The Chinese language is revered as one of the oldest and most profound surviving languages in the world. These languages are geographically defined, and are found in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet. 9. There’s a series of (English-language) books by Qiu Xiaolong about a poet-detective (the “Inspector Chen” series). Ironically (considering China’s lax approach to Tibetan language education), Chinese forms a part of what is known as the Sino-Tibetan language family. One of the first written languages in history was recorded in ancient China! Of all languages spoken today, Chinese has the most ancient writing system. We owe the Chinese language used nowadays in China to the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).. When Chinese characters were borrowed by Japanese and Korean around 1000 years ago, the tones are not picked up by their languages. Mandarin Chinese is the most popular language in China, with over 955 million speakers out of China’s total population of 1.21 billion people. But, because they share a common history and a good deal of common vocabulary and grammar, it is much easier for a speaker of one Chinese language to learn another Chinese language than for a complete outsider to do so. The ancient Chinese contributed to the written language by creating characters and symbols. Isn't God wonderful to preserve such a record for us! With thousands years of history, Chinese language influences a lot of countries’ culture, especially states close to ancient China, such as Korea and Japan. There is no current evidence that indicates at what point ancient Chinese separated itself from the language family, but there is very little doubt that the language draws heavily from Sino-Tibetan. Chinese Language Facts. 文言文編程語言 A programming language for the ancient Chinese. In fact, the history of the Chinese language can be classified into the following stages: Archaic Chinese (14th to 11th centuries BC): the language of oracular inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. When learning a little more than “Nihao!” one begins to discover the oddities hidden within this ancient language: what makes it practical, what makes it poetic, and what makes it intriguing. Chinese is spoken by nearly 1.2 billion people across the world. The world’s most natively-spoken language, Chinese, still remains a mystery to the West. Origins of Chinese Writing . It was the language of the Grey Folk, beings who had settled in Alagaësia after dwarves and dragons, those who were native to the land, nathless did they settle ere the elves and humans. Tibeto-Burman comprises hundreds of languages besides Tibetan and Burmese, spread over a vast geographical area (China, India, the Himalayan region, peninsular SE Asia). Did Chinese actually have fixed tones at that time, or not? It dates back to more than 3,000 years ago. Ancient Chinese Writing: History of How It Began. Print. Nonetheless, the Mandarin Chinese spoken today is very different from the Chinese spoken in ancient China, and it is mutually unintelligible with many other Chinese dialects spoken in the vast territories of the People’s Republic of China. Chinese is the oldest written language in the world, dating back to over 4000 years ago.. Traces of written Chinese were found as early as under the Shang dynasty (1600 – 1066 BC). Read more. Tibetan, a language based on the ancient Indian Brahmi script, is the main language in Tibet. Chinese writing, basically logographic writing system, one of the world’s great writing systems.. Like Semitic writing in the West, Chinese script was fundamental to the writing systems in the East. The oldest known example of Old Chinese was found at the archaeological site of the ancient city of Yinxu. About the Chinese language The Chinese language is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. 8. Inspector Chen is quite fond of quoting Chinese poetry, and the “Clouds and Rain” euphemism comes up quite a bit. Here, the researchers found oracle bones with the earliest form of the Chinese language. The Chinese writing system is one of the oldest known written languages – some of the earliest examples of ancient Chinese writing date back to over 4,000 years ago. Ancient Chinese had codas (Cantonese codas like [p], [t], [k]) but modern Chinese doesn't. The Cambridge History of Ancient China, by Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy, says the likely date for the earliest oracle bones is about 1200 B.C., corresponding with the reign of King Wu Ding.This speculation is based on the earliest reference to the origins of writing, which dates to the 3rd century B.C. Ancient Chinese writing evolved from the practice of divination during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). The Chinese had invented the printing press by carving reverse characters and symbols in a single wooden block which could be pressed in ink to make many copies of print on cloth. We agree on this! In Inner Mongolia the language is based on ancient Turkish. Written Chinese. Hokkien is the oldest Sinitic language alive today. Chinese character inscriptions have been found in turtle shells dating back to the Shang dynasty 1 (1766-1123 BC) proving the written language has existed for more than 3,000 years. Priests or holy … Ban Po was occupied c. 4500-3750 BCE and was discovered by workmen digging a foundation for a factory in … Some theories suggest that images and markings on pottery shards found at Ban Po Village are evidence of an early writing system but this claim has been challenged repeatedly. 2000. Indeed, Chinese characters have been found engraved in animal bones that date from 1600 BC! The World Book Millennium. Chinese was the first written East Asian language. 1. The Chinese language predates the Hebrew of the Old Testament by 700-1700 years, and yet it contains a true and accurate record of events from the book of Genesis. It provides an invaluable resource for scholars of ancient Chinese as well as comparative Sino-Tibetan. Indeed, Chinese is a very important language, and deserving of study. Ancient Chinese pictographs are silent witnesses, like fingerprints, of historical events reported in Genesis. The Chinese writing systems uses a logographic system (a series of symbols that represent a complete word or a phrase). Comparing ancient Chinese and the holy Bible leads to a remarkable conclusion. Today, the Han version of the Chinese dialect is in usage and is the main component of the Sino-Tibetan family of Ancient Chinese Languages. The Chinese population adds to the fact that today Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and is next only to English. It has become one of the most important international languages… The Chinese writing system is over 3,000 years old. Chinese has a large number of words that … Chiu, Lisa. As you might expect, Old Chinese is the precursor of modern Chinese. Translate Ancient to Chinese (s) online and download now our free translation software to use at any time. If they are from Ancient Chinese, why are they not more consistent? Ancient (Chinese (s) to English translation). The Chinese language is the oldest written language in the world with at least six thousand years of history. National Language of China: Standard Chinese Ancient chinese characters carved in stone stamper. Mainly, in ancient China, Chinese language influence countries all over. About 1.3 billion people (one-fifth of the world) speak some form of Chinese, making it the language with the most native speakers. =P Next time I get around to reading one of the books I’ll keep an eye out for the mention of any classical poems which sport the phrase. It is also one of the four official languages of Singapore and one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Other Asian languages with vocabulary descended from Chinese also come in to play. The Chinese language is the group of languages used by Chinese people in China and elsewhere. Language in Ancient China By Kelly Christensen Bibliography "Chinese Language." The pictorial Chinese language was composed an estimated 4,500 years ago (that is about 2,500 years before the birth of Christ and 500 years or so before Abraham left Ur and made his covenant with the Lord). Like the Romance languages, the Chinese languages are mutually unintelligible (that is what makes them different languages). Ancient Chinese characters were used 3,000 years ago. MORE EVIDENCE THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN BIBLE IS … In contrast, the Latin alphabet didn’t originate until almost 1,000 years later, in the 7th century BC. This is why we have a Chinese language section of the CMI website. Around one-fifth of the world’s population speaks the language. Chinese is certainly a language with ancient origins. The Ancient Language was once a language of all beings in Alagaësia, but was later used only by the elves and some humans, along with the dwarves with one moment being the crowning of their king. - wenyan-lang/wenyan Nowadays, its influence enlarges. Standard Chinese is the official language in Mainland China and Taiwan. Uighur, a Turkish based language, is spoken in Xinjiang province. The earliest evidence of Ancient Chinese writing was found in the early 20th century CE when cattle bones and turtles shells were uncovered in China. Unlike in other languages, there is no Chinese alphabet. The claims on your site about Chinese characters and their relationship to Genesis are, unfortunately, based on some work… In particular, the details of these word-symbols are clues that point to how the earliest Chinese must have known basic facts of Genesis 1–11 at the very time their pictographs were invented.