Category: History

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History Languages

guānhuà

guānhuà (guān·huà {government official; mandarin} · speech → [(old name for) Mandarin | officalese; bureaucratese; bureaucratic jargon] 官话 官話) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

Why is Mandarin called “Mandarin” in English?

Kinnow, a variety of Mandarin orange widely cultivated in Pakistan

Nope, it wasn’t because of mandarin oranges.
Creative Commons logo SirSadiq

Wikipedia provides this summary:

The English word “mandarin” (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantrī, mantrin, meaning ‘minister or counsellor’) originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a Koiné language based on various northern varieties. When Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it “Mandarin”, from its Chinese name Guānhuà (官话/官話) or ‘language of the officials’.[source]

So, according to the above summary, the English word “Mandarin” comes to us from Sanskrit, Malay, and Portuguese, and was chosen to correspond with this week’s MEotW, “guānhuà (guān·huà {government official; mandarin} · speech → [(old name for) Mandarin | officalese; bureaucratese; bureaucratic jargon] 官话 官話)”. These days, Chinese speakers in general don’t refer to Modern Standard Mandarin as “guānhuà (guān·huà {government official; mandarin} · speech → [(old name for) Mandarin | officalese; bureaucratese; bureaucratic jargon] 官话 官話)”[source], but apparently Chinese linguists still use this term:

Linguists use the term “Mandarin” to refer to the diverse group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which Chinese linguists call Guānhuà.

(Note that the English word “dialect” is often misused and misunderstood when applied to the Chinese languages, causing many to wrongly believe that Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are merely dialects of a single Chinese language, when in fact, they are as different from each other as English is different from, say, Swedish or German. It really works better to consider Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. to be different languages, just as Swedish, German, etc. are considered to be different languages, and not just dialects of “European”. I hope to address this further in a future MEotW post.)

Because of its literal meaning of “government officials’ speech”, “guānhuà (guān·huà {government official; mandarin} · speech → [(old name for) Mandarin | officalese; bureaucratese; bureaucratic jargon] 官话 官話)” is sometimes also used to refer to what in English we call “officalese; bureaucratese; bureaucratic jargon”.

Categories
Culture History Names Nations

Zhōngguó

Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China | Chinese] 中国 中國) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

“Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國)” is commonly translated into English as “Middle Kingdom”, which may suggest something in the middle, or middling, average, unremarkable. However, considering the history of the usage of the expression “Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國)”, and considering how the people of China have historically viewed their nation, it would be more correct to translate “Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國)” as “Central Nation”, the nation that’s at the centre, the heart, of the world that matters to them.

According to Wikipedia’s summarizations, the earliest known appearance of the expression “Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國)” was on the Hé Zūn[source][source], an ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel dating from the era of early Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE).[source]

The earliest known appearance of Zhongguo (中國), inscribed on the Western Zhou bronze vessel He zun

Here are some quotes from that Wikipedia article, with links to information about sources:

The phrase "zhong guo" came into common usage in the Warring States period, when it referred to the "Central States"; the states of the Yellow River Valley of the Zhou era, as distinguished from the tribal periphery.[source]

There were different usages of the term "Zhongguo" in every period.

With the overthrow of the Qing in 1911, most Chinese dropped Shina as foreign and demanded that even Japanese replace it with Zhonghua minguo or simply Zhongguo.[source] [The reformer] Liang went on to argue that the concept of tianxia [Wikipedia article] had to be abandoned in favor of guojia, that is, "nation," for which he accepted the term Zhongguo.[source] After the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912, Zhongguo was also adopted as the abbreviation of Zhonghua minguo.[source]

The English translation of "Zhongguo" as the "Middle Kingdom" entered European languages through the Portuguese in the 16th century and became popular in the mid 19th century. By the mid 20th century the term was thoroughly entrenched in the English language to reflect the Western view of China as the inwards looking Middle Kingdom, or more accurately the Central Kingdom. [Writer] Endymion Wilkinson points out that the Chinese were not unique in thinking of their country as central, although China was the only culture to use the concept for their name.[source]

In summary, while the exact meaning and borders of Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國) have varied thoughout China’s history, overall, the people of China have long viewed their nation as central to the world that they knew, or cared most about, to the point that “China was the only culture to use the concept for their name”.

The people of China considering their nation to be the centre of the world has historically been such a thing that there are several concepts related to this. E.g.:

  • Sinocentrism

    • The geographical dimension of traditional Sinocentrism was highlighted by Chinese reactions to the publication of the first world map by the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610):

      • …Lately Matteo Ricci utilized some false teachings to fool people, and scholars unanimously believed him...take for example the position of China on the map. He puts it not in the center but slightly to the West and inclined to the north. This is altogether far from the truth, for China should be in the center of the world, which we can prove by the single fact that we can see the North Star resting at the zenith of the heaven at midnight. How can China be treated like a small unimportant country, and placed slightly to the north as in this map?[source]

    • Culturally, one of the most famous attacks on Sinocentrism and its associated beliefs was made by the author Lu Xun in The True Story of Ah Q, in which the protagonist is humiliated and defeated; satirizing the ridiculous way in which he claimed "spiritual victories" in spite of this.[source]

      • [Lǔ Xùn is generally regarded as the greatest Chinese writer of the twentieth century. Interestingly, he was a strong proponent of replacing the Chinese characters writing system with an alphabetic system. (A modern example of such a system for Mandarin is Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音).) He felt so strongly about this that he was reported to have said, “Hànzì (Hàn·zì {Han (Chinese)} · characters 汉字 漢字) bú (not 不) miè ({are extinguished} 灭 滅), Zhōngguó (Zhōng·guó Central · Nation → [China] 中国 中國) bì (certainly 必) wáng ({will flee} → [will die] 亡).” (“If Chinese characters are not abolished, China will certainly die.”). The text in Chinese characters of something he wrote on this subject can be found here, and an English translation of it can be found here.
        • Some wonder why China has held on to its archaic characters writing system instead of moving on to using a modern alphabetic writing system like almost every other nation does, even though outstanding native sons like Lǔ Xùn ((Lǔ Stupid; Rash (surname) 鲁 魯) (Xùn Fast; Quick; Swift 迅) (pen name of Zhōu Shùrén, the greatest Chinese writer of the 20th cent. and a strong advocate of alphabetic writing)) have advocated strongly for that. Perhaps the proud self-centredness of the only nation to name itself the centre of the world provides a clue….]
  • Tianxia

    • In ancient China, tianxia denoted the lands, space, and area divinely appointed to the Emperor by universal and well-defined principles of order. The center of this land was directly apportioned to the Imperial court, forming the center of a world view that centered on the Imperial court and went concentrically outward to major and minor officials and then the common citizens, tributary states, and finally ending with fringe "barbarians".

  • Tributary system of China

    • a network of loose international relations focused on China which facilitated trade and foreign relations by acknowledging China's predominant role in East Asia. It involved multiple relationships of trade, military force, diplomacy and ritual. The other nations had to send a tributary envoy to China on schedule, who would kowtow to the Chinese emperor as a form of tribute, and acknowledge his superiority and precedence.

  • Hua–Yi distinction

    • an ancient Chinese concept that differentiated a culturally defined "China" (called Huá, Huaxia 華夏; Huáxià, or Xià 夏) from cultural or ethnic outsiders (Yí, conventionally "barbarians"). …The Hua–Yi distinction asserted Chinese superiority

  • Four Barbarians

    • Tiānxià 天下 "[everywhere] under heaven; the world" encompassed Huáxià 華夏 "China" (also known as Huá, Xià, etc.) in the center surrounded by non-Chinese "barbarian" peoples.

    • Liu Junping and Huang Deyuan (2006:532) describe the universal monarch with combined political, religious, and cultural authorities: “According to the Chinese in the old times, heaven and earth were matched with yin and yang, with the heaven (yang) superior and the earth (yin) inferior; and the Chinese as an entity was matched with the inferior ethnic groups surrounding it in its four directions so that the kings could be valued and the barbarians could be rejected.”

Meanwhile, in the face of this long history of national and cultural self-centredness and self-importance, the Almighty Creator of the entire universe looks upon all the nations of mankind on this little dustball of a planet and considers them as being “like a drop from a bucket, and as the film of dust on the scales”!—Isa. 40:15.

Categories
Culture History Languages

Hànyǔ

Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language [→ [(Modern Standard) Mandarin]] 汉语 漢語) ← Tap/click to show/hide the “flashcard”

This is the expression commonly used by normal people, and also linguists 😁 (just kidding, linguists are great, especially for informing a language-oriented blog like this), to refer to (Modern Standard) Mandarin.

The expression “Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language [→ [(Modern Standard) Mandarin]] 汉语 漢語)” is so commonly used and officially recognized that it shows up in the longer, more official names for Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音):

  • Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin] 汉语 漢語) Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音)
  • Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language → [(Modern Standard) Mandarin] 汉语 漢語) Pīnyīn (Pīn·yīn {Piecing Together} · Sounds → [Pinyin] 拼音) Fāng’àn (Fāng’·àn {Direction → [Method]} · {Long, Narrow Table Or Desk → [Plan]} 方案)

“Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language [→ [(Modern Standard) Mandarin]] 汉语 漢語)” literally means “Han language”. Who are the Han, and how do they relate to China and things Chinese?

Wikipedia gives us the following summarizations about the Han:

The Han Chinese,[source][source][source] Hanzu,[source][source][source] or Han people[source][source][source][source] (UK: /hæn/,[source] US: /hɑːn/;[source] simplified Chinese: 汉人; traditional Chinese: 漢人; pinyin: Hànrén[source][source] or simplified Chinese: 汉族; traditional Chinese: 漢族; pinyin: Hànzú)[source][source][source] are an East Asian ethnic group and nation, historically native to the Yellow River Basin region of modern China.[source][source][source][source][source] They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive varieties of the Chinese language.[source][source] The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people are mostly concentrated in mainland China, where they make up about 92% of the total population.[source]
The Han dynasty is considered to be one of the first great eras in Chinese history, as it made China the major regional power in East Asia and projected much of its influence on its neighbours, comparable to the contemporary Roman Empire in population size, geographical and cultural reach.[source][source][source] The Han dynasty's prestige and prominence influenced many of the ancient Huaxia to begin identifying themselves as "The People of Han".[source][source][source][source][source] To this day, the Han Chinese have since taken their ethnic name from this dynasty and the Chinese script is referred to as "Han characters".[source][source][source]

Being by far the largest ethnic group in China, while not being the only one, the Han are the dominant cultural force in China. When people think of Chinese culture, they are generally thinking of Han culture. (Note that “ethnic group” is defined as “a community or population made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent”, so culture figures heavily in what makes an ethnic group what it is.)

Unfortunately, politics sometimes raises its ugly head in language matters, and so it is worth noting that in some situations, there may be political implications of using “Hànyǔ (Hàn·yǔ {Han (Chinese)} · Language [→ [(Modern Standard) Mandarin]] 汉语 漢語)” or one of the other ways to refer to (Modern Standard) Mandarin in Mandarin. For more information, see these posts on the excellent Language Log blog:

Posts on this Mandarin Expression of the Week blog about other Mandarin expressions used to refer to (Modern Standard) Mandarin can be viewed using the link for the Mandarin tag.