ORIGINS OF CHINESE

Chinese is one of the most spoken languages in the world with 1.3 billion native speakers as of 2021. Approximately one billion of the 1.3 billion know how to speak Mandarin. Chinese is also one of the oldest written languages, dating back to six thousand years ago. With its long history, Chinese text has gone through many stages of evolution to reach its form today. It had a very complex development process that would probably take at least 10 pages to sum up. Therefore, today we will keep it simple with a brief outline of the origins of Chinese and the evolution of its written and spoken components.

Earliest Traces of Chinese Language Found

The earliest Chinese writing dates back to the 1250–1192 B.C. in the Shang Dynasty. The Imperial court royals would inscript characters on ox bones, tortoise shells, and bronzes. The inscripted bones and shells will become known as “oracle bones”. Paper, also invented in China, didn’t come around until much later, but it was adapted rather quickly. 

Stages of Development

Many linguists distinguished the Chinese language development into three main stages: Old Chinese, Ancient Chinese, and Modern Chinese. Old Chinese or Archaic Chinese is the earliest form of Chinese, originating from 1122 BC to 256 BC.

The start of this stage was first spotted in the writing of Confucius and Mencius. It was also found in literary and historical documents like the Shijing (詩經) and Shujing (書經). The origins of Chinese text are believed to be the combination of two Sino-Tibetan style languages. Although many scholars and sources believe that Sino-Tibetan is the most probable origin of Chinese, this conclusion is still under research. This is all due to there being relatively little documentation on when and how Chinese had split from Sino-Tibetan in its own development.

Ancient Chinese appeared from the 7th to the 10th centuries AD. The pronunciation of its characters can be found in a pronouncing dictionary by Lu Fayan published in AD 601, other rime dictionaries, and summaries of the phonetic system. Compared to the four tones in modern Mandarin, ancient Chinese uses six tones. However, ancient Chinese consisted of many different dialects. The pronunciations in the rime dictionaries are primarily only known by the most educated scholars. There was even a possibility that the pronunciations were different amongst the scholars. Chinese was not unified into a designated dialect as the standard language until much later.

Modern Chinese, also known as the Mandarin that most people use today, started establishing during the Qing Dynasty. Nanjing (or Nanking) Mandarin was most dominant, but it was by no means standardized throughout China. It was not until the last 50 years of the Qing Dynasty did Beijing Mandarin take over Nanjing Mandarin in imperial court as the dominant language. When an education system was finally established in the mid 20th century, Beijing Mandarin was made into the standard dialect to learn and commonly spoken across China. Mandarin dominated mainland China and Taiwan while Cantonese remained as the standard dialect in Macau and Hong Kong. To know the difference between these two languages check out our post (   ).

Influences of Sanskrit

Although there were very notable differences in terms of grammar and sound, Sanskrit had a major influence in Chinese language development. The beginning of Sanskrit influence on Chinese was through translations of Buddists scriptures when Buddhism spread to China. Many loanwords from Chinese were borrowed from Sanskrit. During the translations, the basis of the linguistic system of modern day Chinese was also developed. A more detailed explanation of the influences of Sanskrit vocabulary on Chinese can be found in this article at Sunday Guardian Live.

Conclusion

Chinese text has a long and complicated history. It is a beautiful language. The messages hidden within the combinations of words of scholars like Confucius and Mencius provide great wisdom to those who seek it. It is a very worthwhile language to learn. Nowadays, many overseas Chinese families depend on the younger generation to translate and be the voice of the family. However, it is often difficult for them to translate English back to Chinese in an effective manner. Inspirlang has all the resources needed to learn Chinese on your own or improve your Chinese with the help of an instructor. We have everything from books to videos/ podcasts to online classes. As generations go by, more and more Chinese-Americans are losing their fluency in their heritage language. It can be frustrating to not be able to speak such a meaningful language albeit it being part of your heritage. Check out the resources below if you are interested in learning the wonderful language of Chinese or if you would like to reconnect with your roots!

Sources

“Chinese Language Facts.” TodayTranslations. https://www.todaytranslations.com/about/language-history/chinese-language-history/. Accessed 3 Aug 2022. 

Deepak, B.R. “Sanskrit had an influence on Chinese Language.” SundayGuardianLive.  5 Dec 2020. https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/sanskrit-influence-chinese-language. Accessed 3 Aug 2022.

Egerod, Soren Christian. “Chinese Languages.” Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-languages/Modern-Standard-Chinese-Mandarin. Accessed 2 Aug 2022.

Leung, Irene. “Writing and Technology in China.” AsiaSociety. Aug 2018. https://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/writing-and-technology-china. Accessed 8 Aug 2022.

Shi, Xiangdong. “The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Linguistics.” Oxford Academic. Chapter 18. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/38607/chapter-abstract/334720186?redirectedFrom=fulltext. Accessed 8 Aug. 2022

“The Chinese Language.” TheTranslationCompany. https://thetranslationcompany.com/resources/language-country/china-chinese/language-origin.htm. Accessed 2 Aug. 2022.

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