A Brief History of Mandarin

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about. The received view of standard Mandarin is that it has been Pekingese-based for at least six hundred years. Recent research, little known outside a small circle of specialists, has revealed that this view is flawed and that for most of its history this standard language had little to do with Pekingese. The present paper introduces these new developments to the academic community at large.