Mandarin is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language … See more

The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantrī, mantrin, meaning 'minister or counsellor') originally meant an official of … See more

Mainland China
Most Han Chinese living in northern and southwestern China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The North China Plain provided … See more

A syllable consists maximally of an initial consonant, a medial glide, a vowel, a coda, and tone. In the traditional analysis, the medial, vowel and coda are combined as a final. Not all combinations occur. For example, Standard Chinese (based on the Beijing dialect) has … See more

The hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been … See more

The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features.
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There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese except Shanghainese . This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than have southern varieties of Chinese, and has needed to deal with … See more