Writing and Language

With a history reaching back over 3，000 years，Chinese characters are one of the world’s oldest forms of writing.When Qin Shihuang（r.246-209 BC）unified China in 221 BC and became the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty and China，he instituted a unified system of writing-Chi-nese characters.In addition to Chinese characters，numerous ancient ethnic writing systems still exist in China today.

Some of these were developed on the basis of Chinese characters，like the scripts of the Qi Dan（Khitan）and Xixia（Tangut）peoples，while others are based on the writing systems of other countries and ethnic groups，such as Tibetan and Mongolian.

Spoken Chinese has many different dialects and pronunciations.In 195 5，the Chinese govern-ment established standard Mandarin Chinese，based on the northern dialect and using Beijing pronunciation，as the standard Chinese.

Chinese is a living，vital language.It has not only assimilated vocabulary from the languages of China’s different ethnic groups，but also has drawn extensively from foreign languages.

hancheng

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