Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History: Dialect and Text

Abstract

Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History: Dialect and Text presents cutting-edge research into issues regarding prestige colloquial languages in China in their spoken forms and as well as their relationship to written forms and the colloquial literary language. These include the standard regional languages and prestige dialects of the past, the influence of historical forms of spoken Chinese on written Chinese, the history of guānhuà and the history of báihuà, proto-dialects and supra-regional common languages (koines), and their relationship to spoken dialects. The various studies in this collection focus on the dialect groups with the most substantial written tradition, including Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese, in north, central and eastern coastal, and southern China respectively. The contributors explore the histories of these dialects in their written and spoken forms, presenting a variegated view of the history and development of the regional forms, including their evolution and influence. This edited volume expands our understanding of the underlying factors in the formation of supra-regional common languages in China, and the written forms to which they gave rise. It broadens our understanding of the evolution of written and spoken forms of Chinese from a comparative perspective, revealing the interrelationships of various areal forms of Chinese and historical koines in China.