ABSTRACT
The term ‘Mandarin’ usually stands for two things in language studies. In a broad sense, Mandarin refers to the Northern dialect family, whose speakers live north of the Yangtze River. In a narrow sense, Mandarin refers to the dialect of Beijing and the nearby area. The name Mandarin was borrowed into English in the seventeenth century from the Portuguese stationed in Macao. It originally referred to the military officials of the Ming and Qing dynasty and consequently became the name of the language commonly used by officials.
