects in the area from northern Henan to Hebei and Beijing today.

The eastward, southward and northward movement of China's capital and political, military and economic centre has had a profound impact on the development of the Chinese language.

In 1127, the Jurchens conquered the Northern Song Dynasty. Subsequently, under the rule of the Jurchens and the Mongols, the official language system in the northern region also changed from the Middle Ancient to the Near Ancient. It was at this time that the Beijing dialect, which had undergone the integration of ethnic minorities, began to take shape. The popular zaju and sanqu during the Yuan Dynasty also greatly promoted the spread of Dadu dialect (Beijing dialect). During the Yuan Dynasty, Zhou Deqing's "Zhongyuan Yinyun" was mainly compiled based on the rhyme of Yuan zaju, which basically reflected the appearance of Dadu dialect at that time in the Yuan Dynasty, and the phonetic and rhyme system at that time was close to today's Beijing dialect.

In the early and mid-Ming Dynasty, the southern Mandarin based on the dialect of today's Nanjing was used as the standard national language and brought to Beijing with the relocation of the capital. In the process of language integration, evolution and development, especially after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing dialect absorbed the language elements of Manchu, Mongolian and Hui peoples. For example, "you" and "hutong" are from Mongolian; and "handsome", "drooping", "dafa", "doctor", "hechi", "mammy" and other words are from Manchu.

The modern Mandarin was proposed by Zhu Wenxiong, an activist in the "phonetic script movement" in the late Qing Dynasty. In 1926, he wrote a book called "New Letters of Jiangsu", which stated that Mandarin was "the common language in all provinces".

03

Modern Mandarin

Today, when defining Mandarin we would say that "Mandarin is a common language with Beijing pronunciation as the standard pronunciation, Northern Mandarin as the basic dialect, and exemplary modern vernacular works as the grammatical norms."

However, the most standard Mandarin in the country is not spoken in Beijing, but in Chengde, especially in Luanping County of Chengde City. The Chengde dialect belongs to the Beijing Mandarin - Huai (Huairou) Cheng (Chengde) dialect, which is very close to Mandarin.

Luanping County

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the government attached great importance to the promotion of Mandarin. In 1953, Luanping County, Chengde City, was the main place for collecting standard Mandarin pronunciation.

In October 1955, the Chinese Character Reform Committee and the Ministry of Education jointly held a national character reform conference, at which the "Chinese Character Simplification Plan" was adopted. Out of respect for the languages ​​and scripts of ethnic minorities and to highlight the spirit of equality among ethnic languages ​​and scripts, the name "national language" was changed to "putonghua", and the content of putonghua was determined: "Beijing pronunciation is the standard pronunciation, northern dialect is the basic dialect, and exemplary modern vernacular works are the grammatical norms." In the end, putonghua was used throughout the country as modern standard Chinese, and Chinese law clearly stipulates: "The state promotes putonghua, which is used throughout the country."

National Conference on Writing Reform

Now, Luanping County of Chengde City has been designated by the National Language Work Committee as a pilot county for the construction of the "National Language Resource Audio Database" and a "Mandarin Experience Zone". It is the main place for collecting standard Mandarin pronunciation and plays a role in promoting the promotion of Mandarin across the country.

Since 1998, the third week of September every year is designated as the National Promotion of Putonghua Week.

In fact, the promotion of Mandarin and the use of dialects coexist harmoniously. Dialects have played an important role in cultural inheritance in different periods. It is through the development of generations that Mandarin has become the common language among ethnic groups in my country.