The Origin of the Chinese Language

History

The origin of the Chinese language is still under research, but critics believe the more modern forms of Chinese were derived from two different languages. These two languages come from Sino-Tibetan styles. Ancient records provide sounds of the languages, but there are no written records of the languages, making it extremely difficult to tell if Chinese came exactly from these predecessors. Through the development of the country, many different types of Chinese were spoken. Many versions of the language related to the region, or location of people. It wasn’t until the People’s Republic of China declared their education system would only teach Mandarin that there was a unified language for the country.

Writing

The Chinese language is one of the oldest languages that still remain today. Chinese literature has been dated back to 11 BCE. Although, there have been many different dialects, large parts of the language still have been carried through populations. Most changes in the language evolved through writing and characters, not spoken manners. There is a large variance between Chinese writing and speaking. Chinese writing is typically written in rectangular formats. Reading is done from top to bottom, or right to left, unlike most languages.

Influences

The Chinese language has had many influences on other countries. Two notable countries would be Korea and Japan. Both countries have similar writing techniques and have adapted their language to Chinese characteristics. Vietnam has also used a type of Chinese writing since the 19^th century. Nearly 50% of the Korean alphabet is Chinese, however South Korea and North Korea do not use the same alphabet due to different political stances. Different influences and dialects of the Chinese language tend to have different phonetics.

Current

With the ever-growing population of The People’s Republic of China, the economy is increasing as well. Today, the Mandarin Chinese language is becoming a much more common course of study in primary, secondary, and university level schools. The Chinese proficiency test included nearly 2,000 participants in 1991. In 2005, the number of tests taken was over 115,000. The Chinese vocabulary contains over 20,000 characters with around 10,000 in general conversation. In Chinese, one character does not represent a word, but often two to three. The most comprehensive book of the language records nearly 23,000 characters and over 350,000 definitions.