96-591: Caitika ( Chinese : 制多山部 or 制多部 ) was an early Buddhist school , a sub-sect of the Mahāsāṃghika . They were also known as the Caityaka sect. The Caitikas proliferated throughout the mountains of South India , from which they derived their name. In Pali writings, members of this sect and its offshoots were generally referred to as the Andhakas , meaning "of Coastal Andhra ". The Caitikas branched off from
192-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
288-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
384-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
480-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
576-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
672-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
768-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
864-412: A land grant to the deity Halampura-svamin by Nodu Keshri, for the increase of Keshri's life. The Nagarjunakonda inscription, dated to the 11th regnal year, records the erection of a pillar to commemorate the king's mother Vammabhatta. According to American academic Richard Salomon "a Nagarjunakonda memorial pillar inscription of the time of King Rudrapurusadatta attests to a marital alliance between
960-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
1056-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
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#17327663094051152-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
1248-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
1344-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
1440-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
1536-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
1632-709: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of
1728-576: Is attested by an inscription dated to his 24th regnal year. He had multiple wives, including three daughters of his paternal aunts (Chamtasri and Hammasri). He also married Rudradhara-bhattarika, the daughter of the ruler of Ujjain ( Uj(e)nika mahara(ja) balika ), possibly the Indo-Scythian Western Kshatrapa king Rudrasena II . Scythian influence can also be noticed in the Palace of Nagarjunakonda , especially through
1824-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
1920-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
2016-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
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#17327663094052112-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
2208-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
2304-469: Is the oldest known copper-plate charter from the Indian subcontinent . The Ikshvaku kingdom seems to have suffered multiple foreign invasions during Ehuvala's reign. The Sarvadeva temple inscription credits his commander Anikke with victories on the battlefield. The memorial pillar of his general Mahasenapati Chamtapula, a Kulahaka chief, also alludes to battle victories. Hariti-putra Virapurushadatta,
2400-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
2496-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
2592-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
2688-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
2784-601: The Matsya Purana . The dynasty's founder Vasishthiputra Chamtamula ( IAST : Vāsiṣṭhīputra Cāṃtamūla; also transliterated Chantamula) rose to power after the decline of the Satavahana power. He is attested by the Rentala and Kesanapalli inscriptions. The Rentala inscription, dated to his 5th regnal year, calls him " Siri Cāṃtamūla". The 4-line Kesanapalli inscription, dated to his 13th regnal year, and inscribed on
2880-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
2976-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
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3072-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
3168-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
3264-827: The Prajñāparamitā and the Ten Stages Sutra . Avalokitavrata also states that Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Prajñāparamitā were recited by the Aparaśailas and the Pūrvaśailas. According to the Theravādin text Nikāyasaṅgraha , the large Mahāyāna collection called the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra ( Taishō Tripiṭaka , 310) was composed by the "Andhakas", meaning the Caitika schools of the Āndhra region. This collection includes
3360-769: The Western Ksatrapas and the Iksvaku rulers of Nagarjunakonda". An inscription dated to the 30th regnal year of the Abhira king Vashishthi-putra Vasusena has been discovered at the ruined Ashtabhuja-svamin temple in Nagarjunakonda. This has led to speculation that the Abhiras, who ruled the region around Nashik , invaded and occupied the Ikshvaku kingdom. However, this cannot be said with certainty. By
3456-1108: The Yogacara doctrine of the ālāyavijñāna "storehouse consciousness". He also noted that the doctrine of the mūlavijñāna was contained in the āgamas of the Mahāsāṃghikas. A. K. Warder holds that the Mahāyāna "almost certainly" first developed from the southern Mahāsāṃghika schools of the Āndhra region, among monastic communities associated with the Caitikas and their sub-sects. Anthony Barber and Sree Padma note that "historians of Buddhist thought have been aware for quite some time that such pivotally important Mahayana Buddhist thinkers as Nāgārjuna , Dignāga , Candrakīrti , Āryadeva , and Bhāviveka , among many others, formulated their theories while living in Buddhist communities in Āndhra." Some early Mahāyāna sūtras reference wealthy female donors and provide evidence that they were developed in
3552-512: The bodhisattvayāna , over that of the arhat or śrāvakayāna , and they viewed arhats as being fallible and still subject to ignorance. The main Caitika school, along with the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas, all emphasized the transcendental and supernatural character of the Buddha. Xuanzang considered the Mahāsāṃghika doctrine of a mūlavijñāna ("root consciousness") to be essentially the same as
3648-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
3744-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
3840-691: The Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra , the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutra , the Akṣobhyavyūha Sūtra , a long text called the Bodhisattva Piṭaka , and others. The Mahāratnakūṭa collection totals 49 Mahāyāna sūtras, divided into 120 fascicles in the Chinese translation. In the Mahāvihara tradition of the Theravāda school, Buddhaghoṣa grouped the Caitika schools in the Āndhra region, such as
3936-682: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Andhra Ikshvaku The Andhra Ikshvaku ( IAST : Ikṣvāku) dynasty ruled in
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4032-416: The 20th regnal year of Virapurushadatta mentions Chamtamula's death, which can be interpreted in various ways. It is possible that Chamtamula lived up to this time, having given up the throne at an earlier date; alternatively, it is possible that the inscription merely commemorates his death anniversary. Mathari-putra Vira-purusha-datta ( IAST : Māṭharīputra Vīrapuruṣadatta) ruled for at least 24 years, as he
4128-510: The 3rd century BCE Mauryan empire Ashoka to propagate Buddhism. Inscriptions dated to the regnal years 6, 10, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, and 24 of Virapurushadatta's rule record the construction of Buddhist monuments by royal ladies and commoners. During the reign of Ehuvala Chamtamula, Mahadevi Bhattideva commissioned a monastery for the teachers of the Bhaushrutiya (Bhauśrutīya) Buddhist sect. Mahadevi Kodabalishri (Kodabaliśrī) commissioned
4224-574: The Agnishtoma, Vajapeya and Ashvamedha sacrifices. The reign of his grandson Ehuvala Chamtamula saw the rise of Brahmanism , and the construction of several shrines, such as those of Nodagishvara-svamin, Pushpa-bhadra-svamin, and Sarva-deva. The shrine of Sarva-deva ("all gods") was commissioned by his commander Elishri (Eliśrī) during his 11th regnal year. Six or seven versions of an inscription written in metrical Sanskrit were inscribed on its pillars. Prince Haritiputra Virapurushadatta commissioned
4320-601: The Caitikas claimed that their own Jataka tales represented the original collection before the Buddhist tradition split into various lineages. One dispute recorded in the Kathāvatthu between the Mahāviharavasins and the Andhakas was a fundamental matter concerning the interpretation of the Buddha's teachings. The Andhakas are said to have held that the Buddha's actions and speech were supramundane, but some may only perceive
4416-636: The Great Stupa at Sanchi . The Great Stūpa was first commissioned by Asoka in the 3rd century BCE and became known as a Buddhist pilgrimage site. In the Ajaṇṭā Caves , the only epigraphic reference to an early Buddhist sect is to that of the Caitikas, which is associated with an iconic image in Cave 10. The Mahāsāṃghikas were generally associated with the early veneration of anthropomorphic Buddha images. When Xuanzang visited Dhānyakaṭaka , he wrote that
4512-529: The Ikshvaku kingdom during Ehuvala's rule. Some of the inscriptions issued during this period use the Shaka title svamin for the king. An inscription to commemorate Vammabhatta, issued during the 11th regnal year of his son Rudrapurushadatta uses this title svamin for all the preceding kings. Vasishthi-putra Rudra-purusha-datta ( IAST : Vasiṣṭhīputra Rudrapuruṣadatta) is attested by two inscriptions. The Gurazala inscription, dated to his 4th regnal year, records
4608-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
4704-524: The Mahāsāṃghikas and the Śrīmālā , along with four major arguments for this association. After its composition, this text became the primary scriptural advocate in India for the universal potentiality of Buddhahood . Anthony Barber also associates the earlier development of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra with the Mahāsāṃghikas, and concludes that the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region were responsible for
4800-522: The Mahāsāṃghikas. Edward Conze estimates that this sūtra originated around 100 BCE. Brian Edward Brown, a specialist in Tathāgatagarbha doctrines, writes that it has been determined that the composition of the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra occurred during the Āndra Ikṣvāku dynasty in the 3rd century CE as a product of the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region (i.e. the Caitika schools). Alex Wayman has outlined eleven points of complete agreement between
4896-657: The Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā teachings were first developed by the Caitika subsect of the Mahāsāṃghikas. They believe that the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra originated amongst the southern Mahāsāṃghika schools of the Āndhra region, along the Kṛṣṇa River . Guang Xing states, "Several scholars have suggested that the Prajñāpāramitā probably developed among the Mahāsāṃghikas in southern India, in
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#17327663094054992-488: The Pushpabhadra-savmin temple during the 14th regnal year of Ehuvala. The shrine of Nodagishvara-svamin was also built during Ehuvala's reign, and received a permanent endowment for its maintenance. Buddhism also flourished in Ikshvaku kingdom, and several princes and queens contributed to the construction of the Buddhist shrines. Chamtashri, the sister of Vasishthiputra Chamtamula, generously donated towards
5088-869: The Rājagirikas and the Siddhārthikas, as the "Andhakas". Works such as the Kathāvatthu show that Mahāvihara polemics were directed overwhelmingly at these "Andhakas" in India. The Caitika schools rejected the post-Asokan texts that were in use by the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya tradition such as the Parivara , the six books of Abhidharma , the Patisambhidamagga , the Niddesa , some Jataka tales , some verses, and so on. For example,
5184-410: The ancient Ikshvakus with the Dravidians . Later texts, such as the Ramayana and the Puranas , connect the dynasty of Ikshvaku's descendants to Ayodhya , the capital of the Kosala Kingdom in northern India. A record of the Vijayapuri king Ehuvala Chamtamula traces his ancestry to the legendary Ikshvakus. The Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri seem to be same as the "Shriparvatiya Andhras" mentioned in
5280-410: The construction of a mahachaitya ("great chaitya "), which was built during the 6th regnal year of her son-in-law Virapurushadatta, under the supervision of Ananda. A reliquary containing the tooth of Gautama Buddha (according to a local inscription) has been discovered among the ruins of the mahachaitya . According to the Buddhist tradition, the relics were brought by Mahadeva, a missionary sent by
5376-430: The construction of a Buddhist mahachaitya . The records of the later Ikshvaku kings describe Chamtamula as a great performer of the Vedic sacrifices such as Agnishtoma, Vajapeya and Ashvamedha . These descriptions are corroborated by archaeological discoveries, including those of Chamtamula's Ashvamedha-type coins, a tank used for the Avabhritha ceremony, the kurma-chiti (a tortoise-shaped sacrificial altar), and
5472-424: The construction of the Buddhist monuments at present-day Nagarjunakonda . Ancient Sanskrit texts, such as Rigveda , Atharvaveda , and Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana , mention a legendary king named Ikshvaku (literally, "gourd"). The Atharvaveda and Brahmanas associate the Ikshvakus with non-Aryan people, distinct from the Aryans who composed the hymns of the four Vedas . F. E. Pargiter has equated
5568-549: The conventional or mundane interpretation. For the Mahāsāṃghika branch of Buddhism, the ultimate meaning of the Buddha's teachings was "beyond words", and words were merely a conventional exposition of the Dharma. The Theravāda Mahāviharavasins, in contrast, argued that literal interpretations of the Buddha's teachings were best. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
5664-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
5760-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
5856-503: The eastern Krishna River valley of India, from their capital at Vijayapuri (modern Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh ) for over a century during 3rd and 4th centuries CE. The Ikshvakus are also known as the Ikshvakus of Vijayapuri to distinguish them from the Sūryavaṃśa (also known as the Ishvaku dynasty) of Hindu legend. The Ikshvaku kings were Shaivites and performed Vedic rites, but Buddhism also flourished during their reign. Several Ikshvaku queens and princes contributed to
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#17327663094055952-464: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
6048-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
6144-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
6240-435: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
6336-440: The inception of the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine. In the 6th century CE, Bhāviveka speaks of the Siddhārthikas using a Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, and the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas (Pūrvaśailas) both using a Bodhisattva Piṭaka, implying collections of Mahāyāna texts within these Caitika schools. During the same period, Avalokitavrata speaks of the Mahāsāṃghikas using a "Great Āgama Piṭaka", which is then associated with Mahāyāna sūtras such as
6432-531: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
6528-619: The last date of the Satavahana king Puloma IV, and assuming that the Ikshvaku rule began immediately after that, scholar K. Krishna Murthy assigns the following dates to the kings, based on their inscriptions: Historian Upinder Singh estimates the reigns of the Ikshvaku rulers as follows: The Ikshvakus ruled parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana . Their inscriptions have been discovered at Nagarjunakonda , Jaggayyapeta , Kottampalugu, Gurazala , Rentala, and Uppugunduru. The Ikshvaku kings are known to have performed various Vedic sacrifices. Vasishthiputra Chamtamula performed
6624-408: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
6720-419: The main Mahāsāṃghika school in the 1st or 2nd century BCE. Epigraphic evidence of the Mahāsāṃghikas in the Mathura region dates to the first century BCE, and the Śāriputraparipṛcchā Sūtra dates the formation of the Caitikas to 300 years after the Buddha. However, the ancient Buddhist sites in the lower Kṛṣṇa Valley, including Amarāvati Stupa , Nāgārjunakoṇḍā and Jaggayyapeṭa "can be traced to at least
6816-524: The mid-4th century, the Pallavas had gained controlled of the former Ikshvaku territory, and the Ikshvaku rulers may have been reduced to vassal status. Four Ikshvaku rulers are known from the inscriptions and coins discovered at Nagarjunakonda ( IAST names in bracket). The inscriptions of these kings are dated in their regnal years instead of a calendar era , so the exact dates of their reigns are uncertain. Historian K. R. Subramanian assigns Ikshvaku rule to approximately 225-340 CE. Assuming 227 CE as
6912-407: The monks of this region were Mahāsāṃghikas, and mentions the Pūrvaśailas specifically. Near Dhānyakaṭaka, he met two Mahāsāṃghika bhikṣus and studied Mahāsāṃghika abhidharma with them for several months, during which time they also studied various Mahāyāna śāstras together under Xuanzang's direction. The southern Mahāsāṃghika schools such as the Caitikas advocated the ideal of the bodhisattva ,
7008-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
7104-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
7200-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
7296-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
7392-440: The pillar of a Buddhist stupa , names him as the founder of the Ikshvaku dynasty. No information is available about Chamtamula's parents, except that his father had multiple wives and daughters. Chamtamula had two uterine brothers , named Chamtasri ( IAST : Cāṃtaśrī) and Hammasri (IAST: Hammaśrī). Chamtasri, who married Mahatalavara Skandashri of Pukiya family (he is Commander-in-chief and a feudatory), played an important role in
7488-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
7584-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
7680-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
7776-555: The reliefs of Scythian soldiers wearing caps and coats. According to an inscription in Nagarjunakonda, a garrison of Scythians guards employed by the Ikshvaku kings may also have been stationed there. His daughter Kodabalishri (IAST: Kodabaliśrī) married the ruler of the Vanavasa country (possibly the Chutu ruler of modern Banavasi ). He had two sons, Eli Ehavuladasa (whose mother was Yakhilinika) and Evuvala Chamtamula (whose mother
7872-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
7968-469: The skeleton of a horse. An inscription of the later Ikshvaku king Ehuvala Chamtamula states that Vasishthiputra Chamtamula won many battles with his valour. Chamtamula had many wives. His daughter Adavi Chamtisri (IAST: Cāṃtiśrī) married Mahasenapati Mahatalavara Dandanayaka Khamdavishakha (IAST: Khamḍaviśāakha) of the Dhanaka family. He was succeeded by his son Virapurushadatta. An inscription dated to
8064-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
8160-568: The son of Ehuvala and queen Kapanashri (Kapanaśrī), bore the titles of an heir apparent : Maharaja Kumara and Mahasenapati . However, he did not ascend the throne, probably because he died before his father. Ehuvala was succeeded by Rudrapurushadatta, who was his son from Vammabhatta, the daughter of a Mahakshatrapa (the Western Kshatrapa ruler). The Shakas (the Western Kshatrapas) appear to have greatly influenced
8256-539: The third century BCE, if not earlier." The Caitikas gave rise to the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas (also called Pūrvaśailas). Together, they comprised an important part of the Mahāsāṃghika located in South India. Two other sub-sects associated with the Caitikas include the Rājagirikas and the Siddhārthikas, both of which emerged from the Andhra region around 300 CE. The Caitikas are said to have had in their possession
8352-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
8448-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
8544-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
8640-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
8736-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
8832-703: The Āndhra country, on the Kṛṣṇa River." These Mahāsāṃghikas had two famous monasteries near the Amarāvati and the Dhānyakaṭaka, which gave their names to the schools of the Pūrvaśailas and the Aparaśailas. Each of these schools had a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra in Prakrit . Guang Xing also assesses the view of the Buddha given in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra as being that of
8928-588: The Āndhra region, where the Caitika were predominant. The Mahāyāna Mahāmegha Sūtra , for example, gives a prophecy about a royal princess of the Śatavāhana dynasty who will live in Āndhra, along the Kṛṣṇa River, in Dhānyakaṭaka, seven hundred years after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha. Several scholars such as Étienne Lamotte , and Alex and Hideko Wayman, associate the Āndra Ikṣvāku dynasty with patronage of Mahāyāna sūtras. Epigraphic evidence at Nāgārjunikoṇḍa also provides abundant evidence of royal and wealthy female donors. A number of scholars have proposed that
9024-414: Was Khamduvula, and who succeeded him on the throne). Vasishthi-putra Ehuvala Chamtamula ( IAST : Vasiṣṭhīputra Ehuvala Cāṃtamūla) also ruled for at least 24 years, and is attested by inscriptions dated to the regnal years 2, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16 and 24. The Ikshvaku kingdom reached its zenith during his reign. Several Hindu and Buddhist shrines were constructed during his reign. His Patagandigudem inscription
9120-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
9216-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
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