Proto-Mandarin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Proto-Mandarin is a term that can be used to designate any earlier form of the most widely-spoken Chinese dialect, known in English as Mandarin; technically the "late Middle Chinese" of the Song Dynasty. "Early Mandarin" is the common name for the sound system described by the rhyme dictionary Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn (中原音韻, lit. Sounds and Rhymes of the Central Plains) of the later Yuan dynasty, used for rhyming of Peking Opera of that time.
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Categories: |
Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese |
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Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Puxian | Qiongwen | Shaojiang | |||
Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. |
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Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | ||||
Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese | |||
Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner | |||
Chinese: written varieties | ||||
Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese | |||
Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese |