Summary
Nowadays, when we hear someone mentions “Chinese language”, the words like “Spoken Chinese”, “Mandarin” and “Chinese characters” will come to mind. Yes, the “Chinese Language” usually means Mandarin, standard Chinese, or common speech. It is the most widely used language in mainland China, and is also widely used in countries in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Modern Chinese consists of Mandarin and dialects. Mandarin mainly takes the Beijing dialect as its standard pronunciation, and the pronunciation is altered to be easier to learn for people in other Chinese regions. If you have ever spoken to Beijing locals and talked to businessmen in China, you can tell the differences in pronunciations between Mandarin and the Beijing dialect. On October 31st, 2000, the Law of Universal Language and Character of the People's Republic of China came into force. It stipulates Mandarin as the universal national language. There was no doubt previously that Mandarin has been the Chinese official language for some time. It is now widely used in trade business and political diplomatic and non-governmental exchanges all around the world.
Generally speaking though, Chinese language is more than “Mandarin”. As a mater of fact, the Chinese language’s appearance and development has accompanied the change and development of Chinese characters.
Language
As stated previously, Chinese language is divided into Mandarin and dialects. Fifty-six nationalities and the vast area of China cause many dialects in different regions and nationalities. Apart from the Mandarin, Cantonese (the Guangdong language), Hakka and the southern Min dialect are now used by many in South-east China. However, learning Mandarin well is enough for foreigners to communicate with Chinese people.
Mandarin Pinyin History
In 1610, a French missionary named Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628), came to China to preach. He was talented in languages and became an “old China hand” a few years later. At that time, there was no system that could precisely record the Chinese characters’ pronunciation. This missionary decided to write a book to fix the problem so that more missionaries could learn the Chinese language easily to preach in China. Consulting the book “Wonder of Western Writing”which was written by another missionary named Matteo Ricci, and with the help of Hanyun and Wangzheng, Nicolas wrote a work called “Xiru Ermu Zi” (西儒耳目資 ‘Aid to the Eyes and Ears of Western Literati’). This book precisely records the pronunciation of Chinese characters. It was the first time Chinese was Latinized.
In 1955, China's National Linguistics Work Committee started working at the pinyin system by consulting “Xiru Ermu Zi”. The pinyin with Romanization systemwas completed and approved by the China National People's Congressin 1958. In 1982, this pinyin solution became the international standard.
Pinyin and IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) Symbols
There are sixty-three elements in Pinyin.
Twenty-three initials:
b p m f d t n l g k h j q x zh ch sh r z c s
Twenty-four finals:
Six Single finals: a o e i u v
Nine Compound finals: ai ei ui ao ou iu ie ue er
Nine Other finals: an en in un vn ang eng ing ong
Thirteen whole syllables (with inconsistent sounds): zhi chi shi ri zi ci si yi wu yu ye yue yuan yin yun ying
IPA(International Phonetic Alphabet)
IPA symbols may also be used to represent the pinyin sounds, but they are not as easy to write and type as pinyin, so pinyin is the most efficient system for displaying Chinese pronunciation.
For more details about the pronunciation of pinyin, see http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/learning-chinese/chinese-pinyin.htm.