The National Language

The need to establish an official national language was felt as early as the 17th century when the Qing Dynasty established a number of“correct pronunciation institutes” to teach standard Peking pronunciation，particularly in the Cantonese and Fukienese-speaking southern provinces.The success of these schools，however，was extremely limited.The concept of a national language coalesced around 1910.Due to the domination of the numerically superiorMandarin-speaking delegates，the Peking dialect was voted for the general foundation of the new national language，“Guo Yu”（national speech）.It embodies the pronunciation of Peking，the grammar of the Mandarin dialects，and the vocabulary of modern vernacular Chinese literature，but features of various local dialects were also incorporated.Guo Yu is now the official language of mainland China and Taiwan，and one of the official languages of Singapore.After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949，it was renamed as Putong Hua（common language）.In 1956，it became the medium of instruction in all schools nationwide and a policy of promoting its use began.It is now the most widely used form of spoken Chinese.

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