109-483: Bajiquan ( Chinese : 八極拳 ; pinyin : Bājíquán ) is a traditional Chinese martial art that features explosive, short-range power in close combat and is well-known for its rapid elbow and shoulder strikes. Its full name is kaimen bajiquan ( Chinese : 開門八極拳 ; pinyin : Kāimén bājíquán ; lit. 'open-gate eight-extremities boxing'). The eight extremities in Bajiquan refers to
218-469: 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
327-457: 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
436-408: A 12-man team known as the "mandarin duck formation" ( Chinese : 鴛鴦陣 ; pinyin : yuānyāng zhèn ), which consisted of 11 soldiers and one person for logistics. The mandarin duck formation was ideally symmetrical. Excluding the corporal and cook/porter, the ten remaining men could be split into two identical five-man squads. This was so that when Japanese pirates made it past the long lances,
545-510: 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
654-599: 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
763-462: 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
872-615: 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
981-714: 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
1090-475: A few years. To avoid remaining childless and ensure the continuity of his art, Wu Zhong adopted Wu Ying ( 吴溁 ; Wú Yíng ), a distant nephew of the Wu family of Mengcun. Wu Zhong transmitted all his knowledge to Wu Ying, as well as to Wu Zhongyu ( Chinese : 吴钟毓 ), another distant nephew of the Wu family of Mengcun. In 1790, at the request of his master, Wu Ying officially introduced the name " bajiquan " and he wrote
1199-540: A groundbreaking 3D fighting game . The game was hugely successful in Japan and amongst the roster was a bajiquan practitioner Akira Yuki , solidifying bajiquan' s stay in Japanese pop-culture. Bajiquan is also central to Yu Suzuki's Shenmue , a "sister" game to Virtua Fighter series. Bajiquan is featured in many manga/anime series, including Air Master , Gantz , Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple , Fist of
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#17327729902371308-403: A horn is blown the arquebusiers fire one layer. One after another, five horn tones, and five layers fire. Once this is done, listen for the tap of a drum, at which then one platoon (哨) [armed with traditional weapons] comes forward, proceeding to in front of the arquebusiers. They [the platoon members] then listen for a beat of the drum, and then the blowing of the swan-call horn, and they then give
1417-479: A man twice." Li Shuwen's students included Huo Dian Ge ( 霍殿閣 ) (bodyguard to Puyi , the last Emperor of China), Li Chenwu (bodyguard to Mao Zedong ), and Liu Yunqiao ( 劉雲樵 ) (secret agent for the nationalist Kuomintang and instructor of the Chiang Kai-shek 's bodyguards). Bajiquan has since acquired a reputation as the "bodyguard style". Ma Fengtu ( 馬鳳圖 ) and Ma Yintu ( 馬英圖 ) introduced bajiquan into
1526-576: 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
1635-437: A much smaller curriculum. Standard across almost all groups are xiaobaji and dabaji ; two weapons forms, the sabre and the spear; a two-man training routine called baji duijie or baji duida and a series of 8 short attacking methods called the " bashi " (Eight Postures), which are derived from the art of Shaolin jingang bashi . The major features of baji include elbow strikes, arm/fist punches, hip checks and strikes with
1744-662: A new art form. Yin-Yang is primarily practiced in China. Wutan-style baji is the most common lineage in the West today. Originally from Taiwan, where its founder, Liu Yunqiao, lived. This lineage includes additional arts that are taught alongside baji , such as piguaquan and baguazhang . Jian Diansheng >> Li Shuwen >> Liu Yunqiao >> Adam Hsu , Su Yuchang , and Tony Yang >> Many students in Taiwan and abroad (taught by one or more of them). Bajiquan opens
1853-414: A one-hit push-strike method from very close range. The bulk of the damage is dealt through the momentary acceleration that travels up from the waist to the limb and further magnified by the charging step known as zhenjiao . The mechanics of jin are developed through many years of practice and bajiquan is known for its strenuous lower-body training and its emphasis on the horse stance . Its horse stance
1962-399: A rake-like fashion. The name was considered to be rather crude, so it was changed to bajiquan . The term baji comes from the I Ching and signifies an "extension of all directions". In this case, it means "including everything" or "the universe". Most people believe that Bajiquan was originally known as Bazi Quan , in which bazi' means "rake." The style acquired this name because of
2071-749: A rough picture, with a follow up ploy or action, and often a boast. While a hanfull of postures are illustrated, the tone of the verses implies that the reader should already be familiar with the techniques mentioned, or that Qi had little interest in actually divulging any empty hand fighting methods in his text. Around 40 martial postures are identified in Qi's text by name. They are: Some of these techniques are preserved in modern martial arts. 15 techniques have extremely similar or exact names to those in modern-day Taijiquan, especially Chen Style. They are: Techniques: Cannon Towards Head, Goose Spreads Wings; are described in enough detail to be recognized as almost exactly
2180-542: 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
2289-508: 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
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#17327729902372398-678: 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
2507-442: A strong proponent of integrating muskets after suffering several defeats to the pirates. Qi's reconsideration of firearms in warfare led to the creation of the first well-drilled musket teams in China. Qi was also a pioneer of the musket volley fire technique, which would later be adopted throughout China and Korea. Included in the manual are several passages detailing the usage of muskets, the volley fire technique, and an estimation of
2616-481: A synthesis of functional martial arts techniques with Daoist daoyin health practices, breathing exercises, and meditation. Qi Jiguang was one of several Ming authors to document the military tactics and martial arts techniques of the era. The earliest known documentation of specific styles of Chinese martial arts were produced during the late Ming piracy crisis, as scholars and generals such as Qi and his contemporary Yu Dayou turned their attention to reversing
2725-631: 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
2834-575: 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
2943-422: A war cry and go forth and give battle. Each squad was drilled in coordinated and mutually supportive combat scenarios with clearly defined roles. Because Qi's troops were recruited from peasant stock, and were not considered the equals of their Japanese foes, Qi Jiguang emphasized the use of combined arms and squad tactics. Units were rewarded or punished collectively: an officer was executed if his entire unit fled
3052-602: 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
3161-507: Is a military manual written during the 1560s and 1580s by the Ming dynasty general Qi Jiguang . Its primary significance is in advocating for a combined arms approach to warfare using five types of infantry and two type of support. Qi Jiguang separated infantry into five separate categories: firearms, swordsmen, archers with fire arrows, ordinary archers, and spearmen. He split support crews into horse archers and artillery units. The Jixiao Xinshu
3270-518: Is also one of the earliest-existing East Asian texts to address the relevance of Chinese martial arts with respect to military training and warfare. Several contemporary martial arts styles of Qi's era are mentioned in the book, including the staff method of the Shaolin temple . In the late 16th century the military of the Ming dynasty was in poor condition. As the Mongol forces of Altan Khan raided
3379-490: 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,
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3488-554: Is extremely rare, with clearest documentation beginning circa 1920s-1930s. The first practitioner clearly identified in written history was a man named Wu Zhong ( 吴钟 ; Wú Zhōng ; 1712–1802), a member of the Hui minority and from the Wu family clan of the Mengcun region of Cangzhou , Hebei . According to the genealogical records of the Wu family, Wu Zhong's great-grandfather left the family stronghold to settle about 50 km away in
3597-537: Is higher than that of typical changquan styles. Like other styles, there is also "the arrow-bow stance", "the one-leg stance", "the empty stance" ( 虛步 ; xūbù ), "the drop stance" ( 仆步 ; pūbù ), etc. There are eight different hand poses, in addition to different types of breathing and zhenjiao . Baji focuses on being more direct, culminating in powerful, fast strikes that will render an opponent unable to continue. Even so, there are some styles that are derived from baji' s main principles or concepts on how to hit
3706-468: Is now popular in northern China and Taiwan . Later, it was introduced to Japan , South Korea , and other countries; such as the United States , Canada , Britain , France , Italy , among others. According to most common etymology, bajiquan was originally called baziquan ( 耙子拳 ; 'rake fists/boxing') because the fists, held loosely and slightly open, are used to strike downwards in
3815-603: 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
3924-445: 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
4033-668: 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
4142-524: Is the "grandfather" of many modern baji lineages. The following lineages descend from him. Tian-style is a branch which has mutual influences from Jingang Bashi—the second art practiced by Tian Jinzhong. Practitioners include Wu Xiufeng, Tian Jinzhong, and Shen Jiarui >> Zhou Jingxuan Tian-style is practiced in China and abroad. Yin Yang-style was created by Zhao Fujiang, who combined his knowledge of baji , xingyiquan and yiquan to create
4251-489: 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,
4360-501: 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
4469-500: 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
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4578-552: 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
4687-428: 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
4796-697: 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
4905-534: The Central Guoshu Institute (Nanjing Guoshu Guan 南京國術館 ) where it is required for all students. The impetus that set the spread of bajiquan throughout China was that of the Central Guoshu Institute , as a regular course common to the two training courses "Shaolin Gate" and "Wudang Gate". It all started with the establishment of " bajiquan teaching materials for group training" (団体訓練用八極拳教材). As
5014-495: The Chinese characters used to write bajiquan . Bajiquan' s impact would begin with Kenji (manga) , a manga series written by Ryuchi Matsuda and illustrated by Yoshihide Fujiwara . It follows a teenage practitioner of Bajiquan and is supposedly based on Ryuichi Matsuda's own journey in Chinese martial arts . In 1993, Yu Suzuki - who got interested in martial arts because of the manga, Kenji - would direct Virtua Fighter ,
5123-480: The Jixiao Xinshu . The first edition was written from 1560-1561 and consists of 18 chapters. It is known as the 18-chapter edition. The second edition, published in 1584 during Qi's forced retirement, included re-edited and new material compiled in 14 chapters. It is known as the 14-chapter edition. The chapters included in the 18-chapter edition are as follows: In the Jixiao Xinshu , Qi Jiguang recommended
5232-533: 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
5341-710: 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
5450-595: 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
5559-478: 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
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#17327729902375668-596: 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
5777-789: 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. Jixiao Xinshu The Jixiao Xinshu ( simplified Chinese : 纪效新书 ; traditional Chinese : 紀效新書 ; pinyin : Jìxiào xīnshū ) or New Treatise on Military Efficiency
5886-477: The Blue Sky , Undead Unluck , Love Hina , Negima! Magister Negi Magi , Beelzebub and Garōden In Japanese video games, it is featured in: Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by
5995-506: The Hui lineage of Mencun and the Han lineage of Luo. Li Shuwen (1860–1934) was considered one of the most important movers of the martial art during Qing dynasty . He was from Cangzhou ( 滄州 ), Hebei, and acquired the nickname "God of Spear Li". A Beijing opera Wu Shen (martial male character) by training, he was also an expert fighter. His most famous quote is, "I do not know what it's like to hit
6104-565: 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
6213-484: The art survived to modern times, including Han-style, Huo-style, Ji-style, Li-style, Ma-style, Qiang-style, Wu-style (from Wu Xiefeng), Wutan-style, and yin yang -style bajiquan . Each has a unique element while sharing core practices. Some lineages are more common or only exist in China , while others have spread to Western countries. Meng Village ( Mengcun ) is said to be the original birthplace of bajiquan , or at least
6322-507: The battlefield. However, he recognized its value as a form of basic training to strengthen his troops, improving their physical fitness and confidence. In 32 verses, Qi describes several empty-hand ploys from among the martial arts of the period. The descriptions of the techniques are written in verse, typically with seven characters per line, three sections per verse. These pithy descriptions rarely describe any technique in reproduceable detail. They allude to techniques rather obliquely, with
6431-591: The body are connected, either physically or spiritually. The forms of baji are divided into armed and unarmed routines. There are twenty fist forms, which include twelve baji Small Structure Fists, baji Black Tiger Fist, baji danzhai , baji danda / duida , baji luohan gong , and baji si lang kuan . There are eight weapons forms, including liuheda qiang (spear), chun yang jian (sword), san yin dao (sabre), xing zhe bang (staff), pudao , and chun qiu dadao (a long two-handed heavy blade, used by Generals sitting on their horses). Most schools focus on
6540-447: The branch of Central Guoshu Institute expanded, bajiquan became more popular and popularized. In the tradition of Ma brothers, bajiquan is believed to share roots with another Hebei martial art, piguaquan . It is said that Wu Zhong, the oldest traceable master in the bajiquan lineage, taught both arts together as an integrated fighting system. The legend has it that they eventually split apart, only to be recombined by Li Shuwen in
6649-485: The decline of the Ming military. In the late 16th century, the Japanese invasions of Korea also spurred great interest in military training methods within the Korean government. Qi Jiguang's writings were of particular interest because of his successful campaigns against Japanese pirates several decades prior. The 14-chapter edition of the Jixiao Xinshu served as a model for the oldest-known extant Korean military manual,
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#17327729902376758-399: 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
6867-484: 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
6976-398: The eight distalmost parts of the body to strike the opponent. This includes the fist, forearm, elbow, shoulder, hip, thigh, knee, and foot to deliver a powerful blow in close range. Bajiquan is also known as the " bodyguard style ", as this was the pugilism style taught and used by personal bodyguards for Mao Zedong , Chiang Kai-shek , and Puyi (the last Qing dynasty emperor). Bajiquan
7085-576: 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
7194-506: The enemy was within range, each layer would fire in succession, and afterwards a unit armed with traditional close combat weapons would move forward ahead of the musketeers. The troops would then enter into melee combat with the enemy together. Alternatively, the musketeers could be placed behind wooden stockades or other fortifications, firing and reloading continuously by turns. Once the enemy has approached to within 100-paces, listen for one's own commander (總) to fire once, and then each time
7303-614: The enemy, and if a squad leader was killed in battle, the whole squad would be put to death. The standard procedure for the procurement of weapons for a commander such as Qi Jiguang was for production quotas to be assigned by provincial officials to each local district under the commander's responsibility. The resulting weapons produced under this system varied widely in quality. Muskets in particular exploded with alarming frequency, leading Qi to eschew reliance on firearms in favor of using melee tools such as swords, rattan shields, and sharpened bamboo poles. However, later in his career Qi became
7412-558: 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
7521-526: The first martial manual of the Wu family to ensure the transmission of the family art among generations to come. Thus, bajiquan was transmitted within the Wu family who also ensured the dissemination of the style to other families in Mengcun and the surrounding villages. At first, bajiquan was transmitted mainly to the Hui people of Meng Village, but it was also transmitted to Luohan, an area where many Han people live. Eventually, it came to be divided into
7630-413: 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
7739-574: The flanks and rear. After suffering several defeats to pirates, Qi also made a recommendation for a concerted campaign to integrate musket teams into the army, based on their superior range and firepower compared to bows and arrows. Qi became enamored with the musket after his defeats and became one of the primary proponents of their use in the Ming army. He favored it for its accuracy and its ability to penetrate armor. Ideally an entire musket team would have ten musketeers, but often had four or two in practice. The optimal musket formation that Qi proposed
7848-489: The form of bajiquan . The first historical reference to bajiquan appears in military treaty called Jixiao Xinshu written by general Qi Jiguang (1528–1588). It is inferred that bajiquan may have been a well-established martial art during the 16th Century. Wu Zhong had only one child, his daughter Wu Rong ( 吴荣 ; Wú Róng ), who at the age of 30 married an expert in Changquan and stopped practicing bajiquan after
7957-491: 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
8066-618: 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
8175-471: The imperial court under Prince Xun . When he was about 60 years old, Wu Zhong returned to Mengcun where he devoted the last thirty years of his life to transmitting his fighting art, and the village became the source of the development of bajiquan . The origin of the mastery acquired by Wu Zhong remains unknown to this day, it is currently the subject of many controversies between the different branches of bajiquan . Historical documents contain two versions of
8284-525: The isolated hamlet of Houzhuangke (后庄科) in the neighboring province of Shandong . Wu Zhong is said to have been born in Houzhuangke before returning to settle with the main branch of his family in the village of Mengcun, Hebei province. Little is known of Wu Zhong, except that he quickly reached an unparalleled level in the practice of martial arts. His prowess earned him the nickname "god of the spear", as well as being recruited to serve as an instructor at
8393-586: 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
8502-414: The late 18th to early 19th century. As a testament to the complementary nature of these two styles, a proverb states: "When pigua is added to baji , gods and demons will all be terrified. When baji is added to pigua , heroes will sigh knowing they are no match against it." ( 八極參劈掛，神鬼都害怕。劈掛參八極，英雄嘆莫及 ) No historical proofs supporting this version, however, were found. Prominent branches and lineages of
8611-528: 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
8720-528: The later manual, with a preface dated to 1784, altered the text, adding a spurious claim that the history of hand combat had originated at the Shaolin Monastery. Qi's discussion of hand-to-hand combat makes no mention of a spiritual element to the martial arts, nor does it allude to breathing or qi circulation. By contrast, Chinese martial arts texts from the Ming–Qing transition onward represent
8829-475: The modern versions of the art. Baji is still widely practiced there. Bajiquan of Nanjing was introduced to the Guoshu Institute by students of Zhang Jingxing, Han Huiqing, and Ma Yingtu. Han had a great influence on the spread of baji in southern China, to the point that there was a saying bei li nan han meaning "Li [Shuwen] in the north and Han [Huachen] in the south". Wu Xiufeng (1908–1976)
8938-455: 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
9047-425: 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
9156-583: 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
9265-452: The northern frontier, China's coastline fell prey to wokou pirates, who were ostensibly Japanese in origin. Qi Jiguang was assigned to the defense of Zhejiang in 1555, where he created his own standards of military organization, equipment, tactics, training, and procedures. He published his thoughts on military techniques, tactics, and strategies in the Jixiao Xinshu after achieving several victories in battle. There are two editions of
9374-412: The number of named techniques covers only a fraction of the techniques even in early lists of Taijiquan routines, much less the latter ones. It is just as likely many techniques were simply widespread in that era. In the chapter's introduction, Qi names sixteen different fighting styles, all of which he considered to have been handed down in an incomplete fashion, "some missing the lower part, some missing
9483-624: The opponent's arms forcibly ( qiang kai men ; 強開門 ) and mount attacks at high, mid, and low levels of the body ( san pan lian ji ; 三盤連擊 ). It is most useful in close combat, as it focuses on elbow, knee, shoulder and hip strikes. When blocking an attack or nearing an opponent, bajiquan techniques emphasize striking major points of vulnerability, namely the thorax (trunk of the body), legs and neck. The "six big ways of opening" ( liu da kai ; 六大開 ) are: Footwork in bajiquan has three special features: These striking techniques are related to traditional Chinese medicine , which states that all parts of
9592-406: The opponent: Many of these forms are also based or mixed with luohanquan , a Shaolin style. The term bashi may also refer to baji . The term is also used in xingyiquan . Bajiquan is a staple in martial arts media, appearing in various movies and video games . Bajiquan has hugely impacted the Japanese pop culture. In Japanese, it is known as hakkyokuken , a Japanese reading of
9701-423: The origins of bajiquan : In any case, all sources agree on the fact that Wu Zhong traveled a lot, and that it was only at the end of his life that he devoted himself to teaching bajiquan . It is presumed that the legend of Lai and Pi simply symbolizes the martial knowledge that Wu Zhong was able to acquire throughout his life, probably from the study of the other styles of the region, and that he crystallized it in
9810-538: 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
9919-481: The percentage of firearms that would likely fail to fire. The manual provides the following description of the forging of swords: The following steps in the manufacturing process of the short sword are necessary: In Chapter 14 of the Jixiao Xinshu , this latter section known as the Quanjing Jieyao Pian , covers the subject of unarmed combat. Qi Jiguang regarded unarmed fighting as being useless on
10028-404: 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 ,
10137-552: 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
10246-509: 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
10355-408: The saber-and-shield men formed a protective screen for the vulnerable lancers. In battle, the two saber-and-shield men had different roles. The one on the right would hold the advance position of the squad, while the one on the left was to throw javelins and lure the enemy closer. The two men with multiple-tip spears would entangle the pirates while the lancers attacked them. The trident carriers guarded
10464-417: The same to this day. Others such as Single Whip, Golden Rooster, Push Mountain, Seven Star Stance, Red Fist, Beast Head Pose, are staples of several northern Chinese martial arts in general. Some theorize that modern Taijiquan started as the gambits described in the 32 Empty hand verses of Qi Jiguang being taken by Chen Wangting as the basis for his supposedly new art. There does seem to be notable overlap, but
10573-470: The shape of most of the fists used. The term bazi was later changed to baji , which means "to reach far away in all directions." This was considered a more apt and noteworthy description of the style, because it suggests the ability to achieve great things. However, this etymology is not universally accepted. Little is known about the origin of the style. Information before the Republican era of China
10682-521: The shoulder. All techniques are executed with a short power, developed through training; among Chinese martial artists, baji is known for its fast movements. Baji focuses on infighting, entering from a longer range with a distinctive charging step ( zhenjiao ). The essence of bajiquan lies in jin , or power-issuing methods, particularly fa jin (explosive power). The style contains six types of jin , eight different ways to hit and several principles of power usage. Most of bajiquan' s moves utilize
10791-517: 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
10900-511: 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
11009-623: 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
11118-547: 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
11227-730: The upper". Among the arts listed is the Shaolin staff method , which was later documented in detail in Cheng Zongyou 's Exposition of the Original Shaolin Staff Method , published around 1610. By contrast, Shaolin unarmed fighting techniques are not mentioned. The entire listing of late Ming dynasty martial arts was later copied without attribution by a manual of the Shaolin style, the Hand Combat Classic ( Quanjing quanfa beiyao ). However,
11336-512: 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
11445-452: 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
11554-517: 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
11663-453: 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,
11772-420: Was a twelve-man musket team similar to the melee mandarin duck formation. However, instead of fighting in a hand to hand formation, they operated on the principle of volley fire , which Qi pioneered prior to the publication of the first edition of the Jixiao Xinshu . The teams could be arranged in a single line, formed two layers deep with five musketeers each, or five layers deep with two muskets per layer. Once
11881-433: 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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