The
Chinese language has an attested history spanning more than three millennia, and
linguists have
reconstructed forms spoken millennia prior to the earliest known examples of
written Chinese
c. 1200 BC. Chinese may be viewed either as a holistic unit with great internal
topological variation, or as an entire
language family comprising many groupings of
varieties. Written Chinese makes use of
Chinese characters, one of the four independent inventions of writing agreed by scholars, and the only one of these remaining in use. Speakers and readers exhibit a high degree of diglossia between both local varieties and
Standard Chinese, and between written and spoken language. The historically predominant written form of the language is known as
Literary Chinese.
Overviews
Chan, Sin-Wai, ed. (2016). The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language. Routledge.
ISBN978-1-317-38249-2.
Harbsmeier, Christoph;
Needham, Joseph, eds. (2006) [1998]. Science and Chinese Society: Language and Logic. Science and civilisation in China. Vol. VII:1 (Reprint ed.). Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-0-521-57143-2.
Kane, Daniel A. (2006). Chinese Language: A Survey of Its History and Current Usage. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle.
ISBN978-0-804-83853-5.
Branner, David Prager, ed. (2006). The Chinese Rime Tables: Linguistic Philosophy and Historical-Comparative Phonology. Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Vol. 271. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
ISBN978-9-027-24785-8.
Yuen Ren Chao (趙元任) (1976). Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics: Essays. Language science and national development. Stanford University Press.
ISBN978-0-804-70909-5.
Kaske, Elisabeth, ed. (2008). The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919. Sinica Leidensia. Leiden: Brill.
ISBN978-9-047-42333-1.
Li, Yuming (2015). Language Planning in China. Language Policies and Practices in China. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
ISBN978-1-614-51558-6.
Zhong, Yurou (2019). Chinese Grammatology: Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916–1958. Columbia University Press.
doi:
10.7312/zhon19262.
ISBN978-0-231-54989-9.
Varieties and dialectology
Ramsey, S. Robert (1989) [1987]. The Languages of China (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.
ISBN978-0-691-01468-5.
Demattè, Paola (2022). The Origins of Chinese Writing. Oxford University Press.
ISBN978-0-197-63576-6.
Keightley, David N. (1985) [1978]. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN978-0-520-02969-9.
——— (2000). The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China (ca. 1200–1045 B.C.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
ISBN978-1-557-29070-0.
Qiu Xigui (裘锡圭) (2000) [1988]. Chinese Writing. Translated by Mattos, Gilbert L.; Norman, Jerry. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.
ISBN978-1-557-29071-7.
Zhou Youguang (周有光) (2003). The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts 中国语文的时代演进 (in English and Chinese). Translated by Zhang Liqing (张立青). Columbus: National East Asian Languages Resource Center, Ohio State University.
ISBN978-0-874-15349-1.