Language is constantly changing. It's never stagnant, and that is especially true with Chinese. Genetically, Chinese has slowly grown out of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Sino refers to the various Chinese languages or dialects, while Tibetan refers to the languages spoken primarily in Tibet, Burma, and surrounding areas. Recent work by scholars has revealed that there are also distinct similarities with other languages of the region, including Tai and Miao-You language families (Asher, Simpson 518). It is agreed that at least 300 languages trace their roots back to the Sino-Tibetan language family. For an orthogentic line and timetable of Chinese see appendix 1. 

Archaic Chinese: 1700 BC- 25 AD

Chinese civilization began, as most do, by a water source. An estimated 1800 tribal clans grouped along the Yangtze River valleys by the end of the Shang dynasty (Chen 7). As the need for more cooperation in military and commercial venues grew, so did the need for a lingua franca (Chen 7). The following dynasty, the Zhou, would fill this need.

In 1200 the Zhou dynasty introduced a rudimentary form of feudalism and with it came an environment that fostered dialectical variations. At the same time, this was paralleled by an increased number of administrative, diplomatic, and military exchanges between the local and centralized governments (Chen 8). The Zhou kings realized that a standard Chinese had to be emphasized and enforced. The result was yayan or Aelegant speech, a standard that the king's scholars agreed to. Records show that yayan was taught in schools and used in educational, cultural, and diplomatic activities (Chen 8). It attempted to become the lingua franca, binding the feudal society together.

Evidence for yayan is primarily found in ancient texts. It was under the Zhuo dynasty that the Chinese writing system first began independently or any outside influence (Asher, Simpson 530). It began through divine means. Emperors, needing guidance from deity for both large and small state decisions, often consulted oracles (Asher, Simposon 530). This was achieved by scribes engraving on tortoise backs or shoulder blades of animals with a heated bronze pen that in turn caused the bones to crack.  The length and direction of the cracks were then interpreted, and characters were thus formed.  They believed the gods were sending messages to them through the oracles (Roberts 147).  For historical linguists, it was a godsend as well.  It provided a written foundation for the Chinese language (Roberts 147).  The language was grounded. 

In 1928 some 75,000 bones and tortoise shells were excavated in Northern China. While a total of 3,000 characters were inventoried, only a third could be conclusively deciphered (Asher 524). Through these bones, historical linguists were able to trace the development of the Chinese writing system during the Archaic period. Initially, the bone characters were pictographic in nature: a women with breasts kneeling for woman, a small figure for child, and a scaled animal with fins for fish.

But quickly the oracle writing developed further. Scribes realized that it was an insufficient method in terms or representing abstract ideas and concepts. So the evolved from pictographic to ideographic. Single characters with a similar semantic nature were combined to create new compound words. The word ming, meaning bright, is a perfect example of this phenomena. The sun and the moon graph both had the semantic element of light. So combined, they would represent this light feature and the union created the compound character bright. 
 
 

Another extremely influential textual work for historical linguists is the Shi Chin written between 800 and 600 BC. It was a book compromising 305 poems supposedly selected by Confucius. These poems were three to four lines long and had a strict rhyming pattern for each line. To a limited extent, the Shi Chin could be used to reconstruct pronunciation. But more importantly, the Shi Chin was extremely beneficial in providing the phonotatic and phonemic inventory of Archaic Chinese. 

The Shi Chin also showed further development of the Chinese writing system. Characters moved from being ideographic to being picto-phonetic in nature. Characters no long consisted of just a semantic component but a phonetic component was added to the writing as well. An example of this advancement is seen in the word lake. 
 
 
 

     In this manner an inexhaustible number of words could be created and pronunciation to some extent indicated as well.

With increased trade and migrations borrowings became eminent but not numerous. According to historical linguist R.A.D. Forrest, there are several reasons for the Chinese language's resistance to loanwords. First, the Aphonetic poverty of Chinese made it difficult to adapt or adopt foreign words. Also at a written level, a new word would require an entirely new written form. Finally, the languages with which Chinese was coming into contact with were not as prestigious. While invaders from the north and east enforced their native language, once they left the language reverted back to Chinese and most of the loanwords disappeared. Thus, Chinese had more influence on peripheral languages more than peripheral languages influenced Chinese (Forrest 139-140).

Despite the obstacles, which limited Chinese incorporation of foreign words, many words still managed to enter into the language. During the Archaic period the majority of words borrowed were those used to label new products brought into china from abroad. The following are just a few examples: 
 
 
 
 
 

The end of the Han Dynasty marked the end of Archaic Chinese. A new linguistic era was about to begin and the gradual evolution of Chinese would continue. 

Medieval Chinese: 25 AD- 907 AD

Most of the Chinese phonological history and written history of the medieval period are drawn from a single work, the rhyming and pronouncing dictionary Qui Yun. It was an elitist dictionary complied in 601 AD by a small group of elitists themselves. The purpose of the dictionary was to provide a "guide to the proper recitation of literary texts" (Asher, Simpson 523). It was a sort of received pronunciation guide to the "Emperor's Chinese".  If you wanted to work for him, you had to parrot his idiolect-and many educated people did (Creamer127).

From Qie Yun we see some of the first evidences of a tonal language. Syllables were grouped into four tones, divided according to rhyme, and then further divided according to initial consonants (Asher, Simposon 523). The phonemic inventory of Qui Yun consisted of more vowels and consonant than previously found in the Archaic period.

It was also during this time that Buddhist missionaries from India entered China. They brought with them not only religious doctrine, but also new words to describe their belief. Words like Buddha, Buddhist priest, and instant chance owe their origin to Sanskrit (Forrest 145). But Buddhism did more for spreading Chinese, then actually changing it. As Buddhist missionaries entered into Japan, they took with them the teachings of Buddha's enlightenment and did so using the Chinese script. Eager Japanese students absorbed both Buddhist teachings and Chinese character writing. The characters were later adapted to fit into their own polysyllabic language (Forrest 152). In turn, thousands of Chinese loanwords and characters flooded the shores off Japan and Korea at that time. Chinese became the Latin of Asia (Norman 21).

Pre-Modern Chinese: 907 AD- 1616AD

Dialects had been spoken all over China throughout its history and yet uniformity was somehow maintained to a certain extent. A growing disparity and divergence among Chinese dialects characterized the Pre-Modern period. The rift between the northern dialect Wu (mandarin) and the southern dialect Cantonese continued to grow at a rapid pace (Chen 11). This set the stage for language reform and standardization so characteristic of Modern Chinese times (Forrest 220).

Modern Chinese: 1616-the present

When the communists took power in 1949, they had several things on their agenda and one of them was language reform. Seven major dialects with hundreds of subdialects proliferated throughout China. In response to such linguistic pressures and the desire for more unification, Communist leaders focused their efforts at simplifying traditional script as well as defining and establishing a Modern Standard Chinese (Chen 23). At a major language conference held in Beijing in 1955, a consensus was reached and putonghua was introduced. It was based on Beijing phonology as a source of pronunciation and looked to baikua Avernacular literary language for its grammatical patterns (Chen 24). To ensure that putonghua succeeded policies enforced that all educational instruction and media were done in putonghua. Putonghua learning workshops were established throughout China in order to teaching the Beijing pronunciation. Finally, workers were encouraged to use putonghua in the public sector (Chen 26). Today there are seven main dialects which are mutually unintelligible. Like Hindi in India, more and more putonghua is taking the role of binding the nation together.

In addition to language standardization, the Chinese language during modern times has been inundated with western and Japanese loanwords. Due to modern technological and scientific advancements, western loanwords have been floating ashore by the day. But the Chinese language has shown its resiliency to foreign influence one more. For instance, rather than maintaining the adaptation delufeng for telephone, it was quickly replaced by dianhua (electric speech,) laser became jigguang (intense light), and railroad became tielu (iron road) (Norman 21). These are just a few of the calques and creative words that were created in the past century to account for technological advancements.

Chinese linguistic history is as broad as its physical boarders and deep as the oceans that surround it. The Chinese language is anything but unchanging. The Archaic, Medieval, Pre-Modern, and Modern periods of language development show continuous change, yet at the same time show a retention of much of the past. Like a tree, Chinese has grown and developed into a rich, deep-rooted language while adding new branches and leaves throughout the ages. Its resiliency throughout thousands of years proves the truth of the simple Chinese proverb: Be not afraid of growing slowly, only be afraid of standing still. 
 
 

Asher, R. E, and Simpson, J.M.Y. AChinese.   The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. New York: Pergamon Press, 1994. 
Chen, Ping. Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 
Creamer, Thomas B. I. ALexicography and the History of the Chinese Language. Lexicographica: History, Languages, and Lexicographers 41 (1992): 105-136. 
Forrest, R. A. D. The Chinese Language. 2nd ed. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1965. 
Norman, Jerry. Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 
Roberts, J. M. History of the World. London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1987. 
 

Appendix 1 1. Proportional time line of Chinese periodization 2. Orthogentic line of Chinese 2000 BC 1500 BC 1000 BC 500BC 1AD 500 AD 1000 AD 1500 AD 2000 AD