110-605: Dai County , also known by its Chinese name Daixian , is a county in Xinzhou , Shanxi Province , China. Its county seat at Shangguan is also known as Daixian. The county has an area of 1,729 km (668 sq mi) and had a population of 178,870 at the time of the 2020 census . The county is the home of the AAAAA-rated Yanmen Pass Scenic Area along the Great Wall , as well as
220-657: A county in 1912. This was originally under Yanmen Circuit; in 1921, it was placed directly under Shanxi's provincial government. During the Second Sino-Japanese War ( WWII ), various locations in Dai County saw action during the 1937 Battle of Xinkou . This ended in a Japanese victory but guerrilla actions continued. Following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War , Dai County
330-469: 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
440-457: 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
550-510: 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
660-599: 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
770-462: 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
880-615: 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
990-714: 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
1100-576: 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
1210-523: A second supply column the next day. This supposedly took out around 200 Japanese and "hundreds" of vehicles. The Japanese were then obliged to begin air assaults and dedicate the Ushiromiya Division to push He's men further north. Following the war, Yanmen Pass was reckoned as part of the boundary of China's " Third Front ", which was used by national authorities in planning infrastructure investment and military defenses. Yanmen Township
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#17327755508101320-542: 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
1430-508: 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
1540-678: 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
1650-631: 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
1760-575: 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
1870-602: 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
1980-528: Is a mountain pass which includes three fortified gatehouses along the Great Wall of China . The area was a strategic choke point in ancient and medieval China, controlling access between the valleys of central Shanxi and the Eurasian Steppe . This made it the scene of various important battles, extending into World War II , and the area around the gatehouses and this stretch of the Great Wall
2090-709: 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
2200-715: Is at Shangguan , with the main offices located on its East Main Street ( t 東 大街 , s 东 大街 , Dōng Dàjiē ). During the 2010 census , there were 214,091 residents in the county. Yanmenguan Township is home to the Yanmen Pass Scenic Area , a mountain pass bearing a major fortress along the Great Wall that has been given a AAAAA rating by the China National Tourism Administration . The area has been strategically important and fortified since
2310-644: Is called Dili ("Chosen Battleground"), the central gate is Yanmen proper, and the eastern gate is Tianxian ("Impregnable Fortress"). They are open to the public from 8 am to 6:30 pm. The fortifications in the Yanmen Pass form part of the defenses of the " inner line " of the Great Wall , along with the Ningwu ( t 寧武關 , s 宁武关 , Níngwǔguān ) and Pian ( t 偏關 , s 偏关 , Piānguān ) or Piantou Passes ( t 偏頭關 , s 偏头关 , Piāntóuguān ). Under
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#17327755508102420-490: 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,
2530-432: Is connected to the county seat Daixian by bus. The main fortification is about 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) outside of town, reached by walking or shuttle bus. The general inconvenience of transportation to the site means that it is less crowded than other well-known sites along the wall. The Battle of Yanmen Pass is an important moment in the Chinese legends , folktales , and plays collectively known as The Generals of
2640-581: Is now a AAAAA-rated tourist attraction . The scenic area is located just outside Yanmenguan Village in Yanmenguan Township in Dai County , Xinzhou City , Shanxi Province , China . Yanmen Pass, sometimes translated in English to Wild Goose Pass or Wildgoose Gate , is named after the wild geese who migrate through the area. Yànménguān is the pinyin romanization of
2750-521: Is now considered the Outer Great Wall , as well as a fortress overlooking Yanmen Pass in present-day Dai County. The town of Guangwu, southwest of present-day Shangguan , was established under the Zhao as well. After Qin 's conquest of Zhao in 228 BC, its Prince Jia tried to reëstablish his family's kingdom in its northern commanderies; this " Kingdom of Dai " was quickly overrun by
2860-603: 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
2970-445: 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
3080-668: 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
3190-660: Is the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese placename written as 代縣 in traditional characters and as 代县 in the simplified characters now used in mainland China . The same name was formerly written as Tai County, Tai Hsien , or Tai-hsien in the Wade-Giles system . The name was most recently bestowed in 1912, during the organization of the Republic of China . The county took its name from its predecessor Daizhou or Dai Prefecture , which had existed since AD 585. This name
3300-489: 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,
3410-501: 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
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3520-500: 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
3630-552: 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
3740-428: 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
3850-753: 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
3960-610: The Bianjing Drum Tower , the Ayuwang Pagoda , and the Zhao Gao Forest Park . As is usual in Chinese, the name "Daixian" is used for both the county as a whole and for the county seat at Shangguan . Because the English word " county " only typically describes the area, it's more common to use a transcription of the Chinese form of the name when talking about its seat of government. Dàixiàn
4070-557: The Eighth Route Army in an ambush the Imperial Japanese Army forces at Yanmen Pass on 18 October 1937 as part of the ongoing battles of Xinkou . The regiment killed 300 Japanese and destroyed 20 vehicles, then held the area as part of an attempt to cut Japanese lines of supply and communication as they pushed forward to Taiyuan . There was also a skirmish during the night of 20 October, then an assault on
4180-726: The Hengshan Range ) between the Sanggan River (or Datong ) Basin and the Hutuo River (or Xin ding ) Basin. The mountains form a natural climatic border , as well, with the Hutuo Valley's milder climate supporting rice cultivation and the Sanggan's colder and drier climate and more saline soil being less conducive to Chinese agriculture . The village of Yanmenguan is about 20 kilometers (10 mi) from
4290-533: 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
4400-583: The Loufan ( t 樓煩 , s 楼烦 , Lóufán ) and " forest nomads " ( 林 胡 , Línhú ) of the Hutuo Valley and the lands to the northwest of the Yanmen Pass , opening up to the Eurasian steppe . He organized these conquests together with Zhao-held Dai as the three commanderies of Yunzhong , Yanmen , and Dai . He protected them by erecting long earthen barricades along what
4510-533: The Mandarin pronunciation of the Chinese placename written as 雁門關 or 鴈門關 in traditional characters and as 雁门关 in the simplified characters now used in mainland China . The same name was formerly written as Yen-mên-kuan in the Wade-Giles system and as Yenmen Pass by the Chinese Post Office . Yanmen is a pass in the Gouzhu or Yanmen Mountains (a western extension of
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4620-710: 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
4730-606: The Ming and Qing , however, these were reckoned as the Outer Three Passes ( t 外三關 , s 外三关 , Wàisānguān ) based on their greater distance from the capital at Beijing , contrasted with the "Inner Three Passes" at Juyong , Zijing , and Daoma . The Zhenbian Hall is a temple to Li Mu , a Zhao general, beside the Tianxian Gate. It has also been used by local Buddhists since 1856, when
4840-595: 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
4950-873: The Song Empire prior to his death in 976, and his younger brother and successor Zhao Jiong (posthumously "Emperor Taizong", also meaning "the Great Ancestor") invaded the Northern Han in 978 and conquered it the next year. In 980, roughly 100,000 nomad horsemen of the Khitan Empire (known to the Chinese as the Liao) invaded Shanxi under their general Li Chonghui ( t 李 重 誨 , s 李 重 诲 , Lǐ Chónghuì ) and on behalf of their defeated allies. Arriving before Yanmen, Li and his men were encircled and catastrophically defeated by
5060-552: The Tang (618–907) expanded China far to its north , and allowed it to fall into disuse and decay. Following the collapse of the later Tang and its short-lived successor later Han of Five dynasties and Ten Kingdoms era, most of the lands around Shanxi were controlled from Taiyuan by Liu Chong as the Northern Han . Zhao Kuangyin (posthumously known as "Emperor Taizu" or "the Great Ancestor") unified most of China proper as
5170-676: The Warring States period , although the present works date to the 14th century during the early Ming . Other tourist attractions in Dai County include the Ayuwang or Ashoka Pagoda , a dagoba dating to the Yuan ; the Daizhou Confucian Temple ( t 代州 文廟 , s 代州 文庙 , Dàizhōu Wénmiào ); the Bianjing Drum Tower ( t 邊 靖 樓 , s 边 靖 楼 , Biānjìnglóu );
5280-670: The Yang Ancestral Hall ( t 楊 家 祠堂 , s 杨 家 祠堂 , Yángjiā Cítáng ); the Zhao Gao National Forest Park ( t 趙 杲 觀 國家 級 森林 公園 , s 赵 杲 观 国家 级 森林 公园 , Zhào Gǎo Guān Guójiā-Jí Sēnlín Gōngyuán ); and the Dongduanjing Archeological Site ( t 東 段 景 遺址 , s 东 段 景 遗址 , Dōngduànjǐng Yízhǐ ). Buses connecting
5390-796: The Yellow River but had settled in the Hutuo Valley by the 6th century BC. The Zhou state of Jin pushed sporadically northward through both invasions and bribery of the Di's ruling class until its disintegration at the end of the Spring and Autumn period . King Yong (posthumously known as the "Wuling" or "Martial-&-Numinous King") of the Jin successor state of Zhao adopted nomad-style clothing , equipment, and cavalry tactics in 307 BC; in campaigns in 306 and 304 BC overran
5500-417: The Yukou ( 峪 口 河 , Yùkǒu Hé ), the Guangou ( t 關 溝 河 , s 关 沟 河 , Guāngōu Hé ), and the Qili ( 七 里 河 , Qīlǐ Hé ). The highest points are the Heige Tajian ( 黑 圪 塔 尖 , Hēigē Tǎjiān ; 2,548 m or 8,360 ft) and Mantou Mountain ( t 饅頭 山 , s 馒头 山 , Mántoushān ; 2,426 m or 7,959 ft). Parts of
5610-410: The commanderies of Yunzhong , Yanmen , and Dai and, by around 300 BC, had begun erecting earthen defensive works to protect his new holdings from other nomads from the Eurasian steppelands . Although Zhao's Yanmen Commandery was named after the pass, whose premodern importance for accessing the valleys of central Shanxi caused it to be scene of many battles throughout Chinese history ,
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#17327755508105720-437: The early Han Dynasty , his clan had grown rich through herding and trading thousands of heads of cattle and horses, to the point that they may have formed a microstate of their own. The example of their success encouraged greater Chinese settlement of the frontier around Yanmen. The markets were not always safe: In the fall of 129 BC, 40,000 horsemen of the Han Empire massacred the Xiongnu trading at markets along
5830-405: The monk Shan Quan began holding services there. There is a temple to Guan Yu , the Chinese god of war , beside the Dili Gate. There was also a frontier market between Yanmenguan Village and the Dili Gate. A flagstone path called "Frontier Trade Street" continues to be lined with hostels and various shops for tourists. Statues of the generals of the Yang Clan line one of the pathways of
5940-423: 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
6050-542: 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
6160-441: The "Jing" or "Silent Emperor"), refortified the wall between Yanmen and Jieshi in 579 to protect Northern China from the Blue Turks and the Khitans . Upon Yuwen Chan's death in 580, his father-in-law Yang Jian seized power, eventually declaring himself the first emperor of the Sui . The Sui (581–618) rulers regarded the Great Wall as an essential line of defense and ordered large-scale repairs 7 times, but their successors
6270-701: 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. Yanmen Pass Yanmen Pass , also known by its Chinese name Yanmenguan and as Xixingguan ,
6380-478: The 220s BC; after the fall of Qin , there was a Dai among Xiang Yu 's Eighteen Kingdoms and the Han Empire 's princely appanages. These included the commanderies of Yunzhong and Yanmen in northern Shanxi along with the old Dai homeland in northwestern Hebei, spreading the name westward into Shanxi. The earlier name for the county had been Guangwu ("Broad-&-Martial"), with its eponymous county seat located southwest of present-day Shangguan. It
6490-490: 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
6600-468: The Qin general Wang Ben in 222 BC, just prior to the reunification of China . Under the First Emperor 's rule, an administrative overhaul abolished China's former states and provinces, making the relatively small commanderies the highest level of regional government. Zhao's former holdings in northern Shanxi west of Mount Heng formed Qin's Yanmen Commandery , with its seat at Shanwu in present-day Youyu County . The frontier walls of
6710-408: The Song generals Yang Ye and Pan Mei outside the fortress at Baicao Lingkou. The victory killed the Khitan emperor 's brother-in-law Xiao Chuoli ( t 蕭 啜 裏 , s 萧 啜 里 , Xiāo Chuòlǐ ), won Song innumerable horses and war equipment, and secured its new conquests and northern border. Under the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty , the great khan nominally controlled
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#17327755508106820-433: The area. In 127 BC, the Xiongnu defeated and killed the governor of Liaoxi ; Han Anguo ( t 韓 安 國 , s 韩 安 国 , Hán Ānguó ) tried to hold them near Yanmen with 700 men but was defeated and forced to withdraw to Yuyang . Wei Qing and Li Xi returned to the area in force, capturing some Xiongnu and forcing the rest to withdraw beyond the frontier. The Ban clan ultimately left
6930-411: The chains belonging to Mount Heng to the north and Mount Wutai to the east also reach Dai County. Present-day Dai County lies to north of the historic heartland of ancient Chinese civilization in the Fen , Wei , and Yellow River valleys. The Chinese knew their northern neighbors as the Di or "Northern Barbarians ". The " White Di " ( Baidi ) are recorded originating in north Shaanxi west of
7040-402: The city, with four gates and a 20-foot (6 m) deep moat . Daizhou was the site of a Protestant mission run by the Baptist Missionary Society . The nascent Christian community was, however, devastated in 1900 by the Boxer Rebellion and subsequently by the memory of its powerlessness to defend itself. Following the Xinhai Revolution , the Republic of China reorganized Dai Prefecture as
7150-576: The county seat Shangguan (Daixian) and about 180 kilometers (110 mi) northeast of the provincial capital Taiyuan . Once far distant, it now lies near the outskirts of the expanding metropolis of Datong to its northeast. King Yong of Zhao (posthumously known as the "Wuling" or "Martial-and-Numinous King") invaded and conquered the lands of the Loufan ( t 樓煩 , s 楼烦 , Lóufán ) and " forest nomads " ( 林 胡 , Línhú ) tribes of modern northern Shanxi in 306 and 304 BC. He organized these conquests as
7260-425: The county seat Daixian to the East Passenger Station of the provincial capital Taiyuan run about every 30 minutes. Daixian is also connected by daily buses running to Datong 's Xinnan Passenger Station. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
7370-399: 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
7480-484: 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
7590-402: The district had 36,234 people living in 9,259 households in AD 639 and 100,350 living in 21,280 households in 742. From 1369 until about 1375, under the early Ming , Dai Prefecture was briefly reorganized as a county . It was during this time that the present fortifications at Yanmen Pass were constructed, and the earthen walls at Shangguan were given a brick façade. Dai Prefecture
7700-464: 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
7810-420: The event built animosity in the Chinese army ahead of the collapse of the Sui . Dai Prefecture was reëstablished under the Tang , who made it part of their Hedong Circuit . In the spring of 623, the Eastern Turkish Jiali Khan and the Chinese rebels Gao Kaidao and Yuan Junzhang ( 苑 君 璋 , Yuan Jūnzhāng ) jointly besieged the Tang fortress there but were unable to take it. Chinese censuses recorded
7920-413: 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
8030-491: 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
8140-611: The former states, including Zhao's , were merged into the first form of the Great Wall of China . Guangwu was promoted to the seat of its own county, overseeing the parts of present-day Dai County in the Hutuo Valley. This was part of the Taiyuan Commandery under the Qin and Western Han , when it was part of the province of Bingzhou . Under the Eastern Han and Wei , the area was part of Yanmen Commandery , whose seat
8250-459: The frontier; (The heavy defeats of Li Guang and Gongsun Ao near Yanmen, however, had them narrowly escape execution through the payment of large fines and their demotion to common status.) The next year or the year after, Wei Qing and 30,000 men rode north from Yanmen and defeated the Xiongnu left in the area, taking control of the entire Ordos Loop . 100,000 Chinese were sent to colonize
8360-618: 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
8470-571: The inimical Northern Zhou . As with the later Ming Great Wall , the Northern Qi's Yanmen wall formed an inner line of defense; it was repaired and expanded in 565. Despite its strong defenses, the state itself fell into chaos and was consumed by the Northern Zhou in the late 570s. The retired emperor Yuwen Chan (posthumously known as the "Xuan" or "Responsible Emperor"), acting on behalf of his young successor Yuwen Yun (posthumously
8580-586: 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
8690-528: 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
8800-455: 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
8910-425: 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
9020-583: 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
9130-538: 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
9240-579: The peoples on both sides of the wall and its fortifications were fallen into disrepair. Under the Ming , it was reconstructed as part of the Inner Great Wall in 1374 and these are the defensive works seen today. It is one of the few stone stretches of the wall left in Shanxi. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (the Chinese theater of World War II ), He Bingyan led the 716th Regiment of his 358th Brigade of He Long 's 120th Division of
9350-543: The ramparts raised under King Yong did not run through it but along the northern extent of his territory closer to today Hohhot in Inner Mongolia . Yanmen itself was defended, but by a fort and garrison on a local hill. At some point during the reign of the First Emperor of Qin (221–210 BC), a Chu noble named Ban Yi ( 斑 or 班 壹 , Bān Yī ) fled north to the Loufan near Yanmen. By
9460-404: 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 ,
9570-552: 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
9680-509: 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
9790-556: The site. The ruins of Guangwu , the former county seat for the area, are nearby. Its remains include Han-era tombs in mounds 2–10 meters (6 ft 7 in – 32 ft 10 in) high. They were excavated by Japanese archaeologists in the early 20th century and have been studied by the Chinese in the 1980s; a tomb robber around that time was caught and exposed that the mounds were not for local elites but for group burial in urns . The Datong–Yuncheng Expressway runs through part of Yanmen Pass. The village of Yanmenguan
9900-517: 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
10010-511: 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
10120-587: The south and Datong to the north, with the Yanmen Pass forming a natural choke point which once controlled access to central Shanxi from the Eurasian Steppe . (The pass is still used by the G208 , although the larger Erguang Expressway now passes to its west.) The main river is the Hutuo . Its principal tributaries within the county are the E ( 峨 河 , É Hé ), the Zhongjie ( 中 解 河 , Zhōngjiě Hé ),
10230-519: 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
10340-547: 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
10450-593: The tumultuous area and used their accumulated wealth to rise to prominence among the officials of the Eastern Han by the 1st century AD. A line of the Great Wall was finally built through the pass by the Northern Qi in AD 557. It was part of a massive public works project involving more than 1.8 million laborers ordered by the emperor Gao Yang (posthumously known as the "Wenxuan" or "Civil-&-Responsible Emperor"), intended to protect his realm from
10560-512: 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
10670-452: 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
10780-465: 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
10890-453: 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,
11000-683: Was abolished under the Yuan . The town was also briefly known as Sizhou under the Northern Zhou and early Sui after Si Prefecture was relocated to Shangguan in 579 from its original seat northwest of Xinzhou . Present day villages of New Guangwu and Old Guangwu along with the Guangwu section of the Great Wall are located in adjacent Shanyin County . Dai County's present territory covers 1,729 square kilometers (668 sq mi). It lies in northeastern Shanxi Province between Taiyuan to
11110-429: Was administered under the Ming and early Qing as part of the circuits of Yanmen ( t 雁門 道 or 鴈門 道 , s 雁门 道 , Yànmén Dào ) or Yanping ( 雁 平 道 , Yànpíng Dào ), but it was directly administered by the provincial government after 1724 until near the end of the dynasty, when it was returned to Yanping Circuit. During the early 20th century, the Ming wall still surrounded
11220-641: Was also first constructed under the Sui , but suffered repeated fires; the present Tibetan-style dagoba dates to the Yuan . The town was also known as Yanmen during this period, as it was the seat of the Yanmen Commandery . On 11 September 615, the Sui emperor Yang Guang (posthumously known as the Yang or Lazy Emperor) was besieged there by the Eastern Turkish ( Tujue ) leader Shibi Khan , who
11330-552: Was also known as Yanmen (after the nearby pass ) once the seat of Yanmen Commandery was moved to Guangwu from Yinguan (near present-day Shuozhou , Shanxi ) under the Kingdom of Wei during China's Three Kingdoms period . These names followed the posts when they moved to Shangguan under the Northern Wei . It ceased to be called Guangwu in 589 at the creation of Yanmen County; it ceased to be called Yanmen after that county
11440-540: Was angry about Chinese efforts to weaken and divide his realm. In his distress, Yang Guang promised promotions and rewards to the garrison and those who might rescue him. Credit became muddled, however, when the khan's Chinese wife Princess Yicheng responded to his pleas by sending a false report to her husband about an attack on the Turkish homeland. After the Turks withdrew, the emperor chose to renege on most of his promises;
11550-426: Was at Mayi (present-day Shuozhou ). The county seat of Guangwu moved to what is now Shangguan under the Northern Wei . An earthen wall 8 li in circumference was raised to protect the town. It became the seat of Dai Prefecture in 585 during the Sui , eventually taking its name as Daizhou. The prefecture covered parts of the present-day counties of Dai, Fanshi , Wutai , and Yuanping . The Ayuwang Pagoda
11660-593: Was based in the former capital of the Beidi Kingdom of Dai . That city's native name was transcribed using the character 代 , now read dài in Mandarin but with an Old Chinese pronunciation that has been reconstructed as /*lˤək-s/ . It became known as Daixian as well but was near present-day Yuzhou in Hebei . Its name was used for the rump kingdom of Zhao established by Prince Jia to oppose Qin in
11770-562: Was created in 2001 from the merger of parts of some of Dai County's smaller settlements, particularly Shangtian and Baicaokou . The Yanmen Pass Scenic Area was named a AAAAA attraction by the China National Tourism Administration in 2017. Yanmenguan Township oversees Yanmenguan and 27 other villages : Yanmen was formerly reckoned as the first of the "Nine Passes under Heaven ". The preserved Ming fortifications are about 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) long and 4 meters (13 ft) high. It includes three fortified gatehouses. The western gate
11880-528: Was formerly written as Tai Chou or Tai-chou in Wade-Giles and as Taichow or Taichow Sha by the now abandoned Chinese postal romanization system . Daizhou had taken its name from the recently abolished Dai Commandery , despite having never been part of it or the seat of the earlier "Dai" regions. Dai Commandery had been created by the Zhou state of Zhao to organize its northeastern conquests and
11990-485: 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
12100-768: Was placed under Xinzhou Prefecture . In 1958, it was merged with Fanshi County , but this arrangement was ended in 1961. In 2001, the county seat Chengguan ( t 城關 鎮 , s 城关 镇 , Chéngguānzhèn ) changed its name to Shangguan and some of Dai County's smaller townships were merged to form larger units. Shangtian and Baicaokou merged to form Yanmenguan ; Bata joined Tanshang ; Xijiao joined Nieying ; Jiaokou joined Xingao ; Fenshuiling joined Huyu ; and Hujiatan joined Shangmofang . Since 2001, Dai County has been divided into six towns and five townships : These 11 township-level divisions are in turn divided into eight residential communities and 377 villages (2015) . The county seat
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