There is a tortuous history of China hidden in the language.

For the 65.438+300 million people in China, Mandarin is now the national common language. However, Mandarin is so strange to people from southern China who speak Cantonese, Hakka, Minnan, Wu, Gan and Xiang. For northerners, these southern dialects are just like "bird language", which is completely incomprehensible.

But what they may not know is that, as a constantly reforming language, Mandarin is not pure Chinese, and these southern "bird words" are the real languages spoken by our ancestors.

0 1

In 560 BC, the state of Jin called northern governors to discuss how to attack Chu.

However, at this time, Chu was very powerful and had just defeated Wu, an ally of Jin State. The declining northern leader Jin was angered and could not lead the people to attack Chu. However, he needs to find an exit. Therefore, Fan, the minister of the State of Jin, focused his attention on the residence of Jiang Rong, a northern warlord, and accused the Rong people of sabotage, which angered the northern warlord and led to the division of Chu in the south.

As a veteran leader of the Central Plains who did not understand the language of Chinese ancestors, he was not humble at this time. He read a book called "Green Fly" on the spot: "The green fly camp ends in Fan. He is not a gentleman, without faith and slander. "

Hong Rong's speeches are always different from China's. I can recite the Book of Songs and have an open debate with princes and ministers of various vassal states. This involves a language problem, that is to say, what language can the vassal States of various dialects understand themselves?

Did the ancient people in pre-Qin China speak a common national language similar to Putonghua today?

In this regard, The Analects of Confucius gives the answer.

According to records, "Confucius said," his poems, books and ceremonies are elegant. " This means that when Confucius recited the Analects of Confucius and the Book of Songs and presided over the ceremony, he said "Ya Yan", which is the oldest national common language in China history.

For Confucius, who has 3,000 disciples, how to communicate with the disciples of various vassal countries and how to publicize his thoughts to the kings of various countries when traveling in various countries can only be communicated through the common language of the ancient people in China-"Sylvia".

Linguists point out that in ancient times, "elegance" and "chivalry" were interlinked. The so-called outline refers to the ancient Heluo dialect, which was handed down from the Xia Dynasty and is widely used in the Yellow River and Luoshui today. As the capitals of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were all in Heluo area, and the capital was moved to Luoyi in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, as a common language for the communication between the vassal states of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the world, Shangshu began to tend to Luoyang sound, which was an ancient sound source widely used by Han people in later generations.

Speaking of it, whether it is the northwest veteran leader or Confucius in Shandong today, what they say is China's "Mandarin", the 3354, the elegant words of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The ancient Heluo dialect behind the elegant language is Wu dialect, which is spread in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. It is the common ancestor of Min dialect, Hakka dialect and Cantonese. It exists in Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan Province provinces.

In other words, Wu dialect, Min dialect, Cantonese and Hakka dialect, which are regarded as bird languages today, are closer to the languages used by Han ancestors, while modern Mandarin with strong national flavor has not yet been born.

In ancient China, people in mixed dialects were closely combined by beautiful words. It is also through beautiful language, exchanges between countries during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period that Confucius traveled around the world and a hundred schools of thought contended that he could make it clear.

02

From Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the Western Jin Dynasty, the capitals of various dynasties in China basically swung from west to east in Chang 'an and Luoyang in the Yellow River Luoshui, especially in Luoyang in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Western Jin Dynasty, which made the elegant and popular word "Luoyang sound" in the ancient Heluo language gradually become a common language respected by ancient Chinese.

According to legend, The Outline of Books was actually written in the Han Dynasty. According to records, in the pre-Qin period, as a "walker", he was in charge of the governors' meeting and sent envoys to various countries to convey the king's orders. He often uses the pre-Qin version of "Mandarin" to train people all over the world, using beautiful words as examples.

After the rebellion of the Eight Kings in the Western Jin Dynasty, Jin moved south, but the gentry who moved south still spoke the beautiful word "Luoyang intonation" in the Central Plains. Xie An, a famous scholar at that time, also liked to read poems in the tone of Luo Yang's life. Ann suffered from rhinitis since childhood, and her pronunciation is nasal, which may be a bit like the pronunciation of "ong" in Chinese Pinyin today. But at that time, people in Jiankang City thought Xie An's "The Great Pacer in Qiu Guan, Zhou Li" was so good that people all over the city liked to learn Xie An's ci by holding their noses. This is also the famous "Luo Shengyong" in history.

Xie An's reading sound in Luoyang is only the common language in ancient China, and Luo Shengyong was brought to the south by the gentry of the Western Jin Dynasty after they went south.

It is an old saying that Xie An outlines.

As the official language of the Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang and Chen Dynasties, it gradually absorbed some ancient wuyue dialects in Jinling. During the Qi and Liang Dynasties in the Southern Dynasties, the southern aristocrats gradually formed a relatively unified curriculum system. Galand in Luoyang is based on the old pronunciation of Luoyang royal family in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and there are some outlines of Jinling.

At this time, the Japanese came here across the ocean, and while learning Chinese characters, they changed the "five tones" into "Jinling Yayin". Later, the Japanese called Chang 'an's "Tang Jing Ya Yin" "Hanyin". Today's Japanese is based on China's "Jin Ling Ya Yin" and "Tang Jing Ya Yin", and is formed by merging dialects from all over Japan.

03

After the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, although China experienced the great division of the Northern and Southern Dynasties for nearly 200 years, and the northern nationalities moved southward continuously, the Asian and Indian systems in China were not greatly damaged, but were constantly integrated.

In the eyes of the southern gentry at that time, they thought that the elegance of Jinling was the orthodoxy of the Central Plains, while the elegance of the north was "gradually integrated with other nationalities" under the long-term invasion of other nationalities. On the contrary, Nanyin retains the characteristics of Luoyang Elegant Music.

Liang Wudi period, Chen Qingzhi escorted Hao Yuan to Luoyang. When he was in Liangbei, he had an argument with Yang, the minister of the Northern Wei Dynasty, on the issue of national reunification. To this, Chen Qingzhi, who argued with Yang in the Northern Wei Dynasty, said in a contemptuous tone:

"Yes, there is hu. Amswf is the same origin. When he was on the left bank of the river, many emperors signed imperial edicts. Now he is in Liang Chao. "

Chen Qingzhi of the Liang Dynasty said that Jinling's music was very pleasant to listen to, but Yang, the minister of the Northern Wei Dynasty, understood it. First of all, this is due to the reform of Emperor Xiaowen in the Northern Wei Dynasty.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, although China was severely divided and foreigners continued to go south, in 490 AD, when Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty was 23 years old, he began to move the capital from Pingcheng to Luoyang, forcibly carrying out the sinicization movement, including banning Khufu, changing the customs of the Han nationality, and requiring all Xianbei people under the age of 30 to learn Chinese "Yayin".

Emperor Xiaowen stipulated that all Xianbei officials who did not know Chinese pronunciation should be demoted and dismissed. When Emperor Xiaowen forcibly promoted the Han people, his queen Feng resolutely opposed it. Because of this, in the twentieth year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Xiaowen directly abolished Feng as the queen on the grounds that the queen refused to change Chinese characters into elegant sounds.

In this regard, Emperor Xiaowen explained that even Xianbei people, if they don't learn the pronunciation of the Han people, will become barbarians again after several generations. For Emperor Xiaowen, Xianbei people entered the Central Plains as ethnic minorities. It's not too much to say this.

In the troubled times of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Liu Yuan, a Xiongnu aristocrat, and Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei later praised localization and Chinese, which made the beautiful Chinese pronunciation from Heluo ancient dialect preserved in the north, although the whole north was turbulent for more than 200 years during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. At that time, the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties had the same development direction of Song, Qi and Liang, that is, the traditional Luoyang pronunciation was almost the same, which made the standard language of the Northern and Southern Dynasties have little difference.

The Sinicization Reform of Emperor Xiaowen in the Northern Wei Dynasty made the Northern and Southern Dynasties possible.

04

After the reunification of the Sui Dynasty, Lu, a phonologist at that time, made a speech and formulated Luoyang Galand to standardize the national standard language. He re-integrated the syllabuses of Jinling in the Southern Dynasty and Qieyun in the Northern Dynasty, which were isolated in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and formed a new official program system in the Sui Dynasty.

The Tang Dynasty inherited the system of the Sui Dynasty, as well as the elegant sounds of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and the Luoyang sound formed after the transition of the unified empire of Qin and Han Dynasties was the official language. Until the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the Northern Song Dynasty, Luoyang dialect, as an ancient common language of the Chinese nation, still occupied a high position.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, a famous official, Kou Zhun, discussed with others the most orthodox pronunciation in the world. He said, "There are only Xiluo people in the world." This means that Luoyang's reading sound is the world's orthodox elegant sound. Lu You, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, also wrote in Jinling Chronicle:

"Luoyang is the only place in the Central Plains with the most accurate pronunciation."

However, after the Anshi Rebellion, the common language of the Chinese nation began to change dramatically.

From the Anshi Rebellion to the Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms and Two Song Dynasties, the Khitan, Nuzhen and Mongolia in the north rose one after another and attacked the south. Because the northern plain is vast and there is another one, it is easier for Hu Hua to penetrate and spread in the north. This is why today's northern dialect has a strange color, while the southern dialect can retain ancient Chinese because of the barrier of mountains and rivers.

Since the rebellion of the Eight Kings in the Western Jin Dynasty, the Han nationality in the north moved southward on a large scale. The northern gentry integrated Wu dialect into Jinling Yayin, and the Zhongyuan people moved south from Heluo dialect area to Fujian and eastern Guangdong, absorbing some local Vietnamese, and gradually formed the present Min dialect area, which preserved the ancient language seeds for the Han nationality.

At that time, with the continuous impact of northern Hu Yu on the south, Han people began to use some contemptuous languages, such as "nonsense", "nonsense" and "recklessness" in oral and written languages, which actually contained the contempt of early Han people for Hu people and other ethnic minorities.

05

But the influence of language is inevitable.

As mentioned earlier, from Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, the capital of China has always been the Luoshui area of the Yellow River, surrounded by Chang 'an and Luoyang from west to east. But from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Chang 'an and Luoyang began to decline, and Kaifeng rose.

The rise of Kaifeng means that the swing trend of China capital from north to south in the late Han Dynasty, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is about to take shape.

The eastward movement, southward movement and northward movement of China's capital and political, military and economic center have had a far-reaching impact on the development of Chinese.

After the rise of Kaifeng in 1950s, Bianjing dialect in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, also had a great influence on the elegance of Tang and Beijing. In the Northern Song Dynasty, under the influence of Bianjing dialect, the elegant tone of the Han nationality began to blend with the characteristics of Kaifeng, forming an elegant tone that was later called "Song tune" or "Zhongzhou tune".

It is worth noting that the Outline of Charlotte and Notes of Laoxuean in the Northern Song Dynasty still belong to the outline system of ancient Chinese, which is different from the present Henan dialect.

127, the Jurchen warriors went south to destroy the Northern Song Dynasty. With the southward migration of the Song Dynasty and the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty

However, with the arrival of Mongols, Youzhou dialect, which was originally located on the edge of the original elegance of Heluo ancient language and far away from the original elegance, will completely change the history of Chinese in the next 700 years.

06

127, the northern song dynasty was destroyed by jurchen. Subsequently, under the rule of Jurchen and Mongolian ancients, great changes have taken place in the Mandarin system in northern China, from the middle ancient sound to the near ancient sound. That is to say, at this time, the original situation that China north and south respected "Luoyang Yin Shu" was changed. At this time, with the southward migration of the Song Dynasty and the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Southern Mandarin developed into the Southern Mandarin, while the Northern Mandarin gradually formed the Northern Mandarin system with the invasion of Khitan, Nuzhen and Mongolia.

At that time, the Southern Mandarin was based in Nanjing, while the Northern Mandarin was mainly popular in North China.

In 279, the Mongols formally attacked and destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty. In the previous War of Destroying Gold and the War of Destroying Song, the Mongols carried out the policy of genocide in northern China and southern Sichuan. This led to the occupation of Youzhou by the Khitan, and the Nuzhen attacked the Northern Song Dynasty. The slowly changing language and pronunciation system in the north has been attacked in an all-round way.

Under the butcher's knife of Mongols, a large area of "vacuum language" appeared in the north because of the large-scale ethnic slaughter and killing of the Han nationality in the north and the continuous migration of population caused by plague, famine and war. The quaint phonology of the Central Plains, which has been circulating for more than 3,000 years since Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, was also destroyed by the devastating blow in the north.

As a direct branch of Youzhou dialect in Tang Dynasty, "Dadu dialect" began to appear after the capital was established in Yuan Dynasty, and it is the embryonic form of Beijing dialect and even Putonghua today.

At this time, Youzhou dialect and later Dadu dialect, which were influenced by minority languages such as Khitan, Jurchen and Mongolia, had lost all the voiced sounds and entering tones of the elegant tune system in the ancient Central Plains.

Due to the disappearance of the elegant and Luoyang sounds of the ancient Han people in China, many ancient poems of the Yuan Dynasty, that is, what we call Mandarin today, are often unable to rhyme.

The reason for this problem is that many of these ancient poems are rhyming, and the Beijing dialect, which began in the Yuan Dynasty, almost disappeared after Mongolian was introduced into the Han nationality.

This is the most important reason why reading ancient poems in Mandarin today often doesn't rhyme.

After the large-scale genocide made the northern region "empty into a huge language area", the Yuan government stipulated that school teaching must use Esperanto based on "Dadu", which gradually became popular in the northern region and became the source of the widely popular northern dialect.

The genocide policy pursued by Genghis Khan and the Mongols was a disaster to the development of ancient China people.

It was also at this time that the Beijing dialect, which had experienced the erosion and transformation of ethnic minorities, began to take shape gradually. On the other hand, the prevalence of Yuan Zaju and Sanqu greatly promoted the spread of Dadu dialect. Zhou Deqing's Kaifeng dialect in Yuan Dynasty is mainly based on the rhyme of Yuan Zaju, which basically reflects the face of the capital language in Yuan Dynasty. The phonetic system at that time was quite similar to that of Beijing dialect today.

That is to say, since then, most Han people in northern China have gradually changed their ancestral languages and spoken Dadu dialect on the basis of Youzhou dialect in the Tang Dynasty.

The language of our ancestors has quietly changed.

07

However, the Ming Empire was born with the heavy responsibility of rejuvenating China.

Nearly a hundred years after the Yuan Dynasty ruled, the Ming Dynasty was formally established, exiled Land Rover and restored China. At this time, China's culture and language have been seriously eroded and changed. At that time, in the northern Mandarin system based on Dadu dialect, the phonetic system of ancient Chinese such as Rusheng had been swept away and destroyed, but in the southern Mandarin, the beautiful pronunciation of ancient Chinese was retained, which continued the blood of Chinese language.

After Judy usurped the throne and moved to Beijing, she moved a large number of people from Nanjing and brought the Southern Mandarin system back to Beijing. In this case, from the establishment of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the southern Mandarin system had a great influence on the northern Mandarin. Although the ancient Chinese sounds such as entering tone and rhyming have disappeared in Beijing dialect in the early Ming Dynasty, the elegant pronunciation of southern mandarin has injected the seeds of elegant pronunciation of ancient Chinese into Beijing dialect.

In Beijing dialect, take "Bo" as an example. The southern pronunciation is "Bo" and the northern pronunciation is "Bao". The former is mainly used in written language, while the latter is often used in spoken language. In addition, for example, the word "color" in "color" is pronounced as "shai" in northern accent, while the word "color" in "color" is pronounced as "se" in southern accent.

The emergence of these disyllabic words is the result of rescuing Beijing dialect by using the beautiful pronunciation of ancient Chinese left over from the south after the establishment of the Ming Empire, which has contaminated Beijing dialect with too many national "lineages" and retained the "elegance" elements of ancient Chinese.

The Ming Empire established by Zhu Yuanzhang re-injected the elegance of Chinese into the official language system of China.

1644 After the demise of the Ming Dynasty, Manchu settled in Beijing, forcing the Han people in Beijing to move to southern cities, while Manchu settled in inland cities. At that time, Manchu people in Beijing spoke Southern Liao language, while Han people in other places spoke Yanjing language. In the process of Manchu gradually learning Beijing dialect, Manchu finally formed, which is the ultimate source of Beijing dialect and even Beijing Mandarin today.

After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Beijing dialect began to absorb Manchu, Mongolian and Hui language elements. For example, "You" and "Hutong" in Beijing dialect are Mongolian. The words "handsome", "drooping", "sending", "doctor", "shouting" and "nurse" come from Manchu.

Take China's Song Yin Outline as an example. This work, which was created in the middle of Qing Dynasty, was also created by Cao Xueqin when he was living in Beijing, and was compiled into a large number of Manchu languages. For example, in chapter 14 of Central Plains Rhyme, Yu Bao said, "I hope I can read it today." The word "wish" comes from Manchu "babacituttu".

In the sixteenth time of A Dream of Red Mansions, Zhao Gou said, "Our master only said yes, and then he forgot us when he arrived." "Front" is Manchu "jakade", which refers to the place and time.

In this regard, Zhou, an expert in a dream of red mansions, said: "Without the integration of Manchu and Han nationalities, it is impossible to produce three authors and works of a dream of red mansions." Lao She, a Manchu writer, also said, "Manchu should share an honor with the creators of Beijing Opera." It can be seen that Manchu has a far-reaching influence on Beijing dialect and even Mandarin.

08

However, the strong inertia of language continuity makes the promotion of Manchu Beijing dialect not smooth. At that time, the Beijing dialect in the early Qing Dynasty still had a strong southern accent in the Ming Dynasty. Besides, many southern officials can't speak Beijing dialect at all, let alone the people of the whole country, especially the south.

In this regard, in the sixth year of Yongzheng, Yong Zhengdi finally lost his temper.

Yongzheng has been annoyed that southerners can't speak "Mandarin" since he ascended the throne, which made him unable to understand. In Yongzheng's view, when the court ruled correctly, southerners, especially those from Fujian and Guangdong, first spoke the same language as ducks. Therefore, Yongzheng decided to take Fujian and Guangdong as the first goal.

1728, Yongzheng officially ordered the establishment of Yinzheng Academy in Fujian and Guangdong for eight years to promote Mandarin. It is also stipulated that if people in Fujian and Guangdong can't learn Mandarin after eight years, their children, invigilators, Gong Sheng, scholars and juren will all be banned from taking the imperial examinations.

As the most important way to promote social class in feudal times, Yongzheng threatened to ban students from Fujian and Guangdong from taking part in the imperial examination, which immediately scared officials and students in the two provinces to death. More than a year after Yongzheng issued a decree, more than 2,000 Andrew Societies specializing in Putonghua were established in Guangdong Province.

However, due to lack of funds and other reasons, Yongzheng's Putonghua promotion activities did not continue in Guangdong and Fujian. However, under the impetus of Yongzheng, Beijing dialect with Manchu as the main body began to formally establish its status as the national lingua franca, and gradually replaced the previous southern version of Beijing Mandarin. From then until the end of Qing Dynasty, Beijing dialect became more and more popular. On the basis of Manchu, it integrates the North and South Putonghua systems. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Beijing dialect, as a lingua franca, had an unshakable position in the Jianghu.

Yongzheng forced Fujian and Guangdong people to learn Mandarin, which promoted the wide spread of Manchu.

In Yongzheng's view, promoting Putonghua as a common language is an important part of establishing a unified empire. However, under the background of Manchu-Han national struggle, language has also become a tool of national and class struggle. Therefore, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka from Guangdong, spoke an ancient China dialect, which was called "confusing China with nonsense" by Manchu people.

09

However, the trend in integration of language has gradually taken shape. /kloc-In the 20th century, with the gradual formation of nation-states such as Germany and Italy, people from Germany to Italy to Japan are trying to build a common national language.

In the 28th year of Guangxu, Wu Rulun, the chief lecturer of Shi Jing University, went to Japan to study politics. He found that Mandarin based on Tokyo dialect has been popularized in Japan. Wu Rulun was greatly encouraged. After returning to China, he proposed to unify Putonghua with Beijing dialect and named it "Mandarin".

Before Wu Rulun put forward this view, the "Mandarin" in Qing Dynasty was Manchu, so Wu Rulun's proposal was strongly resisted. However, in view of the unfavorable situation at that time, in order to establish a unified empire, 1909, the Qing government ordered that the Mandarin based on Beijing dialect be renamed as "Mandarin". However, it has not been implemented nationwide. 19 12 years, the Qing dynasty officially perished.

Although the prototype of Beijing dialect-Dadu dialect, 33,354, appeared in the Yuan Dynasty when Beijing was established as the capital, after the changes of Ming and Qing Dynasties, Beijing Mandarin has also integrated many linguistic features such as North and South dialects, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui and so on. The government of the Republic of China also made great efforts to unify the national language, which was impossible in the late Qing Dynasty.

19 13, the government of the Republic of China held a "unified pronunciation conference" to determine the standard of "national pronunciation". At the meeting, a representative pointed out that although Beijing dialect is a branch of Chinese, as a language deeply influenced by Mongolian, Manchu and Hui languages, after Beijing dialect was eroded by minority languages, all voiced sounds and entering tones in ancient Chinese disappeared. Finally, the meeting voted to integrate the entering tone and sharp sound of ancient Chinese into ancient Chinese to solve the problem that Beijing dialect can't rhyme with ancient poetry and stay away from ancient Chinese.

However, as a language that is not used in reality, the "ancient Chinese sound" set according to the ancient Chinese standard has no actual context, so people naturally can't say it. This makes the old national tune adopted by 19 13 become an extinct language. However, the elimination of Rusheng will disrupt the rules of China's traditional poetry and reduce the sense of rhythm of China's ancient prose, so the power to maintain Rusheng in national languages is still quite strong. However, as opponents, opponents advocate respecting reality and taking the practical use of Beijing dialect as a new national accent.

19 19 After the May 4th Movement, with the widespread rise of vernacular Chinese, traditional poetry gradually lost its dominant position in the literary world. In this case, in 1924, the National Preparatory Committee for Language Unification decided to abandon the "old national accent" and take Beijing accent as the standard of "national accent", which is the origin of "new national accent".

Since then, from 1924 to 1949, except from 1937 to 1945 in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, New Putonghua has been widely popularized in China.

1924, when scholar Ye Hong returned to give a lecture in Fuzhou, he was surprised to find that "all the students in the school can speak Mandarin, which surprised him very much. Just ten years ago, he was the only person in the school who could speak Mandarin. "

10

After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the national language reform movement continued. 1955, Beijing Mandarin was selected as the standard language of the new national common language. Considering the problem of national integration, the government decided to change the name of "Mandarin" to "Putonghua". In this regard, Zhang Xiruo, then Minister of Education, said:

"In order to emphasize that we are a big multi-ethnic family, and to emphasize the equality of national languages, after in-depth research, we decided not to use the word national language. If you call it Mandarin, you are worried that it will be misunderstood as putting China people above other ethnic groups in the country. "

At this point, after decades of discussion and reform from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China and even New China, the common language of the Chinese nation-Putonghua has finally taken shape. 1956 On February 6th, the State Council issued an instruction to promote Putonghua, which was officially defined as "the common language of the Chinese nation with Beijing dialect as the standard pronunciation, northern dialect as the basic dialect and modern vernacular as the grammatical norm".

At this point, a modern version of "Putonghua" based on Beijing dialect has finally taken shape, losing the pronunciation characteristics of ancient Chinese such as entering tone and voiced voice. Although far away from the language and pronunciation of ancient Han ancestors and deeply influenced by many minority languages, a widely used Chinese finally took root in China.

However, when the time goes back to before the Mongols invaded the Central Plains, the Central Plains was bilingual as it is today.