"Chinese", among all languages in the world, is second only to English in importance. Of the more than 3,000 languages spoken worldwide, about 20 are spoken by more than 50 million people.
The word "Chinese" refers specifically to Chinese (or even Mandarin) in everyday communication. The languages spoken by ethnic minorities in China (some speak Chinese, some speak others) can be grouped together with Chinese in the category of languages within China. Conclusion: In a non-serious context, the non-Chinese language spoken by ethnic minorities is not "Chinese". It can be said that in a more serious context, there is no such thing as "Chinese".
Today, we don't speak "Chinese" or "Chinese", but rather "Official". The so-called "guan dialect" is the "Chinese first-class dialect" with the largest population and the widest distribution range known to be the mother tongue, and its name is derived from the ancient Chinese name for the official standard language of Chinese, and the current "official dialect" is actually what we call "Mandarin".
Since ancient times, China has a vast territory, a vast land, many provinces, and the cultural differences and accent differences between provinces are also very large. Even in the same province, the accents are not the same, and the phenomenon of ten different sounds occurs from time to time. What we call "Mandarin" now was called "mandarin" in ancient times, but due to the backwardness of the information media, the popularity of official language was very low.
Each region still speaks its own dialect, which also makes it difficult to communicate with each region. If, in fact, he only speaks dialects in his hometown, there is nothing wrong with it, but if this person once he has been enthroned as a marquis and worshipped, entered the court as an official, and spoken a dialect in the imperial court that others could not understand, it would not be very good.
In ancient times, many emperors were tortured by the various dialects of the ministers, and if they communicated with some ministers of ethnic minorities, it was reasonable to have a translator around them, but it would be a bit exaggerated to communicate with the ministers of the Central Plains and also have a translator. At that time, the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty was tortured enough by the accents of the ministers along the southern coast, and the words of those ministers when they were in the upper dynasty made Yongzheng listen to them.
In the end, he could only give a holy decree with a very bad face: "Fujian, Guangdong and other places, immediately promote the official language, otherwise, don't come to be an official." ”
This holy decree caused a great response at that time, the Qing Dynasty royal family was Manchu, they had their own language, but they regarded Chinese as the "official" language used by the state, which was really difficult to accept immediately.
In fact, it is not surprising that most of the aristocratic class at that time was Manchu, but the Han chinese were the most numerous ethnic group, and there were many more people who spoke Chinese than manchus. Moreover, above the court, the folds, documents, etc. were also in Chinese, and the Manchu nobles and emperors also respected Han culture, and received Chinese education from an early age.
Although the Han Chinese people spoke Chinese at that time, the accents in some places were really maddening, especially in Guangdong and Fujian. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the emperor was ready to promote a capable Fujian official to Beijing, but when he came, he found that the emperor and ministers in the capital could not understand what he said. This matter had to be abandoned, and he continued to stay in the local post and usually rely on folding to exchange work.
In 1728, a Fujian official, Xu Songyi, entered the palace to face the saint. At the age of thirty-six, he was not born in a serious manner, but had always followed his father, leaving his hometown early and traveling from various places to be a guest of honor and a bureaucrat. He knelt down the steps in anxiety, knowing that people like him who entered the career without being born into the military were often unpopular, and they thought that this was an unpopular status.
He did not know how the emperor would view him, but when the emperor saw his resume, he was very happy and evaluated him as "medium and high". In addition, Yongzheng also praised Xu Songyi as a person who understands and has a good reputation, and interestingly, Yongzheng's most meaningful evaluation of him is: "Not like a Fujian person."
"Not like a Fujianese", this evaluation was a very high evaluation at the time.
Why? There are two reasons for this:
First, at that time, the pirates in the South China Sea did not pay attention to the Qing Dynasty, and wantonly ran amok, disturbing the public order along the coast of Fujian, even. Use Fujian and other places as bases. Moreover, on the fourth day after summoning Xu Songyao, the pirates hijacked a cargo ship at sea, and Yongzheng Longyan was furious and had no good feelings for the coastal area.
Second, for Yongzheng, it is like the Hokkien accent of a crowd of crows, and for the Yongzheng Emperor, who has lived in the deep palace for a long time and listened to the official dialect of Beijing from childhood, it is a cloud of fog. Although Xu Songtuo is a Fujianese, he has followed his father around since he was a child, and the accent will naturally not be a Fujian accent, and yongzheng wrote a sentence after the comment that "he is not like a Fujianese", which is "what he says makes people hear clearly and clearly."
Xu Songtuo did not know what made Yongzheng favor him, and he did not know that because of him, it would trigger a political movement that would affect the whole country. On the fourth day that Xu Songyi met the Yongzheng Emperor, the emperor suddenly issued a holy decree. In the Holy Decree, the Emperor proposed: "Officials who have the duty to manage the people must be understood by all, so that they can understand the people's feelings, be familiar with things, and handle them correctly." ”
In addition, Yongzheng also specifically pointed out that the accents of Fujian and Guangdong "make people incomprehensible," and said, "If these officials are assigned to other places as officials, how can he read the dictations well, and how can he understand the complaints of the local people when the case is decided?" ”
In fact, Yongzheng knew very well that if Fujian, Guangdong, thousands of miles away from Beijing, did not take some strong measures, how could he change the accent of thousands of years? How can you say a fluent "Beijing film"? After that, the Yongzheng Emperor stipulated that the deadline should be eight years, and if he had not yet learned the official language, then the imperial examination in these two provinces would be stopped.
This was a big deal for the literati, and after receiving the notice, the governments of Guangdong and Fujian responded one after another.
After that, they were ordered to set up "Zhengyin Academy" in various counties to train and promote the official dialect. In the following one or two years, the number of Zhengyin Temples in the two provinces soared from more than 100 at the beginning to more than 2,000. Although the effect of this vigorous "Zhengyin" movement was not ideal, it laid a solid foundation for Zhang Zhidong and others to once again put forward the idea and measure of "unifying the world through official language."
Resources:
【Records of The Qing Dynasty", "Zhongyuan Phonology", "Dialects"]