The earliest historical linguistic evidence of the spoken Chinese language dates back approximately 4500 years, while examples of the writing system that would become written Chinese are attested in a body of inscriptions made … See more

Words in Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic; as such, each character denoted an independent word. Affixes could be added to … See more

The development of Chinese has been complex. The prevalence of Mandarin throughout northern China is due in part to the open plains of northern China, in contrast to the mountains and rivers of southern China that enabled greater linguistic diversity. … See more

Old Chinese, sometimes known as "Archaic Chinese", is ancestral to all current Chinese languages. The first known use of the Chinese writing system is divinatory inscriptions into tortoise shells and oracle bones during the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 … See more

Middle Chinese was a form of Chinese used during the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties between the 4th and 10th centuries. It can be divided into two periods: Early Middle … See more

During the late 19th century, the Beijing dialect finally replaced the Nanjing dialect in the imperial court. For the general population, although varieties of Mandarin were already widely spoken in China, a single standard of Mandarin did not exist. Non-Mandarin … See more