Examining the Mandarin Phonetic System Through Western Materials: An Analysis of the Differences in Views of Mandarin Language and the Concept of Southern and Northern Mandarin

Abstract

This paper outlines the development of the phonetic system of Mandarin and introduces recent findings on modern Mandarin from a sociolinguistic perspective by examining Western materials. First, features of Mandarin as the lingua franca of the Ming to Qing periods are discussed. Second, we analyze the works of Western scholars and reveal that they did not have a common view of the Mandarin language during the nineteenth century. Last, we demonstrate that the phrase “location name + Mandarin” was first developed in Japan and introduced to China in the twentieth century. It should be noted that this phrase formation, like “Beijing Mandarin,” did not exist in the Ming to Qing periods.