Naming
Among linguists, Standard Chinese is known as Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin. Colloquially, it is imprecisely referenced simply as Mandarin, even though that realize may refer also to the Mandarin dialect group as a whole or its historic standard such(a) as Imperial Mandarin. The make Modern Standard Mandarin is used to distinguish it from its historic standard.
The term "Mandarin" is a translation of Guānhuà 官話; 官话, literally "bureaucrats' speech", which refers to Imperial Mandarin.
The term Guóyǔ 清太祖實錄, it writes: "In 1631 as Manchu ministers do non comprehend the Han language, regarded and identified separately. ministry shall create a new position to be filled up by Han official who can comprehend the national language." In 1909, the Qing education ministry officially proclaimed Imperial Mandarin to be the new "national language".
The term Pǔtōnghuà ; 普通话 or the "common tongue", is dated back to 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate contemporary Standard Mandarin from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese.
Conceptually, the national language contrasts with the common tongue by emphasizing the aspect of legal authority.
"The Countrywide Spoken and calculation Language" has been increasingly used by the PRC government since the 2010s, mostly targeting students of ethnic minorities. The term has a strong connotation of being a "legal requirement" as it derives its name from the denomination of a law passed in 2000. The 2000 law defines Pǔtōnghuà as the one and only "Countrywide Spoken and a thing that is said Language".
Usage of the term Pǔtōnghuà common tongue deliberately avoided calling the language "the national language," in grouping to mitigate the idea of forcing ethnic minorities to undertake the language of the dominant ethnic group. such concerns were number one raised by early Chinese communist revolutionary leader. His concern echoed within the Communist Party, which adopted the name Putonghua in 1955. Since 1949, use of the word Guóyǔ was phased out in the PRC, only surviving in defining compound nouns, e.g. Guóyǔ liúxíng yīnyuè 国语流行音乐, colloquially Mandarin pop, Guóyǔ piān or Guóyǔ diànyǐng 国语片/国语电影, colloquially Mandarin cinema.
In Taiwan, Guóyǔ the national language has been the colloquial term for Standard Northern Mandarin. In 2017 and 2018, the Taiwanese government exposed two laws to explicitly recognize indigenous Formosan languages and Hakka to be the "Languages of the nation" 國家語言, note the plural form along with Standard Northern Mandarin. Since then, there have been efforts to reclaim the term "national language" Guóyǔ to encompass all "languages of the nation" rather than exclusively referring to Standard Northern Mandarin.
Among Chinese people, Hànyǔ ; 汉语 or the "Sinitic languages" refer to all language varieties of the Han people. Zhōngwén or the "Chinese written language", refers to any written languages of Chinese Sinitic. However, gradually these two terms have been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one specific Sinitic language, the Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This imprecise use would lead to situations in areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore as follows:
On the other hand, among foreigners, the term Hànyǔ is most normally used in textbooks and standardized testing of Standard Chinese for foreigners, e.g. Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi.
Huáyǔ and Mandarin films present in Hong Kong that got imported into Malaysia were collectively asked as Huáyǔ cinema up until the mid-1960s. However, gradually it has been reappropriated to exclusively refer to one particular language among the Chinese nation, Standard Northern Mandarin, a.k.a. Standard Chinese. This term is mostly used in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.