<p>This is a very difficult question to answer, as while there are many pieces of research on the history of the Chinese language, there is no clear indication of which language was the official language (官話) of each of the 27-30  <a href="https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history#:%7E:text=Dynasties%20%5B%20change%20%7C%20change%20source%5D%20%20,%28%20list%20%29%20%2015%20more%20rows%20" rel="nofollow noreferrer">dynasties</a>.</p>
<p>However, the official language ought to be tied to the origin, where the force to create a new dynasty was originated. However, this couldn't be practically correct, because each of the dynasties may not have lived long enough to change the official language drastically to its likes - the freshest example is the Ching Dynasty (qing/ching), while it was created by 滿人, that originated in Northeast China (關外) who spoke 滿州話 and used 滿文, but after 200 years of governing, it still was not been able to alter the official language that was used in Ming Dynasty but minor changes (actually it has adopted the Chinese language instead).</p>
<p>So, what else provides clues to the official language at different eras? One is to look at the <strong>Capital City</strong> of each dynasty. After 5000 plus years and 30 plus dynasties, the capital city has always been located among a handful of cities - 咸陽,西安,長安,洛陽,北京,南京, so one of the prevalent, and earliest, dialects, in the region that covers those cities must have the most influence, which includes - Gan(贛?), Hakka(客/汉語), Wu(吳語), and most importantly - Central Plane Mandarine (中原普通話).</p>
<p><strong>Central Plane Mandarine (中原普通話)</strong> is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, the southern part of Gansu, the far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong. Note that all the ancient capital cities are located in this region, which was home to the Chinese majority - Han(漢族).</p>
<p>However, it is worthy to note that there are at least 15 subdialects under the umbrella of the dialect (Central Plane Mandarin). A list of the subdialects is provided <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plains_Mandarin" rel="nofollow noreferrer">in here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>ADD:</strong> When also named &quot;Mandarin&quot;, it differs from the Modern Mandarin, as the latter has become the mainstream language not until the 19th century, and is closely related to 北京話, which was much less dominant prior to Ming and Qian/Ching Dynasties.</p>
<p><strong>Approximate location of Central PLane China (中原)</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/tpiLY.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/tpiLY.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T18:34:02.010Z
2022-01-06T00:29:28.613Z
2022-01-06T00:29:28.613Z
r13
<p>It's called &quot;Mandarin&quot; (and 官话) precisely because it was the language of courtly officials at a time when there was no unified national language of China. This was the case in both the Ming and Qing dynasties (although they used different dialects as standards of pronunciation, IIUC).</p>
<p>In the dynasties previous to the Ming, what were the languages of the court? (It might be hard to meaningfully say pre-Tang, since I'm not sure how much we understand about regional variation of Chinese pre-Middle-Chinese)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T07:02:13.987Z
well, the official language of 清 dynasty is, **manchu** (滿州話, 清文); not mandarin, han-chinese :)
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T07:07:11.903Z
@水巷孑蠻 Good point, although it obviously changed to Mandarin mid-dynasty.
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T07:17:52.730Z
interesting, mid-dynasty  may i ask when? btw, the official written language, most of the time, was han-chinese. and the official spoken language, shifted from central china, to eastern china, then, northern china, generally.
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T07:19:33.090Z
have a look of this thread: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30527/what-is-the-difference-between-國語-and-普通話/30535#30535
水巷孑蠻
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T09:07:13.657Z
I believe that we've always had an understanding, to some degree, of regional variation of spoken Chinese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese#History gives a small summary & relevant publications), as there were always attempts to write regional vernacular prose or record topolect-specific expressions. What is probably less understood is the spoken variety used for administering the capital / court, as I suppose the written language was always literary Chinese.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T09:08:28.673Z
Maybe there wasn't ever a "single language", and the emperor had to deal with broken accents or use on-the-fly translators all the time :)
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T22:04:25.540Z
@水巷孑蠻 I did not mean to say there was some official change in policy. I'm simply saying that the vast majority of written documents and spoken language of the court and administration had shifted to Mandarin by the end of the dynasty (and most bannermen couldn't even speak Manchu anymore!).
Stumpy Joe Pete
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-01-05T23:08:56.090Z
I asked a question that might be related to this topic https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/33078/what-was-the-standard-spoken-language-dialect-in-the-three-kingdoms-period
Tang Ho
<topolect><history>
What were the court/administrative languages of various dynasties?
# What were the court/administrative languages of various dynasties?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-01-05)

It's called "Mandarin" (and 官话) precisely because it was the language of courtly officials at a time when there was no unified national language of China. This was the case in both the Ming and Qing dynasties (although they used different dialects as standards of pronunciation, IIUC).

In the dynasties previous to the Ming, what were the languages of the court? (It might be hard to meaningfully say pre-Tang, since I'm not sure how much we understand about regional variation of Chinese pre-Middle-Chinese)

**Tags:** topolect, history

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: well, the official language of 清 dynasty is, **manchu** (滿州話, 清文); not mandarin, han-chinese :)  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Good point, although it obviously changed to Mandarin mid-dynasty.  
> **username_1**: interesting, mid-dynasty  may i ask when? btw, the official written language, most of the time, was han-chinese. and the official spoken language, shifted from central china, to eastern china, then, northern china, generally.  
> **username_1**: have a look of this thread: https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/30527/what-is-the-difference-between-國語-and-普通話/30535#30535  
> **username_2**: I believe that we've always had an understanding, to some degree, of regional variation of spoken Chinese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese#History gives a small summary & relevant publications), as there were always attempts to write regional vernacular prose or record topolect-specific expressions. What is probably less understood is the spoken variety used for administering the capital / court, as I suppose the written language was always literary Chinese.  
> **username_2**: Maybe there wasn't ever a "single language", and the emperor had to deal with broken accents or use on-the-fly translators all the time :)  
> **username_0**: @username_1 I did not mean to say there was some official change in policy. I'm simply saying that the vast majority of written documents and spoken language of the court and administration had shifted to Mandarin by the end of the dynasty (and most bannermen couldn't even speak Manchu anymore!).  
> **username_3**: I asked a question that might be related to this topic https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/33078/what-was-the-standard-spoken-language-dialect-in-the-three-kingdoms-period  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-01-05. Score: 3

This is a very difficult question to answer, as while there are many pieces of research on the history of the Chinese language, there is no clear indication of which language was the official language (官話) of each of the 27-30 [dynasties](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history#:%7E:text=Dynasties%20%5B%20change%20%7C%20change%20source%5D%20%20,%28%20list%20%29%20%2015%20more%20rows%20).

However, the official language ought to be tied to the origin, where the force to create a new dynasty was originated. However, this couldn't be practically correct, because each of the dynasties may not have lived long enough to change the official language drastically to its likes - the freshest example is the Ching Dynasty (qing/ching), while it was created by 滿人, that originated in Northeast China (關外) who spoke 滿州話 and used 滿文, but after 200 years of governing, it still was not been able to alter the official language that was used in Ming Dynasty but minor changes (actually it has adopted the Chinese language instead).

So, what else provides clues to the official language at different eras? One is to look at the **Capital City** of each dynasty. After 5000 plus years and 30 plus dynasties, the capital city has always been located among a handful of cities - 咸陽,西安,長安,洛陽,北京,南京, so one of the prevalent, and earliest, dialects, in the region that covers those cities must have the most influence, which includes - Gan(贛?), Hakka(客/汉語), Wu(吳語), and most importantly - Central Plane Mandarine (中原普通話).

**Central Plane Mandarine (中原普通話)** is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, the southern part of Gansu, the far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong. Note that all the ancient capital cities are located in this region, which was home to the Chinese majority - Han(漢族).

However, it is worthy to note that there are at least 15 subdialects under the umbrella of the dialect (Central Plane Mandarin). A list of the subdialects is provided [in here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Plains_Mandarin).

**ADD:** When also named "Mandarin", it differs from the Modern Mandarin, as the latter has become the mainstream language not until the 19th century, and is closely related to 北京話, which was much less dominant prior to Ming and Qian/Ching Dynasties.

**Approximate location of Central PLane China (中原)**

[![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/tpiLY.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/tpiLY.png)


---

