History
The present Chinese language varieties developed out of the different ways in which dialects of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese evolved. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin, the other six are Wu Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Min Chinese, Xiang Chinese, Yue Chinese and Gan Chinese. More recently, other more specific groups have been recognized.
Read more about this topic: Mandarin Chinese
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)