Standard Mandarin
Standard Mandarin is a standardized version of the Mandarin language and serves as the official language of the Republic of China. The official guide on the language, Standard Mandarin Guide is published by the country's Ministry of Education and is the authoritative document on the language used for official testing and compulsory education.
History
The Mandarin has its roots during the last quarter of the Ts'ing dynasty when its rule was endangered by presistent weakness in foreign affairs. Lack of unity in general was cited as a contributory issue, and based on western experience in creating a nation-state, a common spoken language was argued at court as a means to facilitate communication, commerce, and ultimately political loyalty. Despite such early beginnings, the Mandarin project did not make much progress at the time.
As the Ts'ing dynasty fell, the Mandarin project was again mentioned as a measure to shore up support for the new Republic through the invention of a nation-state with a common language. However, because Chinese was (and very much still is) a group of phylogenetically related and mutually unintelligible tongues, it was highly controversial which of the dialects would be selected as standard. Most major dialects were not monolithic dialects in and of themselves but a more closely related group of sub-dialects.
The situation is further complicated by the presence of so-called "chanting tones", which were prestige-dialects or academic dialects that are loosely based on a local dialect but retains many archaic distinctions through rote memorization and "chanting" of canonical texts. These actively managed dialects often include idiosyncracies based on particular interpretations of canonical texts and their grammars as well as artifically-restored phonological elements found in ancient rime dictionaries.
In 1913, the Mandarin Commission set up by the Provisional Government in Peking voted first to exclude all natural dialects from consideration, because the selection of any of them would constitute favourtism to that dialect's speakers. Politically, such would also be untenable. The focus on chanting tones also meant that dialects may be objectively compared with each other to discover which one was the most conservative compared to a given standard.
Phonology
Initials
| Lenis | Asper | Nasal | Fricative | Approximant | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | p | pʰ | m | f v | w |
| Coroneal | t | tʰ | n | ||
| Affricate | ts | tsʰ | s | ||
| Retroflex | ʈʂ | ʈʂʰ | ʂ | r l | |
| Palatal | tɕ | tɕʰ | ɕ | y | |
| Velar | k | kʰ | ŋ | x | (w) |
| Glottal | ʔ |