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.
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 ..."
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".