Chu victory
95-540: Yinxu ( Mandarin pronunciation: [ín.ɕý] ; Chinese : 殷墟 ; lit. 'Ruins of Yin') is a Chinese archeological site corresponding to Yin, the final capital of the Shang dynasty ( c. 1600 – c. 1046 BCE ). Located in present-day Anyang , Henan, Yin served as the capital during the Late Shang period ( c. 1250 – c. 1046 BCE ) which spanned
190-469: 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
285-457: 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
380-510: 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
475-599: 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
570-462: 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
665-615: 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
760-714: 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
855-576: 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
950-523: A mutiny, so he had them all buried alive at the south of outside Xin'an. Another reason for the massacre was that Xiang Yu saw the Qin soldiers as a liability because they would put a strain on his army's food supplies. Although Xiang Yu had the 200,000 surrendered Qin soldiers buried alive, he spared the three generals Zhang Han, Sima Xin and Dong Yi. The three were later respectively appointed as "King of Yong", "King of Sai" and "King of Dai" when Xiang Yu divided
1045-609: A poem titled Battle of Julu : Cruelty and barbarism masked by deception and cunning, Cao Cao and Zhu Wen both claimed the throne. This is nothing like a hero riding on a fine horse with a beautiful maiden, people who cross the Wu River shed tears. In 1912, workers constructing the Longhai Railway unearthed large amounts of human remains at Yima , Henan , the site where Xiang Yu had the 200,000 surrendered Qin soldiers buried alive. The place has since been referred to as
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#17327653144991140-491: 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
1235-508: 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
1330-678: 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
1425-573: 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
1520-575: 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
1615-602: 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
1710-709: 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
1805-490: 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,
1900-603: 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
1995-499: Is one of China's oldest and largest archeological sites, and was selected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2006. Yinxu is located in northern Henan , near modern Anyang and the borders Henan shares with Hebei and Shanxi . Public access to the site is permitted. According to the 2nd century Shuowen Jiezi dictionary (說文解字), the Chinese character " 殷 " ( yīn ) originally referred to "vibrant music-making". Although frequently used throughout written history to refer to both
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#17327653144992090-445: 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
2185-668: 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
2280-489: 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,
2375-501: 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
2470-500: 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
2565-552: 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
2660-428: 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
2755-753: 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
2850-562: The Houmuwu ding were cast by an elaborate section-mold process. A study of mitochondrial DNA (inherited in the maternal line) from Yinxu graves showed similarity with modern northern Han Chinese , but significant differences from southern Han Chinese. Citations Works cited Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')
2945-598: The Imperial Academy . One account of Wang's discovery was that he was suffering from malaria at the time and was prescribed Longgu (龍骨) ( dragon bones ) at a traditional Chinese pharmacy. He noticed strange carvings on these bones and concluded that these could be samples of an ancient form of Chinese writing. News of the discovery of the oracle bones created a market for them among antiques collectors, and led to multiple waves of illegal digs over several decades, with tens of thousands of pieces taken. The source of
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3040-533: 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
3135-710: 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
3230-595: 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
3325-534: The Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project as follows: For most of Yinxu I, the site was a small settlement. The first large buildings appeared in the later part of the period, together with oracle bone inscriptions, large-scale human sacrifice and chariot burials. Dong also included kings Pan Geng , Xiao Xin and Xiao Yi in his oracle bone period I, but no inscriptions can be reliably assigned to pre-Wu Ding reigns. Some scholars assign these kings to
3420-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
3515-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
3610-407: The "dragon bones" was eventually traced to the small village of Xiaotun , just outside Anyang . In 1910, noted scholar Luo Zhenyu affirmed that the area was the site of the last Shang dynasty capital. Canadian missionary and oracle bone analyst James Menzies also independently identified Anyang as the capital in 1910. In 1917 , Wang Guowei deciphered the oracle bone inscriptions of the names of
3705-669: 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. Battle of Julu The Battle of Julu ( Chinese : 鉅鹿之戰 )
3800-823: The Grand Historian , more precisely in the Battle of Julu , and described in some detail by Li Daoyuan in his Commentary to the River Classic , published during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period (420-589 CE). Thereafter, the once-great city of Yīn was relegated to legend along with its founding dynasty until its rediscovery in the final years of the Qing dynasty . Yinxu is well known for its oracle bones , which were first recognized as containing ancient Chinese writing in 1899 by Wang Yirong , director of
3895-678: The Hougang site, remains of palaces and temples, royal cemeteries, oracle bone inscriptions, bronze and bone workshops and the discovery of the Huanbei site on the north bank of the Huan River . One of the largest and oldest sites of Chinese archaeology, excavations here have laid the foundation for work across the country. Four periods are recognized at the site based on pottery types. They correlate approximately with oracle bone periods assigned by Dong Zuobin , royal reigns and dates assigned by
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3990-565: 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
4085-637: The Qin armies were destroyed in this battle. In the ninth lunar month of 208 BC, at the Battle of Dingtao, the Qin general Zhang Han defeated a force from the insurgent Chu state led by Xiang Liang . Zhang Han then led the Qin army north across the Yellow River to attack another rebel state, Zhao , and defeated the Zhao army. He then ordered his deputies Wang Li ( 王離 ) and She Jian ( 涉間 ) to besiege Handan (Zhao's capital) while he garrisoned his army at
4180-412: The Qin army from withdrawing. In dire straits, Zhang Han, along with his deputies Sima Xin and Dong Yi and his 200,000 men, eventually surrendered to Xiang Yu in the summer of 207 BC. In the 11th month of 207 BC, Xiang Yu led his army to the city of Xin'an (新安; in present-day Yima , Henan ) and made camp. He perceived the 200,000 surrendered Qin soldiers as disloyal and suspected that they might start
4275-469: The Qin dynasty. When Xiang Yu reached Hangu Pass , the eastern gateway to Guanzhong, he saw that Liu Bang had already occupied Guanzhong. Xiang Yu was displeased as he heard that Liu Bang would become "King of Guanzhong" in accordance with King Huai II 's earlier promise. After the Feast at Hong Gate , Xiang Yu occupied Xianyang in early 206 BC after Liu Bang evacuated his forces from the city. Xiang Yu ordered
4370-462: The Qin emperor Qin Er Shi and falsely accused Zhang Han of military failure and conspiring with the rebels. The emperor dismissed Zhang's request. Zhao Gao even sent assassins to kill Sima Xin on his return journey, but Sima survived and escaped back to report to Zhang Han. Just as Zhang Han was in a dilemma whether to retreat or surrender, Xiang Yu's forces completely surrounded Zhang Han and prevented
4465-615: The Qin forces, the other rebel armies did not participate in the fighting and they watched the battle from their camps. After seeing Xiang Yu defeat the 400,000-strong Qin army, the other insurgent forces came to join him out of admiration for his martial valour, thus increasing the size of his army to 400,000. When Xiang Yu received them at the gate of his camp, the rebel commanders were so afraid of him that they sank to their knees and did not dare to look up at him. After his defeat, Zhang Han sent his deputy Sima Xin to Xianyang to ask for reinforcements and supplies. The eunuch Zhao Gao deceived
4560-467: The Shang dynasty and its final capital, the name Yīn ( 殷 ) appears to have not been used in this way until the succeeding Zhou dynasty . In particular, the name does not appear in the oracle bones , which refer to the state as Shāng ( 商 ), and its final capital as Dàyì Shāng (大邑商 "Great Settlement Shang"). Among surviving ancient Chinese historical documents, Yin is described as the final capital of
4655-466: The Shang dynasty. There is some disagreement, though, as to when the move to Yin took place. Both the Book of Documents , (specifically, the "Pan Geng" chapter, which is believed to date from the late Spring and Autumn period ), and the Bamboo Annals state that Shang king Pan Geng moved the Shang capital to Yin. The Bamboo Annals state, more specifically, that during his reign Pan Geng moved
4750-487: The Shang kings and constructed a complete Shang genealogy. This closely matched that in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian , confirming the historical authenticity of the legendary Shang dynasty and the archaeological importance of Yinxu. However, the oracle bone inscriptions record the name of the state as Dàyìshāng ( 大邑商 ) or Shāngyì ( 商邑 ). The first official archeological excavations at Yinxu were led by
4845-479: The acting commander. Xiang Yu sent a messenger to inform King Huai II and the king was forced to retroactively approve his command. Xiang Yu sent Ying Bu and Zhongli Mo to lead 20,000 men to cross the Yellow River and reinforce Julu, and they won a few skirmishes. In the twelfth month of 208 BC, Xiang Yu personally led an army across the river to meet up with Ying Bu and Zhongli Mo. By the time he arrived on
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#17327653144994940-540: The archeologist Li Ji of the Institute of History and Philosophy from 1928 - 37 . They uncovered the remains of a royal palace, several royal tombs, and more than 100,000 oracle bones that show the Shang had a well-structured script with a complete system of written signs. Since 1950 ongoing excavations by the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have uncovered evidence of stratification at
5035-474: The battlefield, Zhao forces in Julu had been nearly starved under a prolonged siege by Zhang Han's deputy Wang Li. Xiang Yu ordered his men to carry only three days worth of supplies and destroy the rest, along with their cauldrons and cooking utensils, and sink the boats they used to cross the river. In doing so, Xiang Yu was sending a clear signal to his troops that they had no chance of survival unless they defeated
5130-430: The capital from Yān (奄; present-day Qufu , in present-day Shandong Province ), to a site called Běimĕng ( 北蒙 ), where it was then renamed to Yīn ( 殷 ). (Conversely, according to the Records of the Grand Historian of Sima Qian , Pan Geng moved the Shang capital from a location north of the Yellow River to Bo 亳 , the capital of Shang dynasty founder Tang , on the south side of the river—a location inconsistent with
5225-399: 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
5320-484: 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
5415-402: The earliest evidence of written Chinese. Bronze and jade relics constitute evidence of the funeral customs of Yinxu, including human and animal sacrifice. A large number of handicrafts and workshops have been discovered at Yinxu. Patterns on utensils and bronzeware include those resembling animal faces, whorl patterns, and the taotie pattern. Large-scale bronzeware excavated at the site like
5510-576: 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
5605-511: The enemy and seized their supplies. Xiang Yu's troops fought very fiercely, to the extent of "every Chu soldier taking on ten foes", and eventually defeated Qin forces in nine consecutive engagements. Wang Li's supply lines were disrupted and the Qin army suffered a crushing defeat. With casualties mounting to over 100,000, Zhang Han was forced to retreat from Julu to Jiyuan , and he planned to defend Jiyuan until reinforcements arrived from Xianyang (the Qin capital). The Qin general Su Jiao ( 蘇角 )
5700-446: The excavation of Yinxu, the Chinese historical record began in the first year of the subsequent Zhou dynasty, but the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions confirmed the historicity of the Shang, which had come under question. The framework of early ancient Chinese history was reconstructed, making it possible to assess the credibility of traditional accounts of Shang history. The 150 000 oracle bones unearthed at Yinxu comprise much of
5795-513: The execution of Ziying and his family, as well as the destruction of the Epang Palace by fire. Some chengyu (Chinese idioms) and proverbs originated from the events in the Battle of Julu, including: The Ming dynasty politician and scholar Mao Kun ( 茅坤 ) described the Battle of Julu as: "Xiang Yu's proudest moment in battle, and Taishigong ( Sima Qian )'s most gratifying document." The Qing dynasty artist Zheng Banqiao wrote
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#17327653144995890-650: The fallen Qin Empire into the Eighteen Kingdoms . The three were collectively known as the Three Qins and their domains were located in the former Qin heartland of Guanzhong . After his victory at Julu, Xiang Yu led his forces towards Guanzhong and prepared for an invasion of the Qin heartland. In the winter of 207 BC, the last Qin emperor Ziying surrendered to Liu Bang in Xianyang , bringing an end to
5985-413: 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
6080-491: 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
6175-618: 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
6270-586: 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
6365-495: The last of the Shang dynasty kings, is particularly remembered for his ruthlessness and debauchery. His increasingly autocratic laws alienated the nobility until King Wu of the Zhou dynasty was able to gain the support to rise up and overthrow the Shang. The Zhou dynasty established their capital at Fenghao near modern-day Xi'an , and Yīn was abandoned to fall into ruin. These ruins were mentioned by Sima Qian in his Records of
6460-528: 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
6555-414: The location of Yin.) Regardless, Yin was clearly established as the Shang capital by the time of Shang king Wu Ding . Wu Ding launched numerous military campaigns from this base against surrounding tribes, thus securing Shang rule and raising the dynasty to its historical zenith. According to the traditional accounts, later rulers became pleasure-seekers who took no interest in state affairs. King Zhòu ,
6650-455: 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
6745-425: 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
6840-583: 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
6935-541: The nearby Huanbei urban site, which was roughly contemporaneous with the early part of Yinxu I. Excavation at the latter site is complicated by the fact that it lies under Anyang airport, and no inscriptions have been found. At 30 square kilometers, Yinxu is the largest archaeological site in China. Excavations have uncovered over 80 rammed-earth foundation sites including palaces, shrines, tombs and workshops. From these remains archaeologists have been able to confirm that this
7030-505: The other tombs on the site, and in addition to the remains of the Queen the tomb was discovered to contain six dog skeletons, 16 human slave skeletons, and numerous grave goods of huge archaeological value. The tomb was thoroughly excavated and extensively restored and is now open to the public. The exhibition hall also features chariot pits where the earliest samples of animal-driven carts discovered by Chinese archaeology are on display. Before
7125-538: 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
7220-404: 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 ,
7315-446: The reigns of 12 Shang kings and saw the emergence of oracle bone script , the earliest known Chinese writing . Along with oracle bone script and other material evidence for the Shang's existence, the site was forgotten for millennia. Its rediscovery in 1899 resulted from an investigation into oracle bones that were discovered being sold nearby. The rediscovery of Yinxu marked the beginning of decades of intensive excavation and study. It
7410-552: 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
7505-509: 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
7600-468: The situation to incite the men's anger towards Song Yi. On the morning of the 47th day, Xiang Yu burst into Song Yi's tent, took the latter by surprise and killed him. Xiang Yu then announced to the army that Song Yi was plotting with the Qi state against Chu, and that he had received a secret order from King Huai II to execute the traitor Song Yi. The other subordinate generals feared Xiang Yu and allowed him to be
7695-517: 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
7790-561: 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
7885-486: The south to maintain a route for supplying the troops attacking Handan. Zhao's ruler Zhao Xie ( 趙歇 ) sent a messenger to request aid from King Huai II of Chu . King Huai II dispatched two armies. The first, commanded by Song Yi , with Xiang Yu (Xiang Liang's nephew) as his deputy, was to relieve the siege on Handan; the second, led by Liu Bang , would proceed to attack the Qin heartland of Guanzhong . The king promised that he would grant whoever conquered Guanzhong first
7980-436: The title of "King of Guanzhong". Song Yi's army reached Anyang , some distance away from Julu (in present-day Pingxiang County , Xingtai , Hebei ), where Zhao Xie's forces had retreated to. Song Yi ordered his troops to lay camp there for 46 days. Xiang Yu was eager to engage Zhang Han and avenge his uncle Xiang Liang, so he urged Song Yi to issue an attack order. Song Yi declined Xiang Yu's suggestion and remarked that Xiang
8075-623: 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
8170-547: 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
8265-512: 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
8360-452: 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
8455-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
8550-494: Was a foolhardy man, and gave instructions that "anyone with barbaric, defiant, fame-seeking behaviour that leads to a violation of orders will be executed". Song Yi later sent his son Song Xiang ( 宋襄 ) to the Qi state and threw a lavish banquet at Wujian (無鹽; east of present-day Dongping County , Shandong ) to see his son off. At the time, there were heavy rains and Song Yi's soldiers suffered from cold and hunger. Xiang Yu made use of
8645-453: 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,
8740-547: Was fought in Julu (in present-day Pingxiang County , Xingtai , Hebei , China ) in 207 BC primarily between forces of the Qin dynasty and the insurgent state of Chu . The Qin commander was Zhang Han , while the Chu leader was Xiang Yu . The battle concluded with a decisive victory for the rebels over the larger Qin army. The battle marked the decline of Qin military power as the bulk of
8835-485: 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
8930-415: Was killed in action. Meanwhile, Wang Li was captured. She Jian ( 涉間 ) refused to surrender and committed suicide by throwing himself into a fire. Before Xiang Yu launched the assault, forces from other insurgent principalities had arrived at Julu to reinforce the Zhao state, but they did not dare to advance for fear of the large Qin army and only garrisoned outside of the battle area. When Xiang Yu attacked
9025-461: Was the spiritual and cultural center of the Shang dynasty. The best preserved of the Shang dynasty royal tombs unearthed at Yinxu is the Tomb of Fu Hao . The extraordinary Lady Hao was a military leader and the wife of Shang King Wu Ding . The tomb was discovered in 1976 by Zheng Zhenxiang and has been dated to 1250 BCE. It was completely undisturbed, having escaped the looting that had damaged
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