What Really the Putonghua (Mandarin) is?

Seen from the literal meaning, Putonghua (Mandarin) is the language which is commonly and popularly spoken by the general public. From this level of meaning, this language has existed in ancient China. The students who study in China can learn from the teachers that it was called Ya Yan in the ages that Confucius lived, Tong Yu in Han Dynasty, Guan Hua in Ming and Qing period and Guoyu in the Republican period. In the history, the major cities like Luoyang, Chang‘an, Nanjing and Beijing ever acted as the places for the standard Chinese.

However, the word Putonghua was created in the late of Qing Dynasty, which means the language spoken by all provinces. Later, it was basically regarded as the popular name of Guoyu (Chinese Language). One thing the students who study Mandarin Chinese should know is that the definition of Putonghua was not clear at the beginning of the establishment of the New China. As a result, it means sometimes the language spoken by the people in the whole China, sometimes the language of the common public and sometimes the standardized pronunciation.

Nevertheless, after the characters reformation conference held in October of 1955, Putonghua replaced the calling way of Guo Yu to be the official name for Chinese language obeyed by the whole Chinese people. More importantly, there were strict definition and standards for Mandarin Chinese. Every foreigner should know the definition of Mandarin before they learn Mandarin, which is constructed on the basis of dialect of northern China and chooses Beijing dialect as its standard, and as the standard Han people’s language, the grammar rules follow those in typical modern colloquialism.

But we should pay attention to the point that chooses Beijing dialect as the standard. It just means to regard the phonetic system of Beijing dialect as the standard in Mandarin. But it excludes some pronunciation with the obvious local characteristics. As a kind of dialect, Beijing dialect usually has no standardized requirements. But the clear specification is needed when it functioned as the standard to provide the standard pronunciation for Mandarin.

The Mandarin Chinese comes from the dialects but highly above all kinds of dialects. It should be the standardized language spoken by the whole Chinese people. It is used not only in the areas that Han people live but also the ethnic areas, and even the communicative language for different nations.