Mandarin, once known as "Beijing dialect", was first selected as China's national language in the 1910's, because of the "Beijing accent being dominant and combining certain elements of other northern ...

New media such as smartphone apps are preserving China's local vernaculars, which are otherwise declining among the younger, tech-savvy generation. Sun Ye reports. Computer codes are deciphering a ...

Malaysian parents are now in favour of their children learning Mandarin as opposed to Chinese dialects, Singapore daily The Straits Times reported today, saying that Mandarin will give them a ...

Regarding Hugo Restall’s review of “Kingdom of Characters” (Bookshelf, March 2): The Beijing dialect, known in the West as Mandarin, was voted by the Kuomintang to be the guoyu, or national dialect, ...