Mandarin (bureaucrat)

A mandarin (Chinese:  guān) was a bureaucrat scholar in the government of imperial China.

The term is generally applied to the officials appointed through the imperial examination system; it sometimes includes and sometimes excludes the eunuchs also involved in the governance of the two realms.

The English term comes from the Portuguese mandarim (spelled in Old Portuguese as mandarin pronounced: [ˌmɐ̃n.ðaˈɾĩn]). The Portuguese word is amply attested already in one of the earliest Portuguese reports about China: letters from the imprisoned survivors of the Tomé Pires' embassy, which were most likely written in 1524, and in Castanheda's História do descobrimento e conquista da Índia pelos portugueses. Its usage among the Portuguese is also attested by Matteo Ricci, who entered mainland China from Portuguese Macau in the late 16th century.

The Portuguese word was thought by many to be related to mandador ("one who commands") and mandar ("to command"), from Latin "mandare". Modern dictionaries, however, agree that it was in fact borrowed by Portuguese from the Malay [ˈməntəri], which ultimately came from the Sanskrit mantri (Devanagari: मंत्री, meaning counselor or minister – etymologically linked to mantra). According to Malaysian Royal Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz, the term had its origin when the Portuguese living in Malacca during the Malacca Sultanate wanted to meet with the higher officials in China, and used the term "menteri", but with an added "n" due to their poor grasp of the language, to refer to higher officials.

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