1.
Yue (state)
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Its original capital was a site near Mount Kuaiji, after its conquest of Wu, the Kings of Yue moved their court north to the city of Wu. According to Sima Qian, Yues rulers claimed to be descended from the Xia emperor Yu, the name Yue was applied indiscriminately to many southern Chinese peoples throughout classical Chinese texts. A specific kingdom under their name in modern Zhejiang is not mentioned until it began a series of wars against its northern neighbor Wu in the late 6th century BC, with help from Wus enemy Chu, Yue was able to be victorious after several decades of conflict. King Goujian destroyed and annexed Wu in 473 BC, competing against the fewer, more powerful Warring States, Yue did not fare as well. During the reign of Wujiang, six generations after Goujian, Yue was destroyed and annexed by Chu in 334 BC, during its existence, Yue was famous for the quality of its metalworking, particularly its swords. Examples include the extremely well-preserved Swords of Goujian and Zhougou, the Yue state appears to have been a largely indigenous political development in the lower Yangtze. Austronesian speakers also still lived in the region down to its conquest and their ancestral name is rendered variously as either Si or Yu. After the fall of Yue, the family moved south to what is now northern Fujian. This successor state lasted until around 150 BC, when it miscalculated an alliance with the Han dynasty, mingdi, Wujiangs second son, was appointed minister of Wucheng by the king of Chu. He was titled Marquis of Ouyang Ting, from a pavilion on the side of Ouyu Mountain. Yuenü, swordswoman & author of the exposition on swordplay Xi Shi. Some Kam-Tai Words in Place Names of the Ancient Wu and Yue States, eric Henry, The Submerged History of Yuè
2.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
3.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
4.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
5.
Wu Chinese
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Wu is a group of linguistically similar and historically related varieties of Chinese primarily spoken in the whole city of Shanghai, Zhejiang province, southern Jiangsu province and bordering areas. Major Wu varieties include those of Shanghai, Suzhou, Ningbo, Wuxi, Wenzhou/Oujiang, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Wu speakers, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei, occupied positions of great importance in modern Chinese culture and politics. Wu can also be found being used in Shaoxing opera, which is only in national popularity to Peking opera, as well as in the performances of the popular entertainer. Wu is also spoken in a number of diaspora communities, with significant centers of immigration originating from Shanghai, Qingtian. Suzhou has traditionally been the center of Wu and was likely the first place the distinct variety of Sinitic known as Wu developed. Suzhou dialect is considered to be the most linguistically representative of the family. Due to the influence of Shanghainese, Wu as a whole is incorrectly labelled in English as simply, Shanghainese, among speakers of other Sinitic languages, Wu is often subjectively judged to be soft, light, and flowing. There is an idiom in Mandarin that specifically describes these qualities of Wu speech, Ngu nung nioe ngiu, Wu varieties have the largest vowel quality inventories in the world. The Jinhui dialect spoken in Shanghais Fengxian District has 20 vowel qualities, Wu Chinese, along with Min, is also of great significance to historical linguists due to their retention of many ancient features. These two languages have proven pivotal in determining the history of the Chinese languages. More pressing concerns of the present are those of language preservation, however, many analysts believe that a stable state of diglossia will endure for at least several generations if not indefinitely. Saying one speaks Wu is akin to saying one speaks a Romance language and it is not a particularly defined entity like Standard Mandarin or Hochdeutsch. They do this by affixing 話 Wo to their locations endonym, for example, 溫州話 Wēnzhōuhuà is used for Wenzhounese. Affixing 閒話 xiánhuà is also common and more typical of the Taihu division, Wu, the formal name and standard reference in dialectology literature. Northern Wu, Wu typically spoken in the north of Zhejiang and it by default includes the Xuanzhou division in Anhui as well, however this division is often neglected in Northern Wu discussions. Southern Wu, Wu spoken in southern Zhejiang and periphery, comprising the Oujiang, Wuzhou, Western Wu, A term gaining in usage as a synonym for the Xuanzhou division and modeled after the previous two terms since the Xuanzhou division is less representative of Northern Wu. Shanghainese, is also a common name, used because Shanghai is the most well-known city in the Wu-speaking region. The term Shanghainese is never used by linguists to refer to anything
6.
Gan Chinese
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Gan is a member of the Sinitic languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and Hakka is the closest Chinese variety to Gan in terms of phonetics. Different dialects of Gan exist, the Nanchang dialect is taken as representative. Like all other varieties of Chinese, there is an amount of mutual unintelligibility between Gan Chinese and other varieties. Within the variation of Chinese dialects, Gan has more similarities with Mandarin than with Yue or Min, scholars in mainland China use Gan or Gan dialect. Jiāngxī huà is commonly used in Chinese, but since the borders of the language do not follow the borders of the province, this name is not geographically exact. Xi, an ancient name, now used, arising from the fact that most Gan speakers live south of the Yangtze River. Most Gan speakers live in the middle and lower reaches of the Gan River, the area of the Fu River. There are also many Gan speakers living in eastern Hunan, eastern Hubei, southern Anhui, northwest Fujian, in the early years of the Han Dynasty, Nanchang was established as the capital of the Yuzhang Commandery, along with the 18 counties of Jiangxi Province. The population of the Yuzhang Commandery increased to 1,670,000 from 350,000, the Yuzhang Commandery ranked fourth in population among the more than 100 contemporary commanderies of China. As the largest commandery of Yangzhou, Yuzhang accounted for two fifths of the population and Gan gradually took shape during this period, as a result of continuous warfare in the region of central China, the first large-scale emigration in the history of China took place. Large numbers of people in central China relocated to southern China in order to escape the bloodshed and at this time, also, during this period, ancient Gan began to be exposed to the northern Mandarin dialects. After centuries of rule by the Southern Dynasties, Gan still retained many original characteristics despite having absorbed some elements of Mandarin, up until the Tang Dynasty, there was little difference between old Gan and the contemporary Gan of that era. During this period, following hundreds of years of migration, Gan spread to its current areas of distribution, Guanhua evolved into a standard language based on Beijing Mandarin, owing largely to political factors. At the same time, the differences between Gan and Guan-hua continued to more pronounced. However, because Jiangxi borders on Jianghuai, a Guanhua, Xiang, after 1949, as a dialect in Mainland China, Gan faced a critical period. The impact of Mandarin is quite evident today as a result of governmental language campaigns. Currently, many youths are unable to master Gan expressions, there are differences within the Gan speaking region. For example, in Anfu county, which was categorized as Ji-Cha, people from one region cannot even understand people from the other region if they were not well educated or exposed to the other dialects
7.
Hakka Chinese
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Hakka is not mutually intelligible with Yue, Wu, Southern Min, Mandarin or other branches of Chinese, and itself contains a few mutually unintellegible varieties. It is most closely related to Gan and is classified as a variety of Gan. There is also a possibility that the similarities are just a result of shared areal features, Taiwan, where Hakka is the native language of a significant minority of the islands residents, is a center for the study and preservation of the language. Pronunciation differences exist between the Taiwanese Hakka dialects and Mainland Chinas Hakka dialects, even in Taiwan, two local varieties of Hakka exist. The Meixian dialect of northeast Guangdong in China has been taken as the dialect by the Peoples Republic of China. The Guangdong Provincial Education Department created a romanization of Moiyen in 1960. The name of the Hakka people who are the predominant original native speakers of the variety literally means guest families or guest people, Hak 客 means guest, and ka 家 means family. Among themselves, Hakka people variously called their language Hak-ka-fa 客家話, Hak-fa, 客話, Tu-gong-dung-fa 土廣東話, literally Native Guangdong language, and Ngai-fa 我話, My/our language. The forebears of the Hakka came from present-day Central Plains provinces of Henan and Shaanxi, the presence of many archaic features occur in modern Hakka, including final consonants -p -t -k, as are found in other modern southern Chinese varieties, but which have been lost in Mandarin. Due to the migration of its speakers, Hakka may have influenced by other language areas through which the Hakka-speaking forebears migrated. For instance, common vocabulary is found in Hakka, Min, in recent times, many She people have become Hakka speakers. A regular pattern of change can generally be detected in Hakka, as in most Chinese varieties. Some examples, Characters such as 武 or 屋, are pronounced roughly mwio and uk in Early Middle Chinese, have an initial v phoneme in Hakka, being vu and vuk in Hakka respectively. Like in Mandarin, labiodentalisation process also changed mj- to a sound in Hakka before grave vowels. Middle Chinese initial phonemes /ɲ/ of the characters 人 and 日, among others, for comparison, in Mandarin, /ɲ/ became r-, while in Cantonese, it merged with initial /j/. The initial consonant phoneme exhibited by the character 話 is pronounced f or v in Hakka, the initial consonant of 學 hɔk usually corresponds with an h approximant in Hakka and a voiceless alveo-palatal fricative in Mandarin. Hakka has as many regional dialects as there are counties with Hakka speakers as the majority, some of these Hakka dialects are not mutually intelligible with each other. Surrounding Meixian are the counties of Pingyuan, Dabu, Jiaoling, Xingning, Wuhua, each is said to have its own special phonological points of interest
8.
Cantonese
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Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a variety of Chinese spoken in the city of Guangzhou in southeastern China. It is the prestige variety of Yue, one of the major subdivisions of Chinese. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong and some neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. In Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese serves as one of their official languages and it is also spoken amongst overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and throughout the Western World. When Cantonese and the closely related Yuehai dialects are classified together, Cantonese is viewed as vital part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swathes of southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau. Although Cantonese shares some vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon, sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar, in English, the term Cantonese is ambiguous. Cantonese proper is the variety native to the city of Canton and this narrow sense may be specified as Canton language or Guangzhou language in English. However, Cantonese may also refer to the branch of Cantonese that contains Cantonese proper as well as Taishanese and Gaoyang. In this article, Cantonese is used for Cantonese proper, historically, speakers called this variety Canton speech or Guangzhou speech, although this term is now seldom used outside mainland China. In Guangdong province, people call it provincial capital speech or plain speech. In Hong Kong and Macau, as well as among overseas Chinese communities, in mainland China, the term Guangdong speech is also increasingly being used among both native and non-native speakers. Due to its status as a prestige dialect among all the dialects of the Cantonese or Yue branch of Chinese varieties, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English, as defined in the Hong Kong Basic Law. The Chinese language has different varieties, of which Cantonese is one. Given the traditional predominance of Cantonese within Hong Kong, it is the de facto official spoken form of the Chinese language used in the Hong Kong Government and all courts and it is also used as the medium of instruction in schools, alongside English. A similar situation exists in neighboring Macau, where Chinese is an official language along with Portuguese. As in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken variety of Chinese used in life and is thus the official form of Chinese used in the government. The variant spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is known as Hong Kong Cantonese, Cantonese first developed around the port city of Guangzhou in the Pearl River Delta region of southeastern China
9.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
10.
Southern Min
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Southern Min, or Minnan, is a branch of Min Chinese spoken in certain parts of China including southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, and southern Zhejiang, and in Taiwan. The Min Nan dialects are spoken by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora, most notably the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia. In common parlance, Southern Min usually refers to Hokkien, including Amoy and Taiwanese Hokkien, the Southern Min dialect group also includes Teochew, though Teochew has limited mutual intelligibility with Hokkien. Hainanese is not mutually intellgible with other Southern Min and is considered a separate branch of Min. Southern Min is not mutually intelligible with Eastern Min, Pu-Xian Min, any other Min branch, Hakka, Cantonese, Shanghainese or Mandarin. Southern Min dialects are spoken in the part of Fujian. The variant spoken in Leizhou, Guangdong as well as Hainan is Hainanese and is not mutually intelligible with other Southern Min or Teochew, Hainanese is classified in some schemes as part of Southern Min and in other schemes as separate. Puxian Min was originally based on the Quanzhou dialect, but over time became heavily influenced by Eastern Min, eventually losing intellegility with Minnan. A forms of Southern Min spoken in Taiwan, collectively known as Taiwanese, Southern Min is a first language for most of the Hoklo people, the main ethnicity of Taiwan. The correspondence between language and ethnicity is not absolute, as some Hoklo have very limited proficiency in Southern Min while some non-Hoklo speak Southern Min fluently, there are many Southern Min speakers also among Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Many ethnic Chinese immigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present-day Malaysia and Singapore. In general, Southern Min from southern Fujian is known as Hokkien, Hokkienese, many Southeast Asian ethnic Chinese also originated in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong and speak Teochew language, the variant of Southern Min from that region. Southern Min-speakers form the majority of Chinese in Singapore, with the largest group being Hokkien, despite the similarities the two groups are rarely seen as part of the same Minnan Chinese subgroups. The variants of Southern Min spoken in Zhejiang province are most akin to that spoken in Quanzhou, the variants spoken in Taiwan are similar to the three Fujian variants and are collectively known as Taiwanese. Those Southern Min variants that are known as Hokkien in Southeast Asia also originate from these variants. The variants of Southern Min in the Chaoshan region of eastern Guangdong province are known as Teochew or Chaozhou. Teochew is of importance in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora, particularly in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sumatra. The Philippines variant is mostly from the Quanzhou area as most of their forefathers are from the aforementioned area, the Southern Min language variant spoken around Shanwei and Haifeng differs markedly from Teochew and may represent a later migration from Zhangzhou
11.
Hokkien
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Hokkien /hɒˈkiɛn/ is a group of Southern Min dialects spoken throughout Southeastern China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and by other overseas Chinese. Hokkien originated in southern Fujian, the Min-speaking province and it is closely related to Teochew, though there is limited mutual intelligibility, and is somewhat more distantly related to Hainanese and Leizhou dialect. Besides Hokkien, there are also other Min and Hakka dialects in Fujian province, the term Hokkien is etymologically derived from the Southern Min pronunciation for Fujian, the province from which the language hails. The variety is known by other terms such as the more general Min Nan or Southern Min. Fujianese and Fukienese are also used, although they are somewhat imprecise, the term Hokkien is not usually used in Mainland China or Taiwan. Conversely Hokkien is the name in Southeast Asia in both English, Chinese or other languages. Speakers of Hokkien, particularly those in Southeast Asia, typically refer to Hokkien as a dialect, people in Taiwan most often refer to Hokkien as the Taiwanese language, with Minnan and Holo also being used and 福建話 is not as common. Hokkien originated in the area of Fujian province, an important center for trade and migration. The major pole of Hokkien varieties outside of Fujian is Taiwan, the Taiwanese version mostly have origins with the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou variants, but since then, the Amoy dialect is becoming the modern prestige standard for the language. There are many Hokkien speakers among overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia as well as in the United States, many ethnic Han Chinese emigrants to the region were Hoklo from southern Fujian, and brought the language to what is now Burma, Indonesia and present day Malaysia and Singapore. Many of the Hokkien dialects of this region are similar to Taiwanese and Amoynese. Hokkien is reportedly the native language of up to 80% of the Chinese people in the Philippines, Hokkien speakers form the largest group of overseas Chinese in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Southern and part of western Fujian is home to four principal Hokkien dialects, Chinchew, Amoy, Chiangchew and Longyan, originating from the cities of Quanzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Longyan. As Xiamen is the city of southern Fujian, Amoy is considered the most important, or even the prestige dialect. It is a hybrid of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, same as Amoy dialect, the varieties of Hokkien spoken in Taiwan are hybrids of the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou dialects, and are collectively known as Taiwanese Hokkien or just Taiwanese. Used by a majority of the population, it bears much importance from a socio-political perspective, the varieties of Hokkien in Southeast Asia originate from these dialects. The Singaporeans, Southern Malaysians and people in Indonesias Riau and surrounding islands variant is from the Quanzhou area and they speak a distinct form of Quanzhou Hokkien called Southern Peninsular Malaysian Hokkien. Among ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Penang, and other states in Northern Malaysia and Medan, with areas in North Sumatra, Indonesia
12.
Eastern Min
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Eastern Min, or Min Dong, is a branch of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, Eastern Min varieties are mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province in Peoples Republic of China, in and near the cities of Fuzhou and Ningde. They are also encountered as the mother tongue on the Matsu Islands. Additionally, the inhabitants of Taishun and Cangnan to the north of Fujian in Zhejiang also speak Eastern Min varieties, Eastern Min generally coexists with the official standard Chinese in all these areas. Cities with high concentrations of immigrants include New York City, especially Little Fuzhou, Manhattan, Sunset Park, Brooklyn. They are also found in various Chinatown communities in Europe, including London, Paris, Chinese communities within Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Japan as well as Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia have significant populations of Eastern Min speakers. Fuzhou communities can also be found in Sitiawan, Perak and Yong Peng, the Eastern Min group is conventionally divided into three branches, Houguan dialect subgroup, including the Fuzhou dialect, Fuqing dialect, Lianjiang dialect and the dialect of the Matsu Islands. Funing dialect subgroup, including the Ningde dialect and the Fuan dialect, manjiang dialect, spoken in parts of Taishun and Cangnan, Wenzhou, Zhejiang. Besides these three branches, some islands in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong were classified as Eastern Min. Zhongshan Min is a group of Min varieties spoken in the Zhongshan county of Guangdong, according to Nicholas Bodman, only the Longdu dialect and Nanlang dialect belong to the Eastern Min group, while the Sanxiang dialect belongs to Southern Min. A preliminary report on the dialects of Mintung, the Gutian dialect of Min Dong District
13.
Fuzhou dialect
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The Fuzhou dialect, also Fuzhounese, Foochow or Hok-chiu, is the prestige variety of the Eastern Min branch of Min Chinese spoken mainly in eastern Fujian province. Like many other varieties of Chinese, the Fuzhou dialect is dominated by monosyllabic morphemes which carry lexical tones, while the Eastern Min branch that it belongs to is closer to Southern Min than to other Sinitic branches such as Mandarin or Hakka, they are still not mutually intelligible. Centered in Fuzhou City, the Fuzhou dialect covers eleven cities and counties, Fuzhou City Proper, Pingnan, Gutian, Luoyuan, Minqing, Lianjiang, Minhou, Changle, Yongtai, Fuqing and Pingtan. It is also the local language in many northern and middle Fujian cities and counties such as Nanping, Shaowu, Shunchang, Sanming. Fuzhou dialect is widely spoken in some regions abroad, especially in Southeastern Asian countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. The city of Sibu in Malaysia is called New Fuzhou due to the influx of immigrants there in the late 19th century and early 1900s. Similarly, quite a significant number of Fuzhounese have emigrated to Singapore, Taiwan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, in older works, the variety is called Foochow dialect, based on the Chinese postal romanization of Fuzhou. In Chinese, it is sometimes called 福州語, native speakers also refer to it as Bàng-uâ, meaning the everyday language. After the Qin Dynasty conquered the Minyue kingdom of southeast China in 110 BC and it once served to standardize the language and is still widely quoted as an authoritative reference book in modern academic research in Min Chinese phonology. In 1842, Fuzhou was open to Westerners as a treaty port after the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, but due to the language barrier, however, the first Christian missionary base in this city did not take place without difficulties. In order to convert Fuzhou people, those missionaries found it necessary to make a careful study of the Fuzhou dialect. Their most notable works are listed below,1856, M. C, White, The Chinese language spoken at Fuh Chau 1870, R. S. Maclay & C. C. Baldwin, An alphabetic dictionary of the Chinese language in the Foochow dialect 1871, baldwin, Manual of the Foochow dialect 1891, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect 1893, Charles Hartwell, Three Character Classic of Gospel in the Foochow Colloquial 1898, baldwin, An Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition 1905, T. B. Adam, An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, 2nd edition]1906, The Foochow translation of the complete Bible 1923, T. B. Adam & L. P. Peet, An English-Chinese dictionary of the Foochow dialect, 2nd edition 1929, one of their most famous works was the Japanese-Chinese Translation, Fuzhou Dialect published in 1940 in Taipei, in which katakana was used to represent Fuzhou pronunciation. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, Fuzhou society had been largely monolingual, but for decades the Chinese government has discouraged the use of the vernacular in school education and in media, so the number of Mandarin speakers has been greatly boosted. Recent reports indicate that less than 50% of young people in Fuzhou are able to speak Fuzhou dialect, in Mainland China, the Fuzhou dialect has been officially listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage and promotion work is being systematically carried out to preserve its use
14.
Foochow Romanized
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Foochow Romanized, also known as Bàng-uâ-cê or Hók-ciŭ-uâ Lò̤-mā-cê, is a Latin alphabet for the Fuzhou dialect of Eastern Min adopted in the middle of 19th century by Western missionaries. It had varied at different times, and became standardized in the 1890s, Foochow Romanized was mainly used inside of Church circles, and was taught in some Mission Schools in Fuzhou. But unlike its counterpart Pe̍h-ōe-jī for Hokkien, even in its prime days Foochow Romanized was by no means universally understood by Christians. After Fuzhou became one of the five Chinese treaty ports opened by the Treaty of Nanjing at the end of First Opium War, faced with widespread illiteracy, they developed Latin alphabets for Fuzhou dialect. The first attempt in romanizing Fuzhou dialect was made by the American Methodist M. C, white, who borrowed a system of orthography known as the System of Sir William Jones. In this system,14 initials were designed according to their voicing. ⟨p⟩, ⟨t⟩, ⟨k⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ stand for, and, besides the default five vowels of Latin alphabet, four diacritic-marked letters ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were also introduced, representing, and, respectively. This system is described at length in Whites linguistic work The Chinese Language Spoken at Fuh Chau, the most significant change was made for the plosive consonants, where the spiritus lenis ⟨᾿⟩ of the aspirated initials was removed and the letters ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩ and ⟨g⟩ substituted for and. In the aspect of vowels, ⟨è⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ò⟩ and ⟨ü⟩ were replaced by ⟨a̤⟩, ⟨e̤⟩, ⟨o̤⟩, since the diacritical marks were all shifted to underneath the vowels, this left room above the vowels which was occupied by the newly introduced tonal marks. Thus Foochow Romanized avoids the potentially awkward diacritic stacking seen for instance in the Vietnamese script, the sample characters are taken from the Qi Lin Bayin, a renowned phonology book about the Fuzhou dialect written in the Qing Dynasty. The pronunciations are recorded in standard IPA symbols, note that Foochow Romanized uses the breve, not the caron, to indicate Yīnpíng and Yángrù tones of Fuzhou dialect. Everything You Want To Know About Foochow Romanized Gô Iók Cŭ, The Old Testament, sĭng Iók Cŭ, The New Testament, in Foochow Romanized. An English-Chinese Dictionary of the Foochow Dialect, by T. B, adam,1905 Learning material of Foochow Romanized at the Wayback Machine
15.
Pu-Xian Min
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Puxian, also known as Pu-Xian Chinese, Puxian Min, Xinghua or Hinghwa, is a branch of Min Chinese. Puxian is spoken mostly in Fujian province, particularly in Putian city and Xianyou County, parts of Fuzhou and it is also widely used as the mother tongue in Wuqiu Township, Kinmen County, Taiwan. More than 2000 people in Shacheng, Fuding in northern Fujian also speak Puxian, there are minor differences between the dialects of Putian and Xianyou. Overseas populations of Puxian speakers exist in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, speakers of Puxian are also known as Henghua, Hinghua, or Xinghua. Before the year 979 AD, the Puxian region was part of Quanzhou county, in 979 AD, during the Song Dynasty, the region was administratively separated from Quanzhou and the Chinese spoken there developed separately from the rest of Southern Min. Due to its proximity with Fuzhou, it absorbed some elements of Eastern Min, Puxian Min has 62% cognates with Quanzhou dialect and only 39% cognates with Fuzhou dialect. Puxian differs from most Southern Min varieties in ways, The vowel a is replaced by /ɒ/ in most cases. The vowel ư /ɯ/ is replaced by /y/, e. g. 魚 hṳ fish, in Putian ng has changed to /uŋ/ except after zero initial and h-, e. g. 湯 tung soup. The vowel /e/ is often replaced by /ɒ/ o̤, e. g. 馬 bo̤ horse, where Quanzhou has ĩ and Zhangzhou has ẽ, the corresponding Putian vowel is ã, e. g. 病 baⁿ sick, where ⁿ indicates a nasalized vowel. The vowel io is replaced by iau, e. g. 笑 ciao laugh and this also holds for nasalized vowels, e. g. 張 da̤uⁿ corresponding to Quanzhou tioⁿ. Nasals m sometimes occur in place of voiced stops b, e. g. 夢 mang vs. Quanzhou bang, initial consonant ng replaces g e. g. 五 ngo vs. Quanzhou go. There is a loss of distinction between voiced and unvoiced stops, e. g. the sounds /b/ and /p/ both correspond to the phoneme and occur in free variation. Wife 老媽 Puxian has 15 consonants, including the zero onset, Puxian has a lateral fricative instead of the in other Min varieties. Puxian has 40 finals and 6 phonemic tones, β Puxian Min has 39 finals. 新婦房 ɬiŋ pu paŋ → ɬiŋ mu βaŋ 青草 tsʰɔŋ tsʰau → tsʰɔŋ nau Hing-hua̍ báⁿ-uā-ci̍ is the Romanization system for Puxian Min and it has 23 letters, a a̤ b c ch d e e̤ g h i k l m n ng o o̤ p s t u ṳ
16.
Northern Min
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Northern Min, is a group of mutually intelligible Min varieties spoken in Nanping prefecture of northwestern Fujian. Early classifications of varieties of Chinese, such as those of Li Fang-Kuei in 1937 and Yuan Jiahua in 1960, however, in a 1963 report on a survey of Fujian, Pan Maoding and colleagues argued that the primary split was between inland and coastal groups. The Jianyang and Jianou dialects are often taken as representative, in Northern Min dialects, these initials have a different tonal development from other stops and affricates, though the details vary between varieties. Moreover, although in Jianou and Zhenghe these initials yield voiceless unaspirated initials, they yield voiced sonorants or the initial in Jianyang. Because of these reflexes, Jerry Norman called these initials softened stops, branner, David Prager, Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka, Trends in Linguistics series,123, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-015831-1. Handel, Zev, Northern Min tone values and the reconstruction of softened initials, Language and Linguistics,4, kurpaska, Maria, Chinese Language, A Look Through the Prism of The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-021914-2. Norman, Jerry, Tonal development in Min, Journal of Chinese Linguistics,1, 222–238, JSTOR23749795. ——, Chinese, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3. Wurm, Stephen Adolphe, Li, Rong, Baumann, Theo, Lee, Mei W. Language Atlas of China, Longman, ISBN 978-962-359-085-3
17.
Vietnamese language
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Vietnamese /ˌviɛtnəˈmiːz/ is an Austroasiatic language that originated in the north of modern-day Vietnam, where it is the national and official language. It is the language of the Vietnamese people, as well as a first or second language for the many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. As the result of Vietnamese emigration and cultural influence, Vietnamese speakers are found throughout the world, notably in East and Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has by far the most speakers, Vietnamese vocabulary has borrowings from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. The Vietnamese alphabet in use today is a Latin alphabet with diacritics for tones. As the national language, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by ethnic Vietnamese, Vietnamese is also the native language of the Gin minority group in southern Guangxi Province in China. A significant number of speakers also reside in neighboring Cambodia. In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language, with over 1.5 million speakers and it is the third most spoken language in Texas, fourth in Arkansas and Louisiana, and fifth in California. Vietnamese is the seventh most spoken language in Australia, in France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home. Vietnamese is the official and national language of Vietnam. It is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have either traditionally or on a long-term basis resided in the country. This status grants Czech citizens from the Vietnamese community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities, Vietnamese is increasingly being taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam. Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around the world, furthermore, there has also been a number of Germans studying Vietnamese due to increased economic investment in Vietnam. Vietnamese is taught in schools in the form of immersion to a varying degree in Cambodia, Laos. Classes teach students subjects in Vietnamese and another language, furthermore, in Thailand, Vietnamese is one of the most popular foreign languages in schools and colleges. Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago as part of the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family. Later, Muong was found to be closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages. The term Vietic was proposed by Hayes, who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Muong
18.
Zhuang language
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The Zhuang languages are any of more than a dozen Tai languages spoken by the Zhuang people of southern China in the province of Guangxi and adjacent parts of Yunnan and Guangdong. The Zhuang languages do not form a linguistic unit, as northern and southern Zhuang languages are more closely related to other Tai languages than to each other. Standard Zhuang is based on the northern Zhuang dialect of Wuming, the Tai languages are believed to have been originally spoken in what is now southern China, with speakers of the Southwestern Tai languages having emigrated in the face of Chinese expansion. He also argues that the departure of the Thai from southern China must predate the 5th century AD, zhāng Jūnrús Zhuàngyǔ Fāngyán Yánjiù is the most detailed study of Zhuang dialectology published to date. It reports survey work carried out in the 1950s, and includes a 1465-word list covering 36 varieties of Zhuang, for the list of the 36 Zhuang variants below from Zhang, the name of the region is given first, followed by the specific village. The phylogenetic position of each variant follows that of Pittayaporn, the Zhuang language has been divided by Chinese linguists into northern and southern dialects, each of which has been divided into a number of vernacular varieties by Chinese linguists. Although Southern Zhuang varieties have aspirated stops, Northern Zhuang varieties lack them, there are over 60 distinct tonal systems with 5–11 tones depending on the variety. Castro and Hansen distinguished three mutually unintelligible varieties, Central Hongshuihe, Eastern Hongshuihe and Liuqian, min Zhuang is a recently discovered variety that has never been described previous to Johnson. Pyang Zhuang and Myang Zhuang are recently described Central Tai languages spoken in Debao County, Guangxi, the Zhuang languages have been written in the Old Zhuang script, Sawndip, for over a thousand years, and possibly Sawgoek previous to that. It is used for writing songs about every aspect of life, there has also been the occasional use of pictographic proto-writing, such as in the example at right. In addition, Standard Zhuang and Bouyei are written in Latin script, chongzuo Tai languages Languages of China Ningming Mingjiang language Northern Tai languages Yongnan languages Zhuang studies Zhuàng-Hàn cíhuì 壮汉词汇. Edmondson, Jerold A. and David B, solnit, ed. Comparative Kadai, The Tai Branch. Dallas, TX, Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of Texas at Arlington,1997, a sociolinguistic introduction to the Central Taic languages of Wenshan Prefecture, China. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2010-027,114 p. http, //www. sil. org/silesr/abstract. asp. ref=2010-027, luo Liming, Qin Yaowu, Lu Zhenyu, Chen Fulong. Zhuang–Chinese–English Dictionary / Cuengh Gun Yingh Swzdenj, nationality Press,1882 pp. ISBN 7-105-07001-3. Tán Xiǎoháng 覃晓航, Xiàndài Zhuàngyǔ 现代壮语, Tán Guóshēng 覃国生, Zhuàngyǔ fāngyán gàilùn 壮语方言概论. The Nationalities Publishing House of Yunnan, wéi Qìngwěn 韦庆稳, Tán Guóshēng 覃国生, Zhuàngyǔ jiǎnzhì 壮语简志. Zhang Junru 张均如, et al. 壮语方言研究 / Zhuang yu fang yan yan jiu, chengdu, 四川民族出版社 / Sichuan min zu chu ban she,1999
19.
Han Chinese
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The Han Chinese, Han people or simply Han are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 95% of Taiwan, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the Han language ever since, in the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as The dominant ethnic group in China. In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in China, as well as in Taiwan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese elements in the population. The name Hanzhong, in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the regions plains. The river, in turn, derives its name from such as Tianhan, Yinhan, Xinghan or Yunhan, all ancient Chinese poetic nicknames for the Milky Way. This gave rise to a commonly used nowadays by overseas Chinese for ethnic identity – Huaren. The term is used in conversation and is also an element in the Cantonese word for Chinatown. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion of them – live in areas under the jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China, where they constitute about 92% of its population. Han Chinese also constitute the majority in both of the administrative regions of the PRC—about 95% and 96% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau. There are over 22 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, they began migrating from the coastal provinces of mainland China to Taiwan during the 13th to 17th century. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore a resemblance to the areas they had left behind in mainland China, hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions, and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over land, water, and cultural differences led to the relocation of some communities, of about 40 million overseas Chinese worldwide, nearly 30 million live in Southeast Asia. They are collectively called Nanyang Chinese, according to a population genetic study, Singapore is the country with the biggest proportion of Hans in Southeast Asia. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in southern China, christmas Island has a Chinese majority at 70%, large Chinese populations also live in Malaysia and Thailand. Prior to the 1965 split, Malaysia and Singapore used to have the largest overseas Chinese population in the world and this position has since been taken by Thailand. The prehistory of the Han ethnic group is closely intertwined with both records and mythology. Han Chinese trace their ancestry from a confederation of late neolithic/early bronze-age agricultural tribes that lived along the Guanzhong, the Yellow Emperor is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, Flame Emperor, at the Battle of Banquan
20.
Book of Han
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The Book of Han or History of the Former Han is a history of China finished in 111, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the Book of Former Han, the work was composed by Ban Gu, a court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the Records of the Grand Historian, a universal history and it is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics in this period. A second work, the Book of the Later Han covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye. This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian, initiated by Ban Gus father, Ban Biao and this work is usually referred to as Later Traditions, which clearly indicates that the elder Bans work was meant to be a continuation. After Ban Biaos death, his eldest son Ban Gu was dissatisfied with what his father had completed and this distinguished it from Sima Qians history, which had begun with Chinas earliest legendary rulers. In this way, Ban Gu initiated the Jizhuanti format for dynastic histories that was to remain the model for the official histories until modern times. For the periods where they overlapped, Ban Gu adopted nearly verbatim much of Sima Qians material and he also incorporated at least some of what his father had written, though it is difficult to know how much. The completed work ran to a total of 100 fascicles 卷, and included essays on law, science, geography, Ban Gus younger sister Ban Zhao finished writing the book in 111,19 years after Ban Gu had died in prison. An outstanding scholar in her own right, she is thought to have written volumes 13–20 and 26, the Annals section and the three chapters covering the reign of Wang Mang were translated into English by Homer H. Dubs. Other chapters have been rendered into English by A. F. P, sargent, Nancy Lee Swann, and Burton Watson. Ban Gus history set the standard for the writings of later Chinese dynasties and it is regarded as one of the Four Histories 四史 of the Twenty-Four Histories canon, together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Records of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Later Han. Emperors biographies in strict annal form, which offer an overview of the most important occurrences. Each treatise describes an area of effort of the state, the biographies confine themselves to the description of events that clearly show the exemplary character of the person. Two or more people are treated in one article, as they belong to the same class of people. The last articles describe the relations between China and the various peoples beyond the frontiers and it is later recorded that in 57, the southern Wa kingdom of Na sent an emissary named Taifu to pay tribute to Emperor Guangwu and received a golden seal. The seal itself was discovered in northern Kyūshū in the 18th century, according to the Book of Wei, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago in the third century was called Yamatai and was ruled by the legendary Queen Himiko. Dorneich, Chris M. Chinese sources on the History of the Niusi-Wusi-Asi-Rishi-Arsi-Arshi-Ruzhi, shiji 110/Hanshu 94A, The Xiongnu, Synopsis of Chinese original Text and several Western Translations with Extant Annotations
21.
Warring States period
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The Warring States Period derives its name from the Record of the Warring States, a work compiled early in the Han dynasty. The political geography of the era was dominated by the Seven Warring States, namely, Qin, The State of Qin was in the far west, with its core in the Wei River Valley and Guanzhong. This geographical position offered protection from the states of the Central Plains, the Three Jins, Northeast of Qin, on the Shanxi plateau, were the three successor states of Jin. These were, Han, south, along the Yellow River, Zhao, the northernmost of the three. Qi, located in the east of China, centred on the Shandong Peninsula, described as east of Mount Tai, Chu, located in the south of China, with its core territory around the valleys of the Han River and, later, the Yangtze River. Yan, located in the northeast, centred on modern-day Beijing, late in the period Yan pushed northeast and began to occupy the Liaodong Peninsula Besides these seven major states, some minor states also survived into the period. Yue, On the southeast coast near Shanghai was the State of Yue, Sichuan, In the far southwest were the States of Ba and Shu. These were non-Zhou states that were conquered by Qin late in the period, in the Central Plains comprising much of modern-day Henan Province, many smaller city states survived as satellites of the larger states, though they were eventually to be absorbed as well. Zhongshan, Between the states of Zhao and Yan was the state of Zhongshan, the Spring and Autumn period was initiated by the eastward flight of the Zhou court. There is no one single incident or starting point for the Warring States era, some proposed starting points are as follows,481 BC, Proposed by Song-era historian Lü Zuqian, since it is the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals. 476–475 BC, The author, Sima Qian, of Records of the Grand Historian who chose the year of King Yuan of Zhou. 403 BC, The year when Han, Zhao and Wei were officially recognised as states by the Zhou court, author Sima Guang of Zizhi Tongjian tells us that the symbol of eroded Zhou authority should be taken as the start of the Warring States era. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, during the Warring States period, many rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to justify their conquest of other states and spread their influence. Other major states also existed, such as Wu and Yue in the southeast, the last decades of the Spring and Autumn era were marked by increased stability, as the result of peace negotiations between Jin and Chu which established their respective spheres of influence. This situation ended with the partition of Jin, whereby the state was divided between the houses of Han, Zhao and Wei, and thus enabled the creation of the seven major warring states. This allowed other clans to gain fiefs and military authority, and decades of struggle led to the establishment of four major families. The Battle of Jinyang saw the allied Han, Zhao and Wei destroy the Zhi family, with this, they became the de facto rulers of most of Jins territory, though this situation would not be officially recognised until half a century later. The Jin division created a vacuum that enabled during the first 50 years expansion of Chu and Yue northward
22.
Zhejiang
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Zhejiang, formerly romanized as Chekiang, is an eastern coastal province of China. The provinces name derives from the Zhe River, the name of the Qiantang River which flows past Hangzhou. Kuahuqiao culture was a neolithic culture that flourished in Hangzhou area in 6. Zhejiang was the site of the Neolithic cultures of the Hemudu, the area of modern Zhejiang was outside the major sphere of influence of the Shang civilization during the second millennium BC. Instead, this area was populated by peoples known as Dongyue. The kingdom of Yue began to appear in the chronicles and records written during the Spring, according to the chronicles, the kingdom of Yue was in northern Zhejiang. Shiji claims that its leaders were descended from the Shang founder Yu the Great, the Song of the Yue Boatman was transliterated into Chinese and recorded by authors in north China or inland China of Hebei and Henan around 528 BC. The song shows that the Yue people spoke a language that was mutually unintelligible with the dialects spoken in north, the Sword of Goujian bears bird-worm seal script. Yuenü was a swordswoman from the state of Yue, to check the growth of the kingdom of Wu, Chu pursued a policy of strengthening Yue. Under King Goujian, Yue recovered from its early reverses and fully annexed the lands of its rival in 473 BC, the Yue kings then moved their capital center from their original home around Mount Kuaiji in present-day Shaoxing to the former Wu capital at present-day Suzhou. With no southern power to turn against Yue, Chu opposed it directly and, in 333 BC, yues former lands were annexed by the Qin Empire in 222 BC and organized into a commandery named for Kuaiji in Zhejiang but initially headquartered in Wu in Jiangsu. Kuaiji Commandery was the power base for Xiang Liang and Xiang Yus rebellion against the Qin Empire which initially succeeded in restoring the kingdom of Chu. At the beginning of the Three Kingdoms era, Zhejiang was home to the warlords Yan Baihu and Wang Lang prior to their defeat by Sun Ce and Sun Quan, who eventually established the Kingdom of Wu. Despite the removal of their court from Kuaiji to Jianye, they continued development of the region, industrial kilns were established and trade reached as far as Manchuria and Funan. Zhejiang was part of the Wu during the Three Kingdoms, Wu, commonly known as Eastern Wu or Sun Wu, had been the economically most developed state among the Three Kingdoms. The historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms records that Zhejiang had the best-equipped, the story depicts how the states of Wei and Shu, lack of material resources, avoided direct confrontation with the Wu. In armed military conflicts with Wu, the two states relied intensively on tactics of camouflage and deception to steal Wus military resources including arrows and bows, the other two centers in the south were Jiankang and Chengdu. In 589, Qiantang was raised in status and renamed Hangzhou, some may have lost social privilege, and took refugee in areas south to Yangtze River
23.
Fujian
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Fujian, formerly romanised as Foken, Fouken, Fukien, and Hokkien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, the name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jianzhou two cities in Fujian, during the Tang dynasty. While its population is chiefly of Han origin, it is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China, most of Fujian is administered by the Peoples Republic of China. However, the archipelagos of Kinmen and Matsu are under the control of the Republic of China, thus, there are two provinces, the Fujian Province administered by the PRC and the Fujian Province of the ROC. Recent archaeological discoveries demonstrate that Fujian had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC, the Tanshishan site in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun site, also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character, Fujian was also the place for the kingdom of Minyue. This is because the family of Yuè fled to Fujian after their kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the river in this area. Minyue was a de facto kingdom until the emperor of Qin dynasty, liu Bang was victorious and founded the Han dynasty, in 202 BC, he restored Minyues status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus, Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains and his kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the threat by sending a military campaign against Minyue. Large forces approached Minyue simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC, the rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction, thus the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end. The Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly twenty years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China, Lin, Huang, Chen, Zheng, Zhan, Qiu, He, the first four remain as the major surnames of modern Fujian. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China, only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, the Southern Dynasties reigned south of the Yangtze River, including Fujian. During Sui and Tang eras a large influx of migrants came, the Tang dynasty oversaw the next golden age of China and culturally and economically benefited Fujian greatly, Fujians capital Fuzhous economic and cultural instions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang dynasty saw a number of upheavals in the Chinese heartland
24.
Nanyue
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Nanyue or Zhuang, Namzyied, or Nam Viet was an ancient kingdom that covered parts of northern Vietnam and the modern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan. Nanyue was established in 204 BC at the collapse of the Qin dynasty by Zhao Tuo, at first, it consisted of the commanderies Nanhai, Guilin, and Xiang. In 196 BC, Zhao Tuo paid obeisance to the Emperor Gaozu of Han, around 183 BC, relations between the Nanyue and the Han dynasty soured, and Zhao Tuo began to refer to himself as an emperor, suggesting Nanyues sovereignty. In 179 BC, relations between the Han and Nanyue improved, and Zhao Tuo once again made submission, this time to Emperor Wen of Han as an subject state. The submission was somewhat superficial, as Nanyue retained autonomy from the Han, in 113 BC, fourth-generation leader Zhao Xing sought to have Nanyue formally included as part of the Han Empire. His prime minister Lü Jia objected vehemently and subsequently killed Zhao Xing, installing his elder brother Zhao Jiande on the throne, the next year, Emperor Wu of Han sent 100,000 troops to war against Nanyue. By the years end, the army had destroyed Nanyue and established Han rule, the kingdom lasted 93 years and had five generations of kings. The Kingdom of Nanyues founding preserved the order of the Lingnan region during the surrounding the collapse of the Qin dynasty. It allowed the region to avoid much of the hardship experienced by the northern. Nanyue leaders promoted a policy of Harmonizing and Gathering the Hundred Yue Tribes, in Vietnam, the rulers of Nanyue are referred to as the Triệu dynasty. The name Vietnam is derived from Nam Việt, the Vietnamese pronunciation of Nanyue, a detailed history of Nanyue was written in Records of the Grand Historian by Han dynasty historian Sima Qian. It is mostly contained in section 113, Chinese, 南越列傳, pinyin and it is from this record that most of the information from Nanyue Under Zhao Tuo to Zhao Jiande and Nanyues Demise is taken. Around 218 BC, the First Emperor dispatched General Tu Sui with an army of 500,000 Qin soldiers to divide into five companies, the first company gathered at Yuhan and attacked the Minyue, defeating them and establishing the Minzhong Commandery. The second company fortified at Nanye, and was designed to put pressure on the southern clans. The fourth company garrisoned near the Jiuyi Mountains, and the fifth company garrisoned outside Tancheng, the First Emperor assigned official Shi Lu to oversee supply logistics. Shi first led a regiment of soldiers through the Ling Channel, then navigated through the Yangtze River, the Qin attack of the Western Valley Yue tribe went smoothly, and Western Valley chieftain Yi-Xu-Song was killed. However, the Western Valley Yue were unwilling to submit to the Qin, later, a night-time counterattack by the Western Valley Yue devastated the Qin troops, and General Tu Sui was killed in the fighting. The Qin suffered heavy losses, and the court selected General Zhao Tuo to assume command of the Chinese army
25.
Guangdong
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Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the Peoples Republic of China. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous, the population increase since the census has been modest, the province at 2014 end had 107,240,000 people. Since 1989, Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second. According to state statistics, Guangdongs GDP in 2014 reached RMB6,779 billion, or US$1.104 trillion, since 2011, Guangdong has the highest GDP among all provinces of Mainland China. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRCs national economic output, Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdongs capital city Guangzhou. Guǎng means expanse or vast, and has associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD226. Guangdong and neighbouring Guangxi literally mean expanse east and expanse west, together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called Loeng gwong. During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Dōnglù and Guǎngnán Xīlù, one should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from Cantão, refers only to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Guangzhou and their language are commonly referred to as Cantonese in English. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents, Chinese administration and reliable historical records in the region began with the Qin dynasty. After establishing the first unified Chinese empire, the Qin expanded southwards and set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, the region was independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period, Guangdong was made its own province, for example, internal strife in northern China following the rebellion of An Lushan resulted in a 75% increase in the population of Guangzhou prefecture between 740s–750s and 800s–810s. As more migrants arrived, the population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture or displaced. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhous foreign quarter, together with Guangxi, Guangdong was made part of Lingnan Circuit, or Mountain-South Circuit, in 627 during the Tang dynasty. The Guangdong part of Lingnan Circuit was renamed Guangnan East Circuit guǎng nán dōng lù in 971 during the Song dynasty, Guangnan East is the source of Guangdong. As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Battle of Yamen 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, large parts of current Guangdong belonged to Jiangxi and its present name, Guangdong Province was given in early Ming dynasty. Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive links with the rest of the world
26.
Southward expansion of the Han dynasty
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The southward expansion of the Han dynasty comprises a series of military campaigns and expeditions in what is now modern South China and Northern Vietnam. Military expansion to the south began under the previous Qin dynasty, campaigns were dispatched against the Yue tribes, leading to the annexation of Minyue by the Han in 135 BCE and 111 BCE, Nanyue in 111 BCE, and Dian in 109 BCE. Chinese culture influenced the conquered territories, and merged with native traditions. Han influences are apparent in artifacts excavated in the Baiyue tombs of southern China and this influence extended to the kingdoms of Southeast Asian, where contact led to trade and diplomacy. The demand for Chinese silk established trade routes between Europe, the Middle East, and China, military campaigns against the Baiyue began under the Qin, the dynasty that preceded the Han. The First Emperor of the Qin desired the resources of the Baiyue and he sent a large campaign against Lingnan in 214 BC, comprising conscripted merchants and soldiers. Military garrisons were installed, the Lingqu Canal was constructed, the collapse of the Qin caused the dissolution of Qin administration in southern China. Indigenous Yue kingdoms emerged in the former Qin territories, including the Nanyue kingdom in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Vietnam, Minyue in Fujian, supported by the Han, Minyue was established in 202 BC and Eastern Ou in 192 BC after the fall of the Qin dynasty. Zhao Tuo, a former Chinese commander of the Qin, established Nanyue in 208 BC after the death of the emperor Qin Shi Huang, Emperor Gaozu, first emperor of the Han dynasty, approved Zhao Tuos new title as king. Zhao was born in the city of Zhending in Central China, in 180 BC, Zhao offered to submit as a vassal state and the Han accepted, a decision partly based on his familys northern Chinese ancestry. Military campaigns were launched against the Baiyue under the reign of the Han emperor Han Wudi, Eastern Ou requested Han military assistance when Minyue invaded the kingdom in 138 BC. Supreme commander Tian Fen opposed Han intervention. Tian told the emperor that the Yue tribes could not be trusted, battles between the Yue tribes occurred frequently, and Tian believed that protecting them was not a responsibility of the Han court. The Han official Zhuang Zhu convinced the emperor to intervene in the war, zhuangs argument was based on the emperors role as the Son of Heaven, a concept in Chinese political philosophy. Now a small country has come to report its distress to the Son of Heaven, if he does not save it, to whom can it turn for aid. And how can the Son of Heaven claim that the rulers of all states are like sons to him if he ignores their pleases. The Minyue surrendered after a Han naval force led by Zhuang Zhu was dispatched from Shaoxing in northern Zhejiang, the Yue tribes of Eastern Ou were transferred to the north, between the Yangtze River and Huai River. A second intervention was launched in 135 BC after Minyue, ruled by Zou Ying, invaded Nanyue, Zhao asked the Han for their support, and the emperor responded by sending an army led by Wang Hui and Han Anguo against Minyue. Zou Ying was assassinated with a spear by his younger brother Zou Yushan, Ying beheaded the corpse and gave the head to a messenger, who delivered it to Wang as a sign of Minyues surrender
27.
Varieties of Chinese
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Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local language varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. The differences are similar to those within the Romance languages, with particularly strong in the more rugged southeast. These varieties, often called dialects, have been classified into seven to ten groups, the largest being Mandarin, Wu, Min, Chinese varieties differ most in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, all have phonemic tones, with northern varieties tending to have fewer distinctions than southern ones. Many have tone sandhi, with the most complex patterns in the area from Zhejiang to eastern Guangdong. Standard Chinese takes its phonology from the Beijing dialect, with vocabulary from the Mandarin group and it is the sole official language of both China and Taiwan, one of the four official languages of Singapore, and one of the six official languages of the United Nations. At the end of the 2nd millennium BC, a form of Chinese was spoken in an area around the lower Wei River. From there it expanded eastwards across the North China Plain to Shandong and then south into the valley of the Yangtze River, as the language spread, it replaced formerly dominant languages in those areas, and regional differences grew. Simultaneously, especially in periods of unity, there was a tendency to promote a central standard to facilitate communication between people from different regions. The first evidence of variation is found in texts from the Spring. At that time, the Zhou royal domain, though no longer politically powerful, the Fangyan is devoted to differences in vocabulary between regions. Commentaries from the Eastern Han period contain much discussion of local variations in pronunciation, the Qieyun rhyme book noted wide variation in pronunciation between regions, and set out to define a standard pronunciation for reading the classics. This standard, known as Middle Chinese, is believed to be a based on the reading traditions of northern and southern capitals. The North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over an area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese languages, with great internal diversity, until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people spoke only their local language. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the using a common language based on Mandarin varieties. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, in the early years of the Republic of China, Literary Chinese was replaced as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese, which was based on northern dialects. In the 1930s a standard language was adopted, with its pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect
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Shaoxing opera
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Shaoxing opera, also known as Yue opera, is the second most popular opera form out of over 360 opera genres in China. Originating in Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province in 1906, Yue opera features actresses in male roles, as well as femininity in terms of singing, performing, over time, it grew in popularity. Only Peking opera is more popular and it is highly popular in Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Fujian, while its audiences are all over China. Prior to 1906, Yue opera was initially an entertainment for people in Sheng County and its lyrics are mostly collected from conversations between farmers while they were working. Audiences love these ballads because of their description of daily life. The Second Opium War interfered with the economy of Sheng County, located in the Jiangnan area. Since Sheng County agriculturalists were experiencing difficulty earning their livelihoods, they started to turn this folk art into a source of income. Over years, the accumulation of lyrics built up the source materials for Yue opera. Performers also began to integrate simple acting and accompanying instruments into the folk music and it gradually became well known, both in Sheng County and neighboring counties. At the end of the first month of the lunar year Zhēngyuè in 1906, although these artists had never performed together before, Chen and other residents encouraged them to cooperate. The first performance was thus generated, fortunately, the show turned out to be a great success, and residents were delighted and willing to talk about it. Over time more and more counties invited them to perform, because the musics tones were similar to those of Shange people named this art Small Literal Class. As Small Literal Class expanded in size and popularity, it entered Shanghai theaters, due to its unique, elegant and soft singing style compared with other political and spectacular performances, Yue opera found an audience there. It soon changed its name to ShaoXing Literal Opera in 1916, however, both the singing style and banhu fiddle that ShaoXing Literal Opera utilized were under-developed and vulgar compared with other, more delicate operas in Shanghai. It soon lost its prestige and popularity in this big city, returning to their roots in Sheng County, ShaoXing Literal Opera performers like Jinshui Wang put great effort into improving their performance and singing style. These artists absorbed the essence of different opera styles including Beijing Opera they had seen in Shanghai, during this process, Four Gong Pitch became the remarkable fruit of this blending. This music pitch is extraordinary because it resolved the unnatural status women have when they play male roles, ShaoXing Literal Opera further developed a systematic training in singing style and sound practice. It utilized erhu and other linear fiddles as alternative accompaniments to adjust music, when Jinshui Wang came back to Sheng County, he had been deeply impressed by the prosperous artistic atmosphere in Shanghai
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Standard Zhuang
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Standard Zhuang is the official standardized form of the Zhuang languages, which are a branch of the Northern Tai languages. The official standard covers both spoken and written Zhuang and it is the national standard of the Zhuang languages, though in Yunnan a local standard is used. Standard Zhuang is a mixture of several Zhuang languages. The lexicon is based on various Northern Zhuang dialects, the phonology is essentially that of Shuangqiao, with the addition of ny, ei, ou from Fuliang, both located in Wuming County. Zhang, along with other Chinese scholars, classifies Shuangqiao dialect as Northern Tai, while Pittayaporn places it outside of Northern Tai proper, Shuangqiao was chosen for the standard pronunciation in the 1950s because it was considered to be Northern Zhuang but with characteristics of Southern Zhuang. Standard Zhuang is used most frequently in domains where written Zhuang was previously used, such as newspapers, translations of communist literature. It is one of the languages of China that appears on bank notes, all Chinese laws must be published in it. Whilst used for adult literacy programs, it is only taught in a very small percent of primary and secondary schools in Zhuang-speaking areas. In 2012 the first Zhuang Proficiency Test took place which 328 people took, the alphabet included a mixture of modified Cyrillic and IPA letters. A spelling reform in 1982 replaced both the Cyrillic and IPA letters with Latin letters to facilitate printing and computer use and these alphabetical scripts are part of Standard Zhuang. The Old Zhuang script, Sawndip, is a Chinese character–based writing system, some Sawndip logograms were borrowed directly from Chinese, while others were created from the existing components of Chinese characters. Sawndip has been used for one thousand years for various Zhuang dialects. Unlike Chinese, Sawndip has never been standardized, and authors may differ in their choices of characters, first article of the Declaration of Human Rights
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Middle Chinese
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The fanqie method used to indicate pronunciation in these dictionaries, though an improvement on earlier methods, proved awkward in practice. The mid 12th-century Yunjing and other rime tables incorporate a more sophisticated, the rime tables attest to a number of sound changes that had occurred over the centuries following the publication of the Qieyun. Linguists sometimes refer to the system of the Qieyun as Early Middle Chinese, the dictionaries and tables describe pronunciations in relative terms, but do not give their actual sounds. The Swedish linguist Bernard Karlgren believed that the recorded a speech standard of the capital Changan of the Sui and Tang dynasties. This composite system contains important information for the reconstruction of the system of Old Chinese phonology. The Middle Chinese system is used as a framework for the study. Branches of the Chinese family such as Mandarin, Yue and Wu can be treated as divergent developments from the Qieyun system. The reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology is largely dependent upon detailed descriptions in a few original sources, the most important of these is the Qieyun rime dictionary and its revisions. The Qieyun is often used together with interpretations in Song dynasty rime tables such as the Yunjing, Qiyinlue, Chinese scholars of the Northern and Southern dynasties period were concerned with the correct recitation of the classics. Various schools produced dictionaries to codify reading pronunciations and the associated rhyme conventions of regulated verse, the Qieyun was an attempt to merge the distinctions in six earlier dictionaries, which were eclipsed by its success and are no longer extant. It was accepted as the standard reading pronunciation during the Tang dynasty, the Qieyun is thus the oldest surviving rime dictionary and the main source for the pronunciation of characters in Early Middle Chinese. The rime dictionaries organize Chinese characters by their pronunciation, according to a hierarchy of tone, rhyme, the fanqie system uses multiple equivalent characters to represent each particular initial, and likewise for finals. The categories of initials and finals actually represented were first identified by the Cantonese scholar Chen Li in an analysis published in his Qièyùn kǎo. The Qieyun classified homonyms under 193 rhyme classes, each of which is placed one of the four tones. A single rhyme class may contain multiple finals, generally differing only in the medial or in so-called chongniu doublets, the Yunjing is the oldest of the so-called rime tables, which provide a more detailed phonological analysis of the system contained in the Qieyun. However, the analysis shows some influence from LMC, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting difficult aspects of the system. The Yunjing is organized into 43 tables, each covering several Qieyun rhyme classes, and classified as, One of 16 broad rhyme classes, each described as either inner or outer. The meaning of this is debated but it has suggested that it refers to the height of the main vowel, with outer finals having an open vowel
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Old Chinese
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Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BC, bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the following Zhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, including works such as the Analects, the Mencius. These works served as models for Literary Chinese, which remained the standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary. Old Chinese was written with a form of Chinese characters. Although the script is not alphabetic, most characters were created by adapting a character for a similar-sounding word. Most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as a language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, most researchers trace the core vocabulary of Old Chinese to Sino-Tibetan, with much early borrowing from neighbouring languages. During the Zhou period, the originally monosyllabic vocabulary was augmented with polysyllabic words formed by compounding, several derivational affixes have also been identified. However the language lacked inflection, and indicated grammatical relationships using word order, the earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at the Yinxu site near modern Anyang identified as the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1250 BC. These are the bones, short inscriptions carved on tortoise plastrons and ox scapulae for divinatory purposes. The language written is undoubtedly an early form of Chinese, but is difficult to due to the limited subject matter. Only half of the 4,000 characters used have been identified with certainty, little is known about the grammar of this language, but it seems much less reliant on grammatical particles than Classical Chinese. From early in the Western Zhou period, around 1000 BC, even longer pre-Classical texts on a wide range of subjects have also been transmitted through the literary tradition. The oldest parts of the Book of Documents, the Classic of Poetry and the I Ching also date from the early Zhou period, a greater proportion of this more varied vocabulary has been identified than for the oracular period. The four centuries preceding the unification of China in 221 BC constitute the Chinese classical period in the strict sense, there are many bronze inscriptions from this period, but they are vastly outweighed by a rich literature written in ink on bamboo and wooden slips and silk. Although these are perishable materials, and many books were destroyed in the burning of books and burying of scholars in the Qin dynasty, other texts have been transmitted as copies. Such works from this period as the Analects, the Classic of Filial Piety, the Mencius, the Classical Chinese of such works formed the basis of Literary Chinese, which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century. Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinese word, most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic, though some have recently suggested that a minority of them had minor presyllables
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Oracle bone
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Oracle bones are pieces of ox scapula or turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. Scapulimancy is the term if ox scapulae were used for the divination. Diviners would submit questions to deities regarding future weather, crop planting, the fortunes of members of the family, military endeavors. These questions were carved onto the bone or shell in oracle bone script using a sharp tool, intense heat was then applied with a metal rod until the bone or shell cracked due to thermal expansion. The diviner would then interpret the pattern of cracks and write the prognostication upon the piece as well, by the Zhou dynasty, cinnabar ink and brush had become the preferred writing method, resulting in fewer carved inscriptions and often blank oracle bones being unearthed. The oracle bones bear the earliest known significant corpus of ancient Chinese writing, when they were discovered and deciphered in the early twentieth century, these records confirmed the existence of the Shang, which some scholars had until then doubted. The turtle shell fragments were prescribed for malaria, while the animal bones were used in powdered form to treat knife wounds. A legendary tale relates that Wang was sick with malaria, and his scholar friend Liu E was visiting him and they discovered, before it was ground into powder, that it bore strange glyphs, which they, having studied the ancient bronze inscriptions, recognized as ancient writing. As Xǔ Yǎhuì states, No one can know how many oracle bones, prior to 1899, were ground up by traditional Chinese pharmacies and disappeared into peoples stomachs. It is not known how Wang and Liu actually came across these dragon bones, although scholars tried to find their source, antique dealers falsely claimed that the bones came from Tangyin in Henan. In 1908, scholar Luo Zhenyu discovered the source of the bones near Anyang, decades of uncontrolled digs followed to fuel the antiques trade, and many of these pieces eventually entered collections in Europe, the US, Canada and Japan. The first Western collector was the American missionary Frank H. Chalfant, Chalfant also first coined the term oracle bone in his 1906 book Early Chinese Writing, which was then borrowed into Chinese as jiǎgǔ 甲骨 in the 1930s. The Canadian Presbyterian minister James Mellon Menzies bought the largest amount, the Chinese still acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Menzies as the foremost western scholar of Yin-Shang culture and oracle bone inscriptions. His former residence in Anyang was declared a Protected Treasure in 2004, the inscriptions on the oracle bones, once deciphered, turned out to be the records of the divinations performed for or by the royal household. These, together with royal-sized tombs, proved beyond a doubt for the first time the existence of the Shang dynasty, which had recently been doubted, today, Xiǎotún at Anyang is thus also known as the Ruins of Yin, or Yinxu. The Jiǎgǔwén héjí edited by Hu Houxuan, with its supplement edited by Peng Bangjiong, is the most comprehensive catalogue of oracle bone framents, the 20 volumes contain reproductions of over 55,000 fragments. A separate work contains transcriptions of the inscriptions into standard characters, the vast majority of the inscribed oracle bones were found at the Yinxu site in modern Anyang, and date to the reigns of the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty. The extant inscriptions are not evenly distributed across these periods, with 55% coming from period I and 31% from periods III, a few oracle bones date to the beginning of the subsequent Zhou dynasty
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Shang dynasty
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The Shang dynasty or Yin dynasty, according to traditional historiography, ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from such as the Book of Documents, Bamboo Annals. The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project dated them from c.1600 to 1046 BC, the Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history supported by archaeological evidence. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade, stone, bone, the Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing, mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones – turtle shells, ox scapulae, or other bones. More than 20,000 were discovered in the scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, many events concerning the Shang dynasty are mentioned in various Chinese classics, including the Book of Documents, the Mencius and the Zuo Zhuan. Working from all the documents, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a sequential account of the Shang dynasty as part of his Records of the Grand Historian. His history describes some events in detail, while in other cases only the name of a king is given, a closely related, but slightly different, account is given by the Bamboo Annals. The Annals were interred in 296 BC, but the text has a complex history, the name Yīn is used by Sima Qian for the dynasty, and in the current text version of the Bamboo Annals for both the dynasty and its final capital. It has been a name for the Shang throughout history. Since the Records of Emperors and Kings by Huangfu Mi, it has often used specifically to describe the later half of the Shang dynasty. In Japan and Korea, the Shang are still referred to almost exclusively as the Yin dynasty, however it seems to have been a Zhou name for the earlier dynasty. The word does not appear in the bones, which refer to the state as Shāng. It also does not appear in securely-dated Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. Sima Qian relates that the dynasty itself was founded 13 generations later, when Xies descendant Tang overthrew the impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao. The Records recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia, Tai Wu, Pan Geng, Wu Ding, Wu Yi and the final king Di Xin. According to the Records, the Shang moved their capital five times, Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou. Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in the decisive Battle of Muye, according to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody
34.
Yangtze
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The Yangtze River, known in China as the Cháng Jiāng or the Yángzǐ Jiāng, is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world. The river is the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country and it drains one-fifth of the land area of the Peoples Republic of China and its river basin is home to one-third of the countrys population. The Yangtze is the sixth-largest river by volume in the world. The Yangtze River plays a role in the history, culture. The prosperous Yangtze River Delta generates as much as 20% of the PRCs GDP, for thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking and war. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world, in recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, agricultural run-off, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves, a stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In mid-2014 the Chinese government announced it was building a transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports. Because the source of the Yangtze was not ascertained until modern times, Yangtze was actually the name of Chang Jiang for the lower part from Nanjing to the river mouth at Shanghai. In modern Chinese, Yangtze is still used to refer to the part of Chang Jiang from Nanjing to the river mouth. Yangtze never stands for the whole Chang Jiang, Chang Jiang is the modern Chinese name for the lower 2,884 km of the Yangtze from its confluence with the Min River at Yibin in Sichuan Province to the river mouth at Shanghai. Chang Jiang literally means the Long River, in Old Chinese, this stretch of the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang 江, a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining the water radical 氵 with the homophone 工. Krong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue, similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon, all meaning river, it is related to modern Vietnamese sông and Khmer kôngkea. By the Han Dynasty, Jiang had come to any river in Chinese. The epithet 長, means long, was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period, various sections of Chang Jiang have local names. From Yibin to Yichang, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the Chuan Jiang or Sichuan River, in the Hubei Province, the river is also called the Jing Jiang or the Jing River after Jingzhou. In Anhui Province, the takes on the local name Wan Jiang after the shorthand name for Anhui. And Yangzi Jiang t 揚子江s 扬子江, p Yángzǐjiāng) or the Yangzi River, the name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yangzi or Yangzijin
