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Chinese

Front Cover
7 Reviews
Cambridge University Press, Jan 21, 1988 - Foreign Language Study - 292 pages
This general introduction to the study of Chinese traces the language's history from its beginnings in the second millennium B.C. to the present, and provides a clear picture of the contemporary language and its sociolinguistic status. Chinese, in its numerous dialects, has more speakers than any other language in the modern world, and this vast extension in time and space brings to its study an exceptional complexity. Nevertheless, Norman's crisp organization and lucid elegance make this extraordinary range of material easily accessible even to those with an elementary understanding of linguistics. Chinese includes information on the genetic and typological connections of the language, the writing system, the classical and early vernacular tongues, the modern language and non-standard dialects, and the history of linguistic reform in China.
  

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Review: Chinese

User Review  - Karen Chung - Goodreads

If you'd like a solid, in-depth scholarly introduction to the Chinese language, start here! Read full review

Review: Chinese

User Review  - André - Goodreads

I can definitely recommend this book as a general overview on "Chinese" as a language/language family! Norman goes into quite some detail describing historical relationships, the development ... Read full review

All 7 reviews »

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Selected pages

Contents

The historical phonology of Chinese
23
the Qieyun
24
23 The Song rhyme tables
28
24 The methodology of Middle Chinese reconstruction
34
25 The reconstruction of Old Chinese
42
26 Old Mandarin
48
27 Tonal development
52
The Chinese script
58
67 Stress and intonation
148
68 Morphophonemics
149
The modern standard language II
152
72 The morpheme
154
73 The word
155
74 Word classes
157
75 Expression of grammatical categories
159
76 The Chinese sentence
166

32 Codification of the script under the Qin dynasty
63
33 The varieties of ancient script and its nomenclature
64
34 Developments in the Han dynasty
65
35 PostHan developments in the script
69
36 The number of Chinese characters
70
37 The adaptability of the Chinese script
74
38 Recent developments in the Chinese writing system
79
The classical and literary Languages
83
42 Morphemes and words
84
43 Word classes
87
44 The Classical Chinese sentence
95
45 Some grammatical operations
97
46 Place and time adjuncts
103
47 Nominal and verbal modification
104
48 Nominalization
105
49 Conjoining constructions
106
410 The classical literary language in later ages
108
The rise and development of the written vernacular
111
52 Nouns measures and localizers
112
53 Pronominal forms
117
54 Predicatives
121
55 Changes in word order
130
The modern standard language I
133
62 The problem of nomenclature
135
63 Phonology of the standard language preliminaries
138
64 The initials
139
65 The finals
141
66 Tones
145
77 Traditional Chinese lexicography
170
78 The rise of bilingual dictionaries
172
79 Modern lexicography in China
176
Dialectal variation in North and Central China
181
82 Historical factors in dialect development
183
83 Degree of diversity among the Chinese dialects
187
84 Dialect geography
188
85 Dialect boundaries
189
86 The Mandarin dialects
190
87 The Central dialects
197
88 The Wu dialects
199
89 The Gan dialects
204
810 The Xiang dialects
207
The dialects of the Southeast
210
92 The Yue dialects
214
93 The Kejia dialects
221
94 The Min dialects
228
95 Min and Kejia
239
96 Difficulties in classification
241
Language and society
245
102 Diglossia bidialectalism bilingualism
249
103 Government language policy
253
104 The fate of alphabetic writing in China
257
105 Present and future prospects
263
Notes
266
References
274
Index
283
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

adverbs alphabetic Central dialects century Chao China Chinese characters Chinese dialects Chinese Linguistics Chinese script Classical Chinese clerical script common compounds consonants dialect groups dictionary distinction early elements example fangyan fanqie final Fujian Fuzhou grammar graph guage Guangzhou guoyu hanyu initials Jiangle Jianyang Karlgren Kejia literary language main vowel Mandarin dialects meaning medial Meixian Middle Chinese Modern Chinese morphemes Nanbeichao nasal national language negative northern nouns occur Old Chinese origin palatal particle Peking Peking dialect period phonetic phonological prepositions pronouns pronunciation Pucheng putonghua Qieyun reconstruction region retroflex rhyme tables sentence shang Shanghai Shaowu Southern dialects speakers spoken language standard language stops suffix syllable syntactic Tang dynasty Tengxian texts tion tonal categories tone velars verb vernacular Vietnamese voiced voiceless Wang words writing system Wu dialects Xiamen Xiang Yuan Yue dialects Zhongguo Yuwen Zhou

References to this book

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References from web pages

Chinese language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chinese or the Sinitic language(s) (汉语/漢語, pinyin: Hànyǔ; 中文, pinyin: Zhōngwén) can be considered a language or a language family and is originally ...
en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Chinese_language

The difference between 'q' and 'ch' - Page 3 - Chinese-forums.com
The difference between 'q' and 'ch' Speaking and Listening
www.chinese-forums.com/ showthread.php?p=145246

Chinese: Information and Much More from Answers.com
Chinese languages Family of languages comprising one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan . They are spoken by about 95% of the inhabitants of China.
www.answers.com/ topic/ chinese-language

JSTOR: Chinese.
This is a succinct, clear, and authoritative treatment of its difficult subject, the Chinese language. Jerry Norman has succeeded in compressing large ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0021-9118(198911)48%3A4%3C836%3AC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

Background Essay no. 11 | Tradition and Transformation in the ...
An essay about the history of Chinese writing. The earliest examples of Chinese writing were used by Shang Dyansty (1600 - 1100 BCE) rulers; ...
www.askasia.org/ teachers/ essays/ essay.php?no=11

Western Washington University :: Chinese Linguistics
Description: This course investigates the phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and writing system of the Chinese language. Also covered briefly are some ...
www.wwu.edu/ cms/ WWU.Chinese/ Courses/ Chin390-Ling402.html

Chinese Language - Research and Read Books, Journals, Articles at ...
Research Chinese Language at the Questia.com online library.
www.questia.com/ library/ communication/ chinese-language.jsp

David Prager Branner (ed.) (2006). The Chinese rime tables ...
The Chinese rime tables is an edited volume of papers dealing with the medieval. Chinese rhyme tables (or rime tables), a set of texts of uncertain ...
journals.cambridge.org/ production/ action/ cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=687088

LINGUIST List 17.556: Phonology, Chinese: Prager Branner (Ed)
Directory 1. Paul Peranteau, The Chinese Rime Tables: Prager Branner (Ed) ... Major topics include Altaic contact-influence on Chinese, early native ...
www.linguistlist.org/ issues/ 17/ 17-556.html

Problems in comparative Chinese dia- lectology: The classification ...
Chinese, but also of other branches of linguistics and. even for nonspecialists. ... a list of medieval Chinese forms presented in a tran- ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ language/ v077/ 77.3grant01.pdf

About the author (1988)

Jerry Norman was Professor of Chinese at the University of Washington.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Chinese
TitleChinese
Cambridge Language Surveys
AuthorJerry Norman
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherCambridge University Press, 1988
ISBN0521296536, 9780521296533
Length292 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Foreign Language Study / Chinese
Foreign Language Study / General
History / General
Language Arts & Disciplines / Linguistics / Historical & Comparative
Literary Criticism / Asian / General
  
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