A History of Mandarin: China's Search for a Common Language

Putonghua, also known as Mandarin to foreigners, is the common language of 1.4 billion Chinese people. But it was not always the case. The Chinese language has a history dating back thousands of years, but Putonghua came about not through natural evolution but as an effort by intellectuals and politicians to modernize and simplify the language to aid communications among speakers of the different dialects that are used across the country. In this entertaining lecture at NYU Shanghai, author David Moser explains how the modern Chinese language came into being.

David Moser holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan, with a major in Chinese Linguistics and Philosophy. He has been based in Beijing for over 25 years, active in academic and media circles.

[viwang]

David did a great job at keeping it professional and interesting, and also fun to listen to. loved the lecture

[Sihng-yih]

A worthy lecturer about the history of Mandarin. I agree with the professor's view that so-call Chinese dialects are linguistically in fact different languages, although they are named Chinese in order to conform with China's language policy. The funny thing is that attitudes towards the terms "mandarin", "dialect" or "Chinese" vary from people to people in China. These different attitudes can be seen through the answer to the question "What language can you speak?". The answer "I can speak Chinese" is totally different from the one "I can speak mandarin". (My personal opinion though...)

[jckbquck]

Thank you for the lecture! I enjoyed it very much. I'm not sure whether or not you're making the point that the enforcing of speaking Mandarin, the solidifying of Mandarin as the national language in PRC continued to happen after the Chinese civil war (1949). If so, then by coincidence, the same thing was happening in Taiwan in the decades after 1949! Or perhaps the subject goal, which both sides shared, was established well before 1949 / the split.

[lakesidescript]

Which language were they using for linguistic discussions at 17:30 ? That should be the official language.

[tailiu]

How did they conduct the linguist talks when there was not a common language at that time? Did you use English to communicate ?

[helloworld]

11:50 Anglo-Norman French died out in England after about 200 years of official use.

[joyceching]

VERY INTERESTING TALK

Came across this by chance in the Internet.
Didn't know Mr David Moser is so good in Chinese. Saw him quite often in CCTV TV programs.

A question to Mr Moser- what drove you to study so deeply the Chinese language?
Thank you 😊.

[kimmyfoxworth]

I've always been curious about the definition of "chinese dialects" but didn't have enough materials to learn about it. Thank you!
But he could have chosen a better series, Tom and Jerry doesn't even have words. :))

[SomasAcademy]

Funny seeing Wu Zhihui and Cai Yuanpei pop up here, I was aware that they were involved in linguistics (including some very major stuff), but I'm mostly familiar with them from their role in the Chinese Anarchist movement (which I have a video about on my channel if anyone's interested).

[augustinepan]

I’m Chinese knowing 4 dialects namely Shanghai, Fujian, Cantonese and mandarin well. I’ve to admit Chinese language is hard to learn cause
speaking and writing is structurally different. Before the communist ruling China literacy was very low.
Writing in the way you speak is regarded uneducated and literary wrong.
Since it’s not a phonetic language I find there’s no standard pronunciation too, it’s a living thing that changes with time for spoken language that even within a 25 years period people already pronounced a little differently.
In the older days only educated people knew how to write which was I believe had a universal one like Latin in Europe within different kingdoms.

[margiefong]

I learned (during Covid - 19 break) that the Chinese written language was created from the Christian bible genesis chapter. It is a beautiful ancient written language as in Hebrew. I am Chinese learning the written language now. There is a story to each character. I cannot read and/or write Chinese because I grow up in America. I can only recognize some characters.

[teckhualoh]

There was a comment about a 'language' that sounds like chicken clucking and barbaric during the empress dowager's time. Not sure if he is quoting the Empress or it is his own personal opinion. I think he is referring to the Cantonese tongue twister "every country has its own national song" which sounds like chicken clucking. I hope he being an expert realizes it is a tongue-in-cheek tongue twister and not how Cantonese really sounds like. That tongue twister is often used to malign the dialect. It is almost like saying English is a sibilant language from the tongue twister "she sells sea shells on the sea shore".

[JohnCook-bxgv]

Ferdinand de Saussure was born in Switzerland, not France

[Anatoli]

I disagree with a few points. China would not necessarily fall apart, if they were not united by Mao. There is also a sense of identity, which unites Chinese speaking different topolects. They are all derived from the common Middle Chinese and share the same writing system. Despite the differences (10-20% of vocabulary), pronunciations are largely inferrable if the phonetics of Middle Chinese and modern topolects are understood. That's why the writing system is an important unifying factor.

[richiesd]

Computers and AI will give the characters a competitive advantage. You don’t need to sound out the words for them to have meaning. The characters have inherent meanings.

[lordkent]

Nowadays with people typing everything I don't see a point in Simplified characters anymore. Sure it increased literacy rates but that was just making it more user friendly. Lost thousands of years of meaning in those characters.

[nicoleyu]

One of my uncles say that we have a hard time learning chinese wag born in the Philippines. But have a hard time to speak Chinese. We should born in China to the way easiest to learn to speak Chinese; Mandarin to everybody😁. We also know to speak Fukien😁.

[jan_kisan]

oh gosh, this unified versus local problem is so easy to resolve, what the hell is wrong with everybody... just recognize and develop every variety and have one on top for inter-... communication... the way they did it in the USSR but minus prescriptivism

[Supermariocrosser]

For europeans imagine China has been balkanized like Greece . Still greece has its history but it doesnt mean it feels like ancient greece at many aspects.

[xhotdog]

Are Chinese characters hard to learn and retain? Two ways to test: 1. When next time you don't remember how to write a particular character, do you remember how to write its pinyin? 2. Raise a kid in a bilingual society, have her learn both languages, observe and compare for yourself :)