ABSTRACT
The first Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation came into existence as early as 1913. Following the May Fourth Movement, the government recognized and accepted contemporary Chinese language as the standard. While the legislature was one issue, the other issue was the formulation of obligatory language norms and the dissemination of such a language across the country as vast and multilingual as China. The unity and homogeneity of the national official Chinese language positioned above local differences and aspiring for the unchallenged position of the only means of expression on the national level is one of the pillars of the political unity of China. Modern Standard Chinese has one of the simplest tone systems of all contemporary Sinitic languages. Phonologically, there are only four of them, and they are clearly and sharply contrasting. Each syllable of the contemporary Chinese language carries its tone – and only in this combination does it constitute a unit of the language.
