CHINESE LANGUAGES

also called Sinitic, Chinese Han the principal language group of eastern Asia, belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars. More people speak a variety of Chinese as a native language than any other language in the world, and Modern Standard Chinese is one of the five official languages of the United Nations. When spoken, the languages of Chinese are mutually unintelligible; they differ to about the same extent as the modern Romance languages. Most of the differences among them occur in pronunciation and vocabulary; there are few grammatical differences. These languages include Mandarin in the northern, central, and western parts of China; Wu, Northern and Southern Min, Kan, Hakka, and Hsiang; and Cantonese (Yeh) in the southeastern part of the country. All the Chinese languages share a common literary language (wen-yen), written in characters and based on a common body of literature. This literary language has no single standard of pronunciation; a speaker of a language reads texts according to the rules of pronunciation of his own language. Before 1917 the wen-yen was used for almost all writing; since that date it has become increasingly acceptable to write in the vernacular style (pai-hua) instead, and the old literary language appears to be dying out. In the early 1900s a program for the unification of the national language, which is based on Mandarin speech, was launched; this resulted in Modern Standard Chinese. In 1956 a new system of romanization called Pinyin (q.v.), based on the pronunciation of the characters in the Peking language, was devised as an educational instrument to help in the spread of the modern standard language; this system, which has begun to replace the Wade-Giles romanization system once prevalent in English-speaking countries, was adopted in 1958, and its use expanded more or less steadily until 1979, when its adoption was formally reiterated. Some scholars divide the history of the Chinese languages into Proto-Sinitic (Proto-Chinese) (until 500 BC), Archaic (Old) Chinese (8th to 3rd century BC), Ancient (Middle) Chinese (through 907), and Modern Chinese (from about the 10th century to modern times). The Proto-Sinitic period is the period of the most ancient inscriptions and poetry; most loanwords in Chinese were borrowed after that period. The works of Confucius and Mencius mark the beginning of the Archaic Chinese period. Modern knowledge of the sounds of Chinese during the Ancient Chinese period is derived from a pronouncing dictionary of the language of the Ancient period published in AD 601 by the scholar Lu Fa-yen and also from the works of the scholar-official Ssu-ma Kuang, published in the 11th century. The sound system of Chinese is marked by its use of tones to indicate differences of meaning between words or syllables that are otherwise identical in sound (i.e., have the same consonants and vowels). Modern Standard Chinese has four tones, while the more archaic Cantonese language uses six tones, as did Ancient Chinese. Chinese words often have only one syllable, although modern Chinese makes greater use of compounds than did the earlier language. In Chinese compound words, few prefixes or infixes occur, but there are a great number of suffixes. Few words end in a consonant, except in such archaic dialects as Cantonese. A Chinese word is invariable in form (i.e., it has no inflectional markers or markers to indicate parts of speech) and, within the range allowed by its intrinsic meaning, can serve as any part of speech. Because there is no word inflection in the language, there is a fixed word order. Person and number are expressed in the pronoun rather than in the verb. Chinese has no definite article ("the"), although the word for "one" and the demonstrative adjective are sometimes used as articles in the language today. Adjectives, which are probably of verbal origin, are not inflected for degree of comparison and may be used as adverbs without any change of form. also called Sinitic languages, Chinese Han, principal language group of eastern Asia, belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese exists in a number of varieties that are popularly called dialects but that are usually classified as separate languages by scholars. More people speak a variety of Chinese as a native language than any other language in the world, and Modern Standard Chinese is one of the five official languages of the United Nations. The spoken varieties of Chinese are mutually unintelligible to their respective speakers. They differ from each other to about the same extent as the modern Romance languages. Most of the differences among them occur in pronunciation and vocabulary; there are few grammatical differences. These languages include Mandarin in the northern, central, and western parts of China; Wu, Northern and Southern Min, Kan, Hakka, and Hsiang; and Cantonese (Yeh) in the southeastern part of the country. All the Chinese languages share a common literary language (wen-yen), written in characters and based on a common body of literature. This literary language has no single standard of pronunciation; a speaker of a language reads texts according to the rules of pronunciation of his own language. Before 1917 the wen-yen was used for almost all writing; since that date it has become increasingly acceptable to write in the vernacular style (pai-hua) instead, and the old literary language appears to be dying out. In the early 1900s a program for the unification of the national language, which is based on Mandarin, was launched; this resulted in Modern Standard Chinese. In 1956 a new system of romanization called Pinyin, based on the pronunciation of the characters in the Peking dialect, was adopted as an educational instrument to help in the spread of the modern standard language. Modified in 1958, the system was formally prescribed (1979) for use in all diplomatic documents and foreign-language publications in English-speaking countries. Some scholars divide the history of the Chinese languages into Proto-Sinitic (Proto-Chinese) (until 500 BC), Archaic (Old) Chinese (8th to 3rd century BC), Ancient (Middle) Chinese (through AD 907), and Modern Chinese (from about the 10th century to modern times). The Proto-Sinitic period is the period of the most ancient inscriptions and poetry; most loanwords in Chinese were borrowed after that period. The works of Confucius and Mencius mark the beginning of the Archaic Chinese period. Modern knowledge of the sounds of Chinese during the Ancient Chinese period is derived from a pronouncing dictionary of the language of the Ancient period published in AD 601 by the scholar Lu Fa-yen and also from the works of the scholar-official Ssu-ma Kuang, published in the 11th century. The sound system of Chinese is marked by its use of tones to indicate differences of meaning between words or syllables that are otherwise identical in sound (i.e., have the same consonants and vowels). Modern Standard Chinese has four tones, while the more archaic Cantonese language uses six tones, as did Ancient Chinese. Chinese words often have only one syllable, although modern Chinese makes greater use of compounds than did the earlier language. In Chinese compound words, few prefixes or infixes occur, but there are a great number of suffixes. Few words end in a consonant, except in such archaic dialects as Cantonese. A Chinese word is invariable in form (i.e., it has no inflectional markers or markers to indicate parts of speech) and, within the range allowed by its intrinsic meaning, can serve as any part of speech. Because there is no word inflection in the language, there is a fixed word order. Person and number are expressed in the pronoun rather than in the verb. Chinese has no definite article ("the"), although the word for "one" and the demonstrative adjective are sometimes used as articles in the language today. Adjectives, which are probably of verbal origin, are not inflected for degree of comparison and may be used as adverbs without any change of form. Sren Christian Egerod Additional reading Three pertinent essays on Chinese are found in Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 2 (1967): Nicholas C. Bodman, "Historical Linguistics," pp. 3-58; Kun Chang, "Descriptive Linguistics," pp. 59-90; and the technical work by Sren Egerod, "Dialectology," pp. 91-129. Grammars include Yuen Ren Chao, Mandarin Primer (1948, reissued 1976), excellent chapters on script and grammar; Yuen Ren Chao and Lien Sheng Yang, Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese (1947, reissued 1970), with an excellent introduction; Yuen Ren Chao, A Grammar of Spoken Chinese (1968), a reliable standard reference work; W.A.C.H. Dobson, Late Archaic Chinese (1959), and Early Archaic Chinese (1962), useful but not always trustworthy guides to Old Chinese grammar; Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar (1995), a concise guide to usage in the texts; and Christoph Harbsmeier, Aspects of Classical Chinese Syntax (1981), an important, pioneering contribution. Language reform is addressed in John DeFrancis, Nationalism and Language Reform in China (1950, reissued 1972), informative and readable, and "Language and Script Reform," in Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Current Trends in Linguistics, vol. 2 (1967), pp. 130-150. R.A.D. Forrest, The Chinese Language, 3rd ed. (1973), a standard reference work, also treats related and contiguous languages. A variety of topics is covered in these works of Bernhard Karlgren: tudes sur la phonologie chinoise (1915-26), an epoch-making work but very technical, Compendium of Phonetics in Ancient and Archaic Chinese (1954), also technical, Grammata Serica: Script and Phonetics in Chinese and Sino-Japanese (1940, reissued 1971), the standard dictionary of Old Chinese characters, Sound and Symbol in Chinese, rev. ed. (1962, reissued 1971), very readable, but somewhat out of date, The Chinese Language: An Essay on Its Nature and History, trans. from Swedish (1949), a popular account of phonetic reconstructions, and Easy Lessons in Chinese Writing (1958), an interesting account of the etymology of Chinese characters. Paul Kratochvil, The Chinese Language Today: Features of an Emerging Standard (1968), is very readable. A more detailed description of the language is found in Jerry Norman, Chinese (1988). Mantaro J. Hashimoto, Phonology of Ancient Chinese, 2 vol. (1978-79), is rather technical. Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Middle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology (1984), is very important but not easily read, and information on the earlier pronunciations of specific characters can be found in his Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin (1991). An important and very readable statement on Old Chinese is Fang Kuei Li, "Archaic Chinese," in David N. Keightley (ed.), The Origins of Chinese Civilization (1983), pp. 393-408. Sren Christian Egerod