10 - The Mandarin of the Qing Dynasty and the Modern Era

Summary

The Manchus formed the Qing dynasty in 1636 and became the rulers of China in 1644. In the Qing dynasty there was also an effort by the government to establish a phonological standard, and in pursuit of this goal the Yùdìng Pèiwén Yùnfǔ 御定佩文韻府 was published in 1711. This rhyme dictionary did not follow the Hóngwǔ Zhèngyùn of 1375. Instead it followed the earlier rhyming tradition, the Píngshuǐ Yùn 平水韻 of the thirteenth century. The Imperial Era of China ended in 1911. The capital of the Republic of China started in Nanjing. It switched to Beijing and then back to Nanjing. The colloquial pronunciation of the then Beijing dialect was well transcribed in the Yǔyán zì ěr jí 語言自邇集 Yü-yen tzǔ-êrh chi: A Progressive Course Designed to Assist the Student of Colloquial Chinese by Thomas Francis Wade (1818–1895). In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the capital of the People’s Republic of China was established in Beijing. The Beijing dialect was chosen as the base for the national standard pronunciation during both time periods.