Mandarin is the lingua franca of modern Han nationality and the common language of all ethnic groups in China. Putonghua takes Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation, northern dialect as the basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm. Mandarin is called Mandarin in Taiwan Province Province, and it used to be called Mandarin in Hongkong and Macau, and now it is also called Mandarin.
The word "Putonghua" appeared as early as the late Qing Dynasty. 1902, Wu Rulun, a scholar, visited Japan, and the Japanese suggested to him that China should carry out Putonghua education to unify the language. The name "Mandarin" was mentioned in the conversation. 1904, when Qiu Jin, a modern female revolutionary, was studying in Japan, she organized a "lecture liaison meeting" with students studying in Japan, and drew up a booklet, in which the name "Putonghua" appeared. 1906, Zhu, a scholar who studied word segmentation, divided Chinese into "Chinese" (classical Chinese), "Putonghua" and "common sayings" (dialects) in his book Jiangsu Xin Xin. He not only put forward the name of "Mandarin", but also gave a clear definition of "Mandarin". In 1930s, Qu Qiubai put forward in the article "War beyond the Gate of Hell" that "the task of literary revolution is by no means limited to creating some new styles of poems, novels and plays. It should establish a modern Mandarin accent for China. " "Modern Mandarin, a new Chinese language, should be used in all parts of China, with modern" people's words ",polyphony and ending ..."
Definition of Putonghua
The definition of "Putonghua" has been unclear for decades before liberation, and there are also different views. After the founding of New China, during the "National Character Reform Conference" and the "Academic Conference on Standardization of Modern Chinese" held in June 1955, the Chinese homonym was officially named "Putonghua", and at the same time, its definition was determined, that is, "taking Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation and northern dialect as the basic dialect". 195510/On October 26th, People's Daily published an editorial entitled "Strive to Promote Chinese Character Reform, Popularize Putonghua and Realize Chinese Standardization". The article mentioned: "Chinese homonyms are Putonghua with northern dialect as the basic dialect and Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation." 1956 On February 6th, the State Council issued an instruction on the promotion of Putonghua, adding the definition of Putonghua as "taking Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation, northern dialect as the basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm". This definition clarifies the standard of Putonghua from three aspects: pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, which makes the definition of Putonghua more scientific and thorough. Among them, the word "Putonghua" means "universal" and "accessible".
Mandarin is a homonym of modern Chinese, with Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation, northern dialect as the basic dialect, and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm. This was decided at 1955 National Conference on Character Reform and Academic Conference on Standardization of Modern Chinese. This definition essentially puts forward the standards of Putonghua from three aspects: pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, so how to understand these standards?
"Taking Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation" means taking the phonetic system of Beijing dialect as the standard, and not copying all the pronunciations of Beijing dialect. Putonghua is not equal to Beijing dialect. There are many local accents in Beijing dialect. For example, old Beijingers regard the conjunction "he (hé)" as "hàn", "butterfly (húdié)" as "húdiěr" and "tell (gàosu)" as "gàosong". These local accents are difficult for people in other dialect areas to accept. In addition, there are different pronunciations in Beijing dialect, such as the word "aggression", some people pronounce "q τ nLü è" and others pronounce "Q τ NLü è"; Some people pronounce the word "nearby" as "fǔ j ? n", while others pronounce it as "fǔ j ? n", which also brings a lot of trouble to the popularization of Putonghua. Since 1956, the pronunciation of Beijing dialect has been revised many times, and the standard pronunciation of Putonghua has been formulated. Therefore, at present, the phonetic standard of Putonghua should be based on the Pronunciation Table of Putonghua with Different Pronunciation published by 1985 and Modern Chinese Dictionary published in 2005.
As far as vocabulary standards are concerned, "dialect based on northern dialect" in Putonghua is based on the common sayings in the vast northern dialect areas, and at the same time, it is necessary to absorb the vocabulary it needs from other dialects. There are also many dialects in northern dialect words. For example, Beijingers describe "evening" as "being late for a long time", "cursing" as "whispering" and "being stingy" as "being stingy". In many northern areas, corn is called "corn", soap is called "pancreas" and steamed bread is called "steamed bun". Therefore, we can't treat all the words in the northern dialect as words in Mandarin, so we should have a choice. Some dialect words in non-northern dialect areas have special meaning and expressive power, and there are no corresponding synonyms in northern dialect, so these words can be absorbed into Putonghua vocabulary. For example, words such as "fuck", "garbage", "embarrassment" and "gimmick" often appear in written language and have already joined the ranks of Putonghua vocabulary. The words chosen in Putonghua are generally popular and have been used in writing for a long time. In recent years, the State Language Committee is organizing manpower to compile a Dictionary of Modern Chinese Standardization, which will further standardize the vocabulary of Putonghua.