There was no Mandarin in ancient times, so what language did ancient people use to communicate? Let’s take a look at what languages ??were spoken in each dynasty.
Zhou Dynasty
According to the official language, this is based on the position of the Zhou emperor. It is the language used by the rulers of the Zhou Dynasty and the princes everywhere. This is Zhou Yin, who is called Yayan. The need for exchanges between vassal states also promoted the formation and development of Yayan. Use sound to match rhyme, "Sound is written as sound, and sound matches rhyme." "The Seventh Narrative" says: "Zi Yayan, poetry, calligraphy, and etiquette are all elegant words." This shows that Sylvia is widely used. When Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he used three fertilizers as the standard. The pronunciation of Zhou and Qin is called the ancient sound. From Wei, Jin and Song to the Middle Ages. Yuan is a future of ancient music.
Han Dynasty
In the Han Dynasty, *** synonyms further developed. The lingua franca at that time was called Tongxiaoyu. People who speak different dialects in different places can communicate in the same language using ***. Starting from the Qin and Han dynasties, people from the Central Plains along the Yellow River moved south one after another, bringing the ancient Heluo language to the south.
Jin Dynasty
In the Jin Dynasty, the Five Dynasties Yehou went south, and the Central Plains Yayin moved south. Different regimes use the dialect of their capital as standard pronunciation. The capitals of the Northern Dynasties were different, but Luoyang dialect was traditionally used as the standard pronunciation; generally, the capital in the south was Jiankang, so Jiankang dialect was the standard pronunciation. After the Western Jin Dynasty, as the northern nomads moved southward, they gradually began to communicate with the Han people, so their accents gradually affected northern China: for example, the Luoyang dialect after the Western Jin Dynasty was very different from the Luoyang dialect before the Jin Dynasty. The Jiankang dialect is a fusion of the language of the Jin royal family who moved southward and the local language. Relatively speaking, the changes in Jiankang dialect are relatively small, and the mainstream of Han intellectuals regard the southern Jiankang dialect as orthodox.
Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty unified Chang'an, the capital of China. At that time, northern China had been ruled by northern nomads for a long time, and the customs and culture of the Han people had undergone great changes. Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, who was dedicated to restoring the rituals and music of the Han nation, took a lot of measures to restore the Chinese culture, including ordering Lu Fayan and others to compile the Analects of Confucius to verify the classics and pure Chinese. The phonetic system is dominated by Luoyang dialect and Jiankang dialect. In addition to the official rhyme, Wu dialect, the dialect of Yangzhou, the economic center city, was quietly popular in the south at that time. Yangzhou dialect is generally considered to be the first lingua franca spontaneously formed by the city's economic and cultural advantages. In addition, Wu language is also the source of Japanese Wu sound.
Tang Dynasty
Based on the "Qie Yun" of the Tang Dynasty, "Qie Yun" was formulated as the standard pronunciation of the Tang Dynasty, stipulating that officials and imperial examinations must use Tang Yun. However, the status of the dialect in Chang'an, the political center of the Tang Dynasty, was not high. It is even said that the local emperor was accused by his admonishers of not speaking the correct Chang'an dialect. However, Chang'an dialect is still relatively popular. Chang'an dialect is the source of Japanese and Chinese pronunciation.
Song Dynasty
On the basis of "Qie Yun" in Song Dynasty, "Tang Yun" was formulated. Later, because the pronunciation of "Tang Yun" was very different from that of the time, Liu Yuan wrote "Guang Yun" in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is a pity that "Guangyun" is not as influential as "Pingshuiyun".
Yuan Dynasty
China's Yuan Dynasty was based on the capital's Dadu dialect and adopted "Pingshui Yun" as the standard pronunciation. In this way, the status of the standard pronunciation of "Guangyun" was lost. Moreover, the dialects in northern China tend to move closer to Dadu dialects. Some people also say that the standard pronunciation of the Yuan Dynasty is Mongolian Chinese, which has lost many characteristics of the Chinese language
The nearly one hundred years of rule of the Yuan Dynasty has caused great changes in the traditional rituals, music, customs, language and culture of the Han people. change. Therefore, in the second year after Ming Taizu succeeded to the throne, he restored the imperial examination system and established Confucianism based on the Tang and Song systems. After the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese language in northern China underwent great changes due to the evolution of pronunciation. For example, "Central Plains Phonology" compiled in the Yuan Dynasty only has fifteen rhymes, which has lost the characteristics of traditional Chinese. However, the pronunciation at that time was far from the 206 phonetic system of the Tang and Song Dynasties. Taizu of the Ming Dynasty mistakenly believed that the "Guangyun" of the Song Dynasty originated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. So in the eighth year of Zhu Yuanzhang's accession to the throne, Ming Le and Song Lian compiled "Mongolian Character Rhythm" as an official rhyme book, referring to the Central Plains phonology in ancient books and the Nanjing dialect at that time. It is recorded: "In the eighth year, the emperor left the old rhyme of the river, which was mostly unjust. He ordered his courtiers to refer to Zheng Zhi, the elegant sound of the Central Plains, which was written as "Guangyun"." Therefore, Nanjing dialect is also one of the representatives of Mandarin. It is a pity that "Hongwu Zhengyun" has not been popularized.
Qing Dynasty
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, out of trust in Han officials and to improve work efficiency, the Qing Dynasty began to use Beijing dialect. Manchu remains an official language, but it no longer serves as an official language.
In the south, the dialects of the economically developed Jiangnan region have gradually become popular and become a popular language as the local economic strength increases. In the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing dialect, the national lingua franca, and Wu dialect, the local lingua franca, were more popular. Wang Shixing said in the "History of Ming Dynasty Le Shaofeng Biography", "Be good at exercising the right to advance and retreat on the sea. If Su people think they are elegant, they will be elegant on all sides; if they are vulgar, they will be vulgar." When Wu Yin was most popular, people from scholar-bureaucrats to geishas They all said Su Bai proudly. At that time, Yue Opera, Kun Opera, and Pingtan were all based on Wu dialect. In addition to Jiangnan, Jiangnan Cantonese is also gradually becoming popular due to local economic development. Some people point out that Cantonese was actually formed by the influence of northern immigrants during the Tang and Song Dynasties on the Chinese language of earlier northern immigrants. It is also one of the dialects recognized as close to the standard pronunciation "Hongwu Zhengyun" of the Song Dynasty.
By the end of the 19th century, that is, the end of the Qing Dynasty, China had undergone great changes under the influence of Western academic trends, especially Japan.
Before and after the Meiji Restoration, Japan vigorously promoted Japan's national synonyms, and the Japanese called Japanese Mandarin the national synonyms. The word Mandarin was originally the name of an ancient Chinese book. The Japanese use Mandarin as the name of their national synonym. At the end of the 19th century, China's cultural life underwent tremendous changes, and the word Mandarin spread. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the status of Beijing dialect was elevated from Mandarin to Mandarin and became a universal language.
The Republic of China
After the Revolution of 1911, in order to develop China's economy and culture, Mandarin was promoted. During the Republic of China, the term Mandarin was recognized by the government at that time and became the official title of the common language of the Chinese nation.