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159-509: The Xiongnu ( Chinese : 匈奴 , [ɕjʊ́ŋ.nǔ] ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources , inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu , the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire . After overthrowing their previous overlords, the Yuezhi ,

318-547: 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

477-722: A military campaign against the Xiongnu. Meng Tian defeated the Xiongnu and expelled them from the Ordos loop , forcing Touman and the Xiongnu to flee north into the Mongolian Plateau . In 210 BC, Meng Tian died, and in 209 BC, Touman's son Modu became the Xiongnu Chanyu . In order to protect the Xiongnu from the threat of the Qin dynasty , Modu Chanyu united the Xiongnu into a powerful confederation . This transformed

636-469: 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

795-457: 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

954-591: A "Huyan King" (呼衍王) continued to resist. The Huyan King was last mentioned in 151 when he launched an attack on Yiwu but was driven away by Han forces. According to the fifth-century Book of Wei , the remnants of Northern Chanyu's tribe settled as Yueban (悅般), near Kucha and subjugated the Wusun ; while the rest fled across the Altai mountains towards Kangju in Transoxania . It states that this group later became

1113-415: A Chanyu died, power could pass to his younger brother if his son was not of age. This system, which can be compared to Gaelic tanistry , normally kept an adult male on the throne, but could cause trouble in later generations when there were several lineages that might claim the throne. When the 12th Chanyu died in 60 BC, power was taken by Woyanqudi , a grandson of the 12th Chanyu's cousin. Being something of

1272-510: 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

1431-599: 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

1590-534: A brother to Tuqi set himself up as Chanyu and was killed by Zhizhi. In 36 BC, Zhizhi was killed by a Chinese army while trying to establish a new kingdom in the far west near Lake Balkhash . In 53 BC Huhanye (呼韓邪) decided to enter into tributary relations with Han China . The original terms insisted on by the Han court were that, first, the Chanyu or his representatives should come to the capital to pay homage; secondly,

1749-462: 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

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1908-615: 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

2067-714: 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

2226-523: A dualistic system of political organisation with the left and right branches of the Xiongnu divided on a regional basis. The chanyu or shanyu , a ruler equivalent to the Emperor of China , exercised direct authority over the central territory. Longcheng (around the Khangai Mountains , Otuken ) ( Chinese : 龍城; Mongolian : Luut; lit. "Dragon City") became the annual meeting place and served as

2385-537: A family cache found in western Shaanxi, was cast in the reign of King Gong by the latest in a family of scribes descended from a scribe brought to Shaanxi after the conquest. The lengthy inscription, summarizing the history of the Zhou and that of the Wei ( 微 ) family, begins: Accordant with antiquity was King Wen! (He) first brought harmony to government. The Lord on High sent down fine virtue and great security. Extending to

2544-658: A major defeat to the Xianbei, who killed their chanyu Youliu and took his skin as a trophy. With the Northern Xiongnu in disarray, the Han general, Dou Xian launched an expedition and crushed them at the Battle of Ikh Bayan in 89. After another Han attack in 91, the Northern Chanyu fled with his followers to the northwest, never to be seen again, while the Northern Xiongnu that remained behind surrendered to

2703-713: A marquis of the Xubu clan as the new chanyu , but after his death, an elderly nominal king was put in his place. The cohesion of the Southern Xiongnu began to erode, and while the other tribes appear to distant themselves from the ongoing Han civil war, the Xiuchuge stayed on the offensive. In the 190s, the Xiuchuge allied themselves with the Heishan bandits of the Taihang Mountains before retreating west as

2862-419: A military campaign against Modu Chanyu . At the Battle of Baideng , he was ambushed, reputedly by Xiongnu cavalry. The emperor was cut off from supplies and reinforcements for seven days, only narrowly escaping capture. The Han dynasty sent random unrelated commoner women falsely labeled as "princesses" and members of the Han imperial family multiple times when they were practicing Heqin marriage alliances with

3021-576: 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

3180-515: A role in defeating the Northern Xiongnu. However, with the decline of their northern counterpart, the Southern Xiongnu continued to suffer the brunt of raids, this time by the Xianbei people of the steppe. In addition to the poor living conditions of the frontiers, the Chinese court would also interfere in the Southern Xiongnu's politics and install chanyu s loyal to the Han. As a result, the Southern Xiongnu often rebelled, at times joining forces with

3339-452: A royal tomb in the early 3rd century BC and recovered in the late 3rd century AD, but lost before the Song dynasty . Two versions exist today: an "ancient text" assembled from quotations in other works and a fuller "current text" that Qian Daxin pronounced a forgery but some scholars believe contains authentic material. The standard account is found in the "Basic Annals of Zhou", chapter 4 of

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3498-542: 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

3657-508: 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

3816-521: A surprise attack on the Xiongnu at the border markets. In 127 BC, the Han general Wei Qing retook the Ordos. In 121 BC, the Xiongnu suffered another setback when Huo Qubing led a force of light cavalry westward out of Longxi and within six days fought his way through five Xiongnu kingdoms. The Xiongnu Hunye king was forced to surrender with 40,000 men. In 119 BC both Huo and Wei, each leading 50,000 cavalrymen and 100,000 footsoldiers (in order to keep up with

3975-631: 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

4134-426: A usurper, he tried to put his own men in power, which only increased the number of his enemies. The 12th Chanyu's son fled east and, in 58 BC, revolted. Few would support Woyanqudi and he was driven to suicide, leaving the rebel son, Huhanye , as the 14th Chanyu. The Woyanqudi faction then set up his brother, Tuqi, as Chanyu (58 BC). In 57 BC three more men declared themselves Chanyu. Two dropped their claims in favor of

4293-575: 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

4452-602: 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

4611-490: 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,

4770-603: 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

4929-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

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5088-668: 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

5247-489: 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,

5406-501: 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

5565-500: 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

5724-552: 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

5883-515: Is varied and complex, but no material culture comparable to the dynastic Zhou has been found. Archaeologists searching for the predynastic Zhou have focused on the Qishan area, which is mentioned in early texts and was a key ritual centre of the Western Zhou. Two different pottery types are found in this area, and archaeologists differ on whether one or the other group of people, or a mixture of

6042-428: 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

6201-523: The Book of Odes and the Book of Documents , are believed to date from the Western Zhou period. The Book of Odes is a collection of songs, traditionally divided as 160 State Airs, 105 Court Songs (Major and Minor) and 40 Hymns (Zhou, Lu and Song), set to melodies that have since been lost. Most specialists agree that the Zhou Hymns date to the Western Zhou, followed by the Court Songs and

6360-669: The Historical Records compiled by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian . Most scholars divide the Western Zhou into early, middle and late periods, which also correspond roughly to stylistic changes in bronze vessels. The Han historian Sima Qian felt unable to extend his chronological table beyond 841 BC, the first year of the Gonghe Regency , and there is still no accepted chronology of Chinese history before that point. The Cambridge History of Ancient China used dates determined by Edward L. Shaughnessy from

6519-753: 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

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6678-590: The Altay Mountains , Kazakhstan and nearby Mongolia . To the south, the Ordos culture had developed in the Ordos Loop (modern Inner Mongolia , China ) during the Bronze and early Iron Age from the 6th to 2nd centuries BC, and is of unknown ethno-linguistic origin, and is thought to represent the easternmost extension of Indo-European-speakers. The Yuezhi were displaced by the Xiongnu expansion in

6837-407: The Chanyu should send a hostage prince; and thirdly, the Chanyu should present tribute to the Han emperor. The political status of the Xiongnu in the Chinese world order was reduced from that of a "brotherly state" to that of an "outer vassal" (外臣). Huhanye sent his son, the "wise king of the right" Shuloujutang, to the Han court as hostage. In 51 BC he personally visited Chang'an to pay homage to

6996-626: 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 a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in

7155-470: The Han dynasty in a centuries-long conflict , which led to the confederation splitting in two, and forcible resettlement of large numbers of Xiongnu within Han borders. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era, listed as one of the " Five Barbarians ", their descendants founded the dynastic states of Han-Zhao , Northern Liang and Helian Xia in northern China. Attempts to associate the Xiongnu with

7314-459: The Hephthalites . Coincidentally, the Southern Xiongnu were plagued by natural disasters and misfortunes—in addition to the threat posed by Punu. Consequently, in 50 AD, the Southern Xiongnu submitted to tributary relations with Han China. The system of tribute was considerably tightened by the Han, to keep the Southern Xiongnu under control. The chanyu was ordered to establish his court in

7473-533: 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

7632-723: The Laoshang Chanyu (and older sister of Junchen Chanyu and Yizhixie Chanyu) was married to the Xiongnu General Zhao Xin , the Marquis of Xi who was serving the Han dynasty. The daughter of Qiedihou Chanyu was married to the Han Chinese General Li Ling after he surrendered and defected. Another Han Chinese General who defected to the Xiongnu was Li Guangli , general in the War of

7791-710: 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

7950-595: 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

8109-533: The Qin ty . Qin's campaign against the Xiongnu expanded Qin's territory at the expense of the Xiongnu. After the unification of Qin dynasty, Xiongnu was a threat to the northern board of Qin. They were likely to attack the Qin dynasty when they suffered natural disasters. The first known Xiongnu leader was Touman , who reigned between 220-209 BC. In 215 BC, Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang sent General Meng Tian on

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8268-648: The War of the Heavenly Horses against the Kingdom of Dayuan . As a result, the Han gained many Ferghana horses which further aided them in their battle against the Xiongnu. As a result of these battles, the Han Empire controlled the strategic region from the Ordos and Gansu corridor to Lop Nor . They succeeded in separating the Xiongnu from the Qiang peoples to the south, and also gained direct access to

8427-621: The Western Regions and launched raids on the Han borders. In 73, the Han responded by sending Dou Gu and Geng Chong to lead a great expedition against the Northern Xiongnu in the Tarim Basin . The expedition, which saw the exploits of the general, Ban Chao , was initially successful, but the Han soon had to temporarily withdraw due to matters back home in 75. For the next decade, the Northern Xiongnu had to endure famines largely in part due to locust plagues. In 87, they suffered

8586-577: The Western Regions . Because of strong Han control over the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu became unstable and were no longer a threat to the Han Empire. Ban Chao , Protector General (都護; Duhu ) of the Han dynasty, embarked with an army of 70,000 soldiers in a campaign against the Xiongnu remnants who were harassing the trade route now known as the Silk Road . His successful military campaign saw the subjugation of one Xiongnu tribe after another. Ban Chao also sent an envoy named Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). Ban Chao

8745-620: The Wuhuan and receiving support from the Xianbei. Meanwhile, the Xiuchuge people, a branch of Xiongnu within China not attached to the Southern Xiongnu, was gaining momentum during the mid-2nd century. During the late 2nd century AD, the Southern Xiongnu were drawn into the rebellions then plaguing the Han court. In 188, the chanyu sent troops to help the Han suppress a rebellion in Hebei —many of

8904-594: The Xirong , Shanrong or Quanrong . These tribes are recorded as harassing Zhou territory, but at the time the Zhou were expanding northwards, encroaching on their traditional lands, especially into the Wei River valley . Archaeologically, the Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the Siwa culture . The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital of Haojing and killing

9063-423: 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

9222-542: 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

9381-497: The "Old Script" chapters are post-Han forgeries, but many of the remaining "Modern Script" chapters were written long after the periods they purport to represent. The five "announcement" (or "proclamation") chapters use the most archaic language, similar to that of bronze inscriptions, and are thought to have been recorded close to the events of the early Western Zhou reigns they describe. Four more chapters, "Catalpa Timbers", "Many Officers", "Take No Ease" and "Many Regions", are set in

9540-414: The "current text" Bamboo Annals and bronze inscriptions. In 2000, the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project produced a schedule of dates based on received texts, bronze inscriptions, radiocarbon dating and astronomical events. However, several bronze inscriptions discovered since then are inconsistent with the project's dates. The origins of the Zhou are obscure. The archaeology of pre-conquest Wei valley

9699-643: 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. Western Zhou The early Zhou state

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9858-404: The 2nd century BC, and had to migrate to Central and Southern Asia. Western Han historian Sima Qian composed an early yet detailed exposition on the Xiongnu in one liezhuan (arrayed account) of his Records of the Grand Historian ( c.  100 BC), wherein the Xiongnu were alleged to be descendants of a certain Chunwei , who in turn descended from the "lineage of Lord Xia", a.k.a. Yu

10017-413: The 3rd century BC. Genetic research indicates that the Slab Grave people were the primary ancestors of the Xiongnu, and that the Xiongnu formed through substantial and complex admixture with West Eurasians. During the Western Zhou (1045–771 BC), there were numerous conflicts with nomadic tribes from the north and the northwest, variously known as the Xianyun , Guifang , or various "Rong" tribes, such as

10176-442: The Chinese general Li Ling , grandson of the famous Han dynasty general Li Guang . Li Ling was captured by the Xiongnu and defected in the first century BCE. And since the Tang royal Li family also claimed descent from Li Guang, the Kirghiz Khagan was therefore recognized as a member of the Tang Imperial family. This relationship soothed the relationship when Kyrgyz khagan Are (阿熱) invaded Uyghur Khaganate and put Qasar Qaghan to

10335-503: The Great . Even so, Sima Qian also drew a distinct line between the settled Huaxia people (Han) to the pastoral nomads (Xiongnu), characterizing them as two polar groups in the sense of a civilization versus an uncivilized society: the Hua–Yi distinction . Sima Qian also mentioned Xiongnu's early appearance north of Wild Goose Gate and Dai commanderies before 265 BCE, just before the Zhao-Xiongnu War ; however, sinologist Edwin Pulleyblank (1994) contends that pre-241-BCE references to

10494-403: The Han court with tribute. But having failed to pay homage personally, he was never admitted to the tributary system. In 36 BC, a junior officer named Chen Tang , with the help of Gan Yanshou, protector-general of the Western Regions, assembled an expeditionary force that defeated him at the Battle of Zhizhi and sent his head as a trophy to Chang'an. Tributary relations were discontinued during

10653-492: The Han court, but at this time the Han court was in disorder from the clash between Grand General He Jin and the eunuchs, and the intervention of the warlord Dong Zhuo . The chanyu had no choice but to settle down with his followers around Pingyang , south of the Fen River in Shanxi . In 195, he died and was succeeded as chanyu by his brother Huchuquan . North of the Fen River, the rebels prevented Yufuluo and his family from returning to their home. They initially elected

10812-400: The Han envoys did not remove their tallies of authority, and if they did not allow their faces to be tattooed, they could not gain entrance into the yurts. Wang Wu and his company removed their tallies, submitted to tattoo, and thus gained entry. The Shanyu looked upon them very highly. The ruler of the Xiongnu was called the Chanyu . Under him were the Tuqi Kings . The Tuqi King of the Left

10971-403: The Han. In 94, dissatisfied with the newly appointed chanyu, the surrendered Northern Xiongnu rebelled and acclaimed Fenghou as their chanyu, who led them to flee outside the border. However, the separatist regime continued to face famines and the growing threat of the Xianbei, prompting 10,000 of them to return to Han in 96. Fenghou later sent envoys to Han intending to submit as a vassal but

11130-400: The Heavenly Horses , who also married a daughter of the Hulugu Chanyu. The Han Chinese diplomat Su Wu married a Xiongnu woman given by Li Ling when he was arrested and taken captive. Han Chinese explorer Zhang Qian married a Xiongnu woman and had a child with her when he was taken captive by the Xiongnu. The Yenisei Kyrgyz khagans of the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate claimed descent from

11289-427: The Hu proper, yet elsewhere he considered Xiongnu to be also Hu. Ancient China often came in contact with the Xianyun and the Xirong nomadic peoples. In later Chinese historiography, some groups of these peoples were believed to be the possible progenitors of the Xiongnu people. These nomadic people often had repeated military confrontations with the Shang and especially the Zhou , who often conquered and enslaved

11448-711: The Huns and/or the Huna , although this is disputed. Other linguistic links—all of them also controversial—proposed by scholars include Turkic , Iranian , Mongolic , Uralic , Yeniseian , or multi-ethnic. The pronunciation of 匈奴 as Xiōngnú [ɕjʊ́ŋnǔ] is the modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, from the Mandarin dialect spoken now in Beijing, which came into existence less than 1,000 years ago. The Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as * xiuoŋ-na or * qhoŋna . Sinologist Axel Schuessler (2014) reconstructs

11607-544: The Late Shang practice of inscribing bronze vessels to create lengthy texts recording the accomplishments of their owners and honours bestowed on them by the king. The inscriptions also show that the Zhou had adopted Shang ancestor ritual. This adoption of Shang features suggests an effort to legitimate Zhou rule. However, the Zhou did not adopt human sacrifice, which was so extensive in the Late Shang, or even mention it in any of their texts. The Shi Qiang pan , part of

11766-565: 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

11925-455: The Meiji district of Xihe Commandery and the Southern Xiongnu were resettled in eight frontier commanderies. At the same time, large numbers of Chinese were also resettled in these commanderies, in mixed Han-Xiongnu settlements. Economically, the Southern Xiongnu became reliant on trade with the Han. The Southern Xiongnu served as auxillaries to defend the northern borders for the Han and played

12084-542: The Northern Chanyu . In 49 AD, the Northern Xiongnu was dealt a heavy defeat to the Southern Xiongnu. That same year, Zhai Tong , a Han governor of Liaodong also enticed the Wuhuan and Xianbei into attacking the Northern Xiongnu. Soon, Punu began sending envoys on several separate occasions to negotiate peace with the Han dynasty, but made little to no progress. In the 60s, the Northern Xiongnu resumed hostilities as they attempted to expand their influence into

12243-509: The Ordos region, late in the reign of King Kang. This phase of expansion came to an end in a disastrous southern campaign in the Han River region, in which King Zhao lost his armies and his own life. During the reign of King Mu , the Zhou state shifted to the defensive, particularly in the east. The Bamboo Annals records a campaign against the Xu Rong , who had to be driven back from

12402-473: The Qin general Meng Tian. Under Modu's leadership, the Xiongnu became so strong that they began to threaten the Han dynasty. In 200 BC, Modu besieged the first Han dynasty emperor Gaozu (Gao-Di) with his 320,000-strong army at Peteng Fortress in Baideng (present-day Datong, Shanxi). Gaozu (Gao-Di) after agreed to all Modu's terms, such as ceding the northern provinces to the Xiongnu and paying annual taxes, he

12561-534: The State Airs. The Airs are said to have been collected from throughout the Western Zhou domains, but have a consistency and elegance that suggests that they were polished by the literati of the Zhou court. The Book of Documents is a collection of formal speeches presented as spanning two millennia from the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the Spring and Autumn period . Most scholars agree that

12720-552: The Wei valley to the Nanyang basin and sought to inprove relations with distant Zhou states in the northeast and east. At the same time, the king also had to contend with succession struggles in some of the old Zhou states. According to received texts, King You 's reign began with ominous portents. The texts, as well as some of the Minor Court Songs, hint at factional struggles within the Zhou court. In his 11th year,

12879-457: The Wei valley. King Wen left two or three of his brothers (depending on the source) to oversee the former Shang domains, nominally ruled by Wu Geng , the son of the last Shang king. King Wu died two or three years after the conquest, triggering a crisis of the young state. According to the traditional histories, one of King Wu's brothers, the Duke of Zhou declared himself regent for King Wu's son,

13038-514: The Xiongnu are anachronistic substitutions for the Hu people instead. Sometimes the Xiongnu were distinguished from other nomadic peoples; namely, the Hu people ; yet on other occasions, Chinese sources often just classified the Xiongnu as a Hu people , which was a blanket term for nomadic people . Even Sima Qian was inconsistent: in the chapter "Hereditary House of Zhao", he considered the Donghu to be

13197-399: The Xiongnu became the dominant power on the steppes of East Asia , centred on the Mongolian Plateau . The Xiongnu were also active in areas now part of Siberia , Inner Mongolia , Gansu and Xinjiang . Their relations with adjacent Chinese dynasties to the south-east were complex—alternating between various periods of peace, war, and subjugation. Ultimately, the Xiongnu were defeated by

13356-613: The Xiongnu capital. The ruins of Longcheng were found south of Ulziit District, Arkhangai Province in 2017. North of Shanxi with the Tuqi King of the Left was holding the area north of Beijing and the Tuqi King of the Right was holding the Ordos Loop area as far as Gansu . When the Xiongnu had been driven north, to today's Mongolia. In the winter of 200 BC, following a Xiongnu siege of Taiyuan , Emperor Gaozu of Han personally led

13515-730: The Xiongnu empire in all directions. To the north he conquered a number of nomadic peoples, including the Dingling of southern Siberia. He crushed the power of the Donghu people of eastern Mongolia and Manchuria as well as the Yuezhi in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu , where his son, Jizhu, made a skull cup out of the Yuezhi king. Modu also retook the original homeland of Xiongnu on the Yellow River , which had previously been taken by

13674-527: The Xiongnu feared that it would set a precedent for unending military service to the Han court. At the time, the Xiuchuge had rebel in Bing province and kill the Chinese provincial inspector. The rebellious faction among the Southern Xiongnu allied with the Xiuchuge and killed their chanyu as well. His son Yufuluo , entitled Chizhisizhu ( 持至尸逐侯 ), succeeded him, but was then overthrown by the rebels in 189. He travelled to Luoyang (the Han capital) to seek aid from

13833-437: The Xiongnu in order to avoid sending the emperor's daughters. The Han sent these "princesses" to marry Xiongnu leaders in their efforts to stop the border raids. Along with arranged marriages, the Han sent gifts to bribe the Xiongnu to stop attacking. After the defeat at Pingcheng in 200 BC, the Han emperor abandoned a military solution to the Xiongnu threat. Instead, in 198 BC   , the courtier Liu Jing  [ zh ]

13992-620: The Xiongnu into a more formidable polity, able to form larger armies and exercise improved strategic coordination. Two years later, in 207 BC, the Qin dynasty fell, and after a period of internal conflict , it was replaced by the Western Han dynasty in 202 BC. This period of Chinese instability was a time of prosperity for the Xiongnu, who adopted many Han agriculture techniques such as slaves for heavy labor and lived in Han-style homes. After forging internal unity, Modu Chanyu expanded

14151-572: The Xiongnu, however, Huduershi was never able to establish unquestioned authority. In contravention of a principle of fraternal succession established by Huhanye, Huduershi designated his son Punu as heir-apparent . However, as the eldest son of the preceding chanyu , Bi (Pi)—the Rizhu King of the Right—had a more legitimate claim. Consequently, Bi refused to attend the annual meeting at the chanyu ' s court. Nevertheless, in 46 AD, Punu ascended

14310-640: The Zhou capital from Qiyi to Feng , and his son, King Wu , made a further move to Hao across the Feng River. King Wu expanded his father's campaigns to the Shang, defeating them in the decisive Battle of Muye , which is also described in the "Great brightness" song of the Classic of Poetry . According to the Yi Zhou Shu , the Zhou army spent two months in the area mopping up resistance before returning to

14469-596: The Zhou king. Soon afterwards, the Zhou were attacked by Chu , who reached as far as the Luo River before being driven off in a counterattack described in the Yu ding and Yu gui . King Li embarked on defensive campaigns in the east and northwest. The received texts all present him in a negative light, and record that he was driven out of the capital into exile in the Fen River valley. Sources disagree on whether this

14628-558: The core Wei River valley and the Luoyang areas in the 1930s and expanded to a broader area from the 1980s. Bronze vessels are a key marker of Western Zhou sites, including buildings, workshops, city walls and burials. Elite burials usually contain sets of vessels, which can be dated using known variations in styles, as well the paleography and content of inscriptions. Hundreds of hoards of bronzes have been found in Shaanxi , dating from

14787-399: 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

14946-484: 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

15105-545: The eastern capital. The inscription on the Dong gui celebrates a defeat inflicted by the Zhou on the Dongyi near Ying, a colony set up by one of King Cheng's brothers to guard the southern approaches to the capital. With the passing of generations, the family relationships between the king and the rulers of the colonies had also become more distant. Instead, the Zhou state developed a bureaucracy and formalized relations between

15264-499: The elites. There were reforms of the military, official titles and the distribution of land. A drastic shift in the style and types of bronze ritual vessels, formerly based on Late Shang models, also suggests a change in ritual practice at this time. Very little historical information is available for the reigns of the next four kings, Gong, Yih, Xiao and Yi. Western Zhou kings were customarily succeeded by their oldest sons. However, Sima Qian states, without explanation, that King Yih

15423-535: The emperor on the Lunar New Year . In the same year, another envoy Qijushan (稽居狦) was received at the Ganquan Palace in the north-west of modern Shanxi . On the financial side, Huhanye was amply rewarded in large quantities of gold, cash, clothes, silk, horses and grain for his participation. Huhanye made two further homage trips, in 49 BC and 33 BC; with each one the imperial gifts were increased. On

15582-576: 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

15741-438: The fall of the western capital in 771 BC. A hoard typically contains treasured vessels accumulated by a family over three centuries, carefully buried to hide them from the invaders. The Zhou produced thousands of inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels and often considerably longer than those of the Late Shang. A vessel was typically cast for some member of the Zhou elite, recording a relevant event or an honour bestowed on

15900-413: 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

16059-491: 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

16218-551: The future King Cheng . Later Confucian scholars, who glorified the Duke of Zhou, described the young king as a babe in his mother's arms, but other evidence indicates that he was a young man at the time. Some authors suggest that the Duke appointed himself king, and in the "Announcement to Kang" chapter of the Book of Documents he seems to speak as a king. Wu Geng and the brothers of King Wu tasked with supervising him rebelled against

16377-618: 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

16536-672: The high and low, he joined the ten thousand states. Capturing and controlling was King Wu! (He) proceeded and campaigned through the four quarters, piercing Yin [= Shang] and governing its people. Eternally unfearful of the Di (Distant Ones), oh, he attacked the Yi minions. Longer accounts are found in later sources. Both the Historical Records and the Bamboo Annals describe campaigns by King Wen in southern Shanxi. King Wen moved

16695-403: The imperial retreat at Yong. In 158 BC, his successor sent 30,000 cavalry to attack Shangdang and another 30,000 to Yunzhong . The Xiongnu also practiced marriage alliances with Han dynasty officers and officials who defected to their side by marrying off sisters and daughters of the Chanyu (the Xiongnu ruler) to Han Chinese who joined the Xiongnu and Xiongnu in Han service. The daughter of

16854-586: 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

17013-642: The last Western Zhou king You . Thereafter the task of dealing with the northern tribes was left to their vassal, the Qin state . To the west, the Pazyryk culture (6th-3rd century BC) immediately preceded the formation of the Xiongnus. A Scythian culture, it was identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans, such as the Siberian Ice Princess , found in the Siberian permafrost , in

17172-544: The last trip, Huhanye took the opportunity to ask to be allowed to become an imperial son-in-law. As a sign of the decline in the political status of the Xiongnu, Emperor Yuan refused, giving him instead five ladies-in-waiting. One of them was Wang Zhaojun , famed in Chinese folklore as one of the Four Beauties . When Zhizhi learned of his brother's submission, he also sent a son to the Han court as hostage in 53 BC. Then twice, in 51 BC and 50 BC, he sent envoys to

17331-528: 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

17490-427: The maintenance of a large scale government sponsored market system. While the Xiongnu benefited handsomely, from the Chinese perspective marriage treaties were costly, very humiliating and ineffective. Laoshang Chanyu showed that he did not take the peace treaty seriously. On one occasion his scouts penetrated to a point near Chang'an . In 166 BC he personally led 140,000 cavalry to invade Anding , reaching as far as

17649-479: The manuscript tradition. These include some Confucian classics , the oldest parts of which are thought to date from this period. Texts from the Warring States period and Han dynasty provide fuller accounts, though further removed from the original events. Zhou ritual bronzes have been collected since the Song dynasty and are now scattered in collections around the world. Scientific excavations began in

17808-498: The mobility of the Xiongnu, many of the non-cavalry Han soldiers were mobile infantrymen who traveled on horseback but fought on foot), and advancing along different routes, forced the chanyu and his Xiongnu court to flee north of the Gobi Desert . Major logistical difficulties limited the duration and long-term continuation of these campaigns. According to the analysis of Yan You (嚴尤), the difficulties were twofold. Firstly there

17967-455: 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

18126-425: 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

18285-583: 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

18444-467: The nearby Sakas and Sarmatians were once controversial. However, archaeogenetics has confirmed their interaction with the Xiongnu, and also possibly their relation to the Huns . The identity of the ethnic core of Xiongnu has been a subject of varied hypotheses, because only a few words, mainly titles and personal names, were preserved in the Chinese sources. The name Xiongnu may be cognate with that of

18603-557: The new regime. The Duke of Zhou and his half-brother, the Duke of Shao , organized another eastern campaign. After three years they had regained the lost areas and expanded their domain over an area stretching into Shandong. The victorious triumvirate of the Duke of Zhou, Duke of Shao and King Cheng then consolidated their control over this expanded territory. They built an eastern capital at Chengzhou (modern day Luoyang ) and began founding colonies or states at strategic points in their domain. The most important were placed under members of

18762-546: The nomads in an expansion drift. During the Warring States period , the armies from the Qin , Zhao and Yan states were encroaching and conquering various nomadic territories that were inhabited by the Xiongnu and other Hu peoples. The Zhao–Xiongnu War is a notable example of these campaigns. Pulleyblank argued that the Xiongnu were part of a Xirong group called Yiqu , who had lived in Shaanbei and had been influenced by China for centuries, before they were driven out by

18921-538: 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

19080-456: The owner by the king. In the latter case, the inscription might include a narrative of the ceremony and report the speech of participants. These give a rich insight into Zhou governance and the upper levels of Zhou society. Many inscriptions contain details that may be compared with later histories. More than a hundred of them commemorate a royal appointment to some government position. More than 50 of them describe military campaigns. Naturally

19239-605: The pattern for relations between the Han and the Xiongnu for sixty years. Up to 135 BC, the treaty was renewed nine times, each time with an increase in the "gifts" to the Xiongnu Empire. In 192 BC, Modun even asked for the hand of Emperor Gaozu of Han widow Empress Lü Zhi . His son and successor, the energetic Jiyu, known as the Laoshang Chanyu , continued his father's expansionist policies. Laoshang succeeded in negotiating with Emperor Wen terms for

19398-427: The picture is incomplete, as very few inscriptions touch on military defeats or failures of government. Inscriptions usually contain some dating information, but not the name of the current king. Scholars have devised a range of criteria to narrow down the reign of an inscription, including the style of the vessel, the form of the characters and details within the text. The earliest received texts, including parts of

19557-650: The pronunciations of 匈奴 as * hoŋ-nâ in Late Old Chinese (c. 318 BCE) and as * hɨoŋ-nɑ in Eastern Han Chinese ; citing other Chinese transcriptions wherein the velar nasal medial -ŋ- , after a short vowel, seemingly played the role of a general nasal – sometimes equivalent to n or m –, Schuessler proposes that 匈奴 Xiongnu < * hɨoŋ-nɑ < * hoŋ-nâ might be a Chinese rendition, Han or even pre-Han, of foreign * Hŏna or * Hŭna , which Schuessler compares to Huns and Sanskrit Hūṇā . However,

19716-404: 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 ,

19875-445: The reign of Emperor Wen , the break did not come until 133 BC, following an abortive trap to ambush the chanyu at Mayi . By that point the empire was consolidated politically, militarily and economically, and was led by an adventurous pro-war faction at court. In that year, Emperor Wu reversed the decision he had made the year before to renew the peace treaty. Full-scale war broke out in autumn 129 BC, when 40,000 Han cavalry made

20034-555: The reign of Huduershi (18 AD–48), corresponding to the political upheavals of the Xin dynasty . The Xiongnu took the opportunity to regain control of the western regions, as well as neighboring peoples such as the Wuhuan . In 24 AD, Hudershi even talked about reversing the tributary system. The Xiongnu's new power was met with a policy of appeasement by Emperor Guangwu . At the height of his power, Huduershi even compared himself to his illustrious ancestor, Modu. Due to growing regionalism among

20193-552: 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

20352-509: 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

20511-576: The ruling Jī ( 姬 ) family. These colonies are listed in the Zuozhuan , and some have been confirmed by archaeological finds. The inscription on the Mai zun narrates the ceremony in which King Cheng appointed a son of the Duke of Zhou to rule Xing . Kings Cheng and Kang mounted numerous military campaigns to expand their domains. The Xiao Yu ding relates a victory over the Guifang, presumably in

20670-606: The same medial -ŋ- prompts Christopher P. Atwood (2015) to reconstruct * Xoŋai , which he derives from the Ongi River ( Mongolian : Онги гол ) in Mongolia and suggests that it was originally a dynastic name rather than an ethnic name. The territories associated with the Xiongnu in central/east Mongolia were previously inhabited by the Slab Grave Culture ( Ancient Northeast Asian origin), which persisted until

20829-612: The same period, but their language suggests that they were written late in the Western Zhou period. The prefaces written for each chapter, tying the Documents together as a continuous account, are thought to have been written in the Western Han period. Texts transmitted from the Warring States period relate traditions from the Western Zhou period. The "Discourses of Zhou" chapter of the Guoyu includes speeches claimed to be from

20988-517: 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

21147-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

21306-565: The state. In his 5th year, he ordered a campaign against the Xianyun in the west, and then appointed the successful general to command the eastern territories. According to the Bamboo Annals , in the following year he ordered a campaign against the Huaiyi. Bronze inscriptions record victories in this campaign and others against the Xianyun. He reinforced the south by relocating settlements from

21465-529: The sword. The news brought to Chang'an by Kyrgyz ambassador Zhuwu Hesu (註吾合素). The Han dynasty made preparations for war when the Han Emperor Wu dispatched the Han Chinese explorer Zhang Qian to explore the mysterious kingdoms to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the Xiongnu. During this time Zhang married a Xiongnu wife, who bore him a son, and gained

21624-483: The third who was defeated by Tuqi in that year and surrendered to Huhanye the following year. In 56 BC Tuqi was defeated by Huhanye and committed suicide, but two more claimants appeared: Runzhen and Huhanye's elder brother Zhizhi Chanyu . Runzhen was killed by Zhizhi in 54 BC, leaving only Zhizhi and Huhanye. Zhizhi grew in power, and, in 53 BC, Huhanye moved south and submitted to the Chinese. Huhanye used Chinese support to weaken Zhizhi, who gradually moved west. In 49 BC,

21783-645: The throne. In 48 AD, a confederation of eight Xiongnu tribes in Bi's power base in the south, with a military force totalling 40,000 to 50,000 men, seceded from Punu's kingdom and acclaimed Bi as chanyu . This kingdom became known as the Southern Xiongnu . The rump kingdom under Punu, around the Orkhon (modern north central Mongolia) became known as the Northern Xiongnu , with Punu, becoming known as

21942-401: The time of King Mu onward. The Zuo Zhuan is primarily concerned with the Spring and Autumn period , but contains many references to events in the preceding Western Zhou period. The Bamboo Annals provides a wealth of attractive detail, often varying from other sources, but its transmission history presents many problems. The original text was a chronicle of the state of Wei buried in

22101-532: The time of Modu's death in 174 BC, the Xiongnu were recognized as the most prominent of the nomads bordering the Chinese Han empire According to the Book of Han , later quoted in Duan Chengshi 's ninth-century Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang : Also, according to the Han shu , Wang Wu (王烏) and others were sent as envoys to pay a visit to the Xiongnu. According to the customs of the Xiongnu, if

22260-623: 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

22419-547: 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

22578-467: The trust of the Xiongnu leader. While Zhang Qian did not succeed in this mission, his reports of the west provided even greater incentive to counter the Xiongnu hold on westward routes out of the Han Empire, and the Han prepared to mount a large scale attack using the Northern Silk Road to move men and material. While the Han dynasty was making preparations for a military confrontation since

22737-502: The two, produced the Zhou. It is likely that several groups from across Shaanxi banded together to conquer the Shang. The conquest is reflected in the material record by the sudden appearance throughout the Wei River basin of burials in the Shang style and sophisticated bronze vessels of all the types produced by the Shang, from which the Zhou had evidently acquired skilled craftsmen, scribes and abundant resources. They also expanded

22896-512: 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

23055-562: The warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao established control over the north. The Xiuchuge were eventually defeated by Cao Cao in 214. 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 the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of

23214-452: 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

23373-408: 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

23532-453: 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,

23691-494: Was a revolt of the peasantry or the nobility, but agree that the king's infant son was barely saved from a mob. The Bamboo Annals , confirmed by bronze inscriptions, relate that control of the state passed to Lord He, instituting the Gonghe Regency . Sima Qian's belief that it was a co-regency was based on a misinterpretation of the name. When King Li died in exile, his son became King Xuan . Both received texts and bronze inscriptions suggest that King Xuan acted quickly to secure

23850-407: Was allowed to leave the siege. Although Gaozu was able to return to his capital Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), Modu occasionally threatened the Han's northern frontier and finally in 198 BC, a peace treaty was settled. Xiongnu in their expansion drove their western neighbour Yuezhi from the Hexi Corridor in year 176 BC, killing the Yuezhi king and asserting their presence in the Western Regions . By

24009-406: Was already presented as a linear sequence of kings in the Lai pan , cast in the reign of King Yi's grandson. Both Sima Qian and the Bamboo Annals state that King Yi boiled the Duke of Qi (in eastern Shandong) in a cauldron. A bronze inscription confirms a Zhou attack on Qi at this time. This incident, in a state originally founded by one of King Wu's generals, indicates the waning authority of

24168-642: Was ascendant for about 75 years; thereafter, it gradually lost power. The former lands of the Shang were divided into hereditary fiefs that became increasingly independent of the Zhou king over time. The Zhou court was driven out of the Wei River valley in 771 BC: this marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, wherein political power was wielded in actuality by the king's nominal vassals. The Western Zhou are known from archaeological finds, including substantial inscriptions, mostly on bronze ritual vessels. In contrast to earlier periods, this direct evidence can be usefully compared with texts transmitted through

24327-408: Was created the Marquess of Dingyuan (定遠侯, i.e., "the Marquess who stabilized faraway places") for his services to the Han Empire and returned to the capital Luoyang at the age of 70 years and died there in the year 102. Following his death, the power of the Xiongnu in the Western Regions increased again, and the emperors of subsequent dynasties did not reach as far west until the Tang dynasty . When

24486-406: Was dispatched for negotiations. The peace settlement eventually reached between the parties included a Han princess given in marriage to the chanyu (called heqin ) ( Chinese : 和親 ; lit. 'harmonious kinship'); periodic gifts to the Xiongnu of silk , distilled beverages and rice ; equal status between the states; and a boundary wall as mutual border. This first treaty set

24645-433: 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

24804-399: Was normally the heir presumptive. Next lower in the hierarchy came more officials in pairs of left and right: the guli , the army commanders, the great governors, the danghu and the gudu . Beneath them came the commanders of detachments of one thousand, of one hundred, and of ten men. This nation of nomads, a people on the march, was organized like an army. After Modu, later leaders formed

24963-414: Was rejected. The Northern Xiongnu were scattered, with most of them being absorbed the Xianbei. In 118, a defeated Fenghou brought around a mere 100 followers to surrender to Han. Remnants of the Northern Xiongnu held out in the Tarim Basin as they allied themselves with the Nearer Jushi Kingdom and captured Yiwu in 119. By 126, they were subjugated by the Han general, Ban Yong , while a branch led by

25122-416: Was succeeded by his uncle, who became King Xiao, and that on Xiao's death "the many lords restored" King Yih's son, King Yi. Bronze inscriptions of the time use two different royal calendars, and the Bamboo Annals mentions King Yih moving out of the capital. Some authors suggest that King Yih was forced out by his uncle, and the two were rivals for a time, but whatever happened is now obscure. The succession

25281-409: Was the problem of supplying food across long distances. Secondly, the weather in the northern Xiongnu lands was difficult for Han soldiers, who could never carry enough fuel. According to official reports, the Xiongnu lost 80,000 to 90,000 men, and out of the 140,000 horses the Han forces had brought into the desert, fewer than 30,000 returned to the Han Empire. In 104 and 102 BC, the Han fought and won

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