Old Mandarin
| Old Mandarin | |
|---|---|
| 古官話 / 早期官話 | |
| Region | North China Plain |
| Era | Jin dynasty, Yuan dynasty |
|
Early forms
|
|
| Chinese characters, 'Phags-pa script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Old Mandarin (Chinese: 古官話; pinyin: Gǔ Guānhuà) or Early Mandarin (Chinese: 早期官話; pinyin: Zǎoqí Guānhuà) was the speech of northern China during the Jin and Yuan dynasties (12th to 14th centuries). New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as the qu and sanqu.
The phonology of Old Mandarin has been inferred from the 'Phags-pa script, an alphabet created in 1269 for several languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese, and from two rime dictionaries, the Menggu Ziyun (1308) and the Zhongyuan Yinyun (1324). The rhyme books differ in some details but show many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final stops and the reorganization of the four tones of Middle Chinese.
The name "Mandarin", as a direct translation of the Chinese Guānhuà (官話, "language of the officials"), was initially applied to the lingua franca of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which was based on various northern dialects. It has since been extended to both Standard Chinese and related northern dialects from the 12th century to the present.
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