Mandarin as a linguistic term has four views; European missionaries as the lingua franca (common adopted language of Different chinese dialects) of dynastic China, Modern layman referring the standard language of Mainland China , Diaolectologists as the largest branch of Northern Chinese , Historical linguists as the synonym of Premodern Chinese.

MANDARIN as LINGUA FRANCA & STANDARD LANGUAGE

The speech variety and dialect of Nanjing with the accent of Beijing has been a growing influence at late 19th century. From the late Qing dynasty (1644-1912) to the early Republican era (1912-1949) Mandarin Chinese was formed. The spoken language Quonhoa during the empire period was used through visitors and natives of the state, similar to modern standard language at present. Modern Standard Chinese (putonghua) concentrated in Beijing where is the Chinese capital for 500 years. Quonhoa or Guanhua 官话 (official talk) became the prestige speech in daily life and especially literary language (literary strata). Mandarin was also the language of Chinese society as public language  (colloquial strata). There are pronunciation differences between the literary and colloquial strata. For example, the word to learn, pronounced xue  in the literary stratum, it is rendered xiao in colloquial Beijing strata. Differences also exist in vocabulary, with guanhua toward classical Chinese and colloquial Beijing being more abundant in localisms. In 1955 by the National language reform committee Modern Standard Chinese language was accepted as national language (guoyu 国语), common language (putonghua 普通话) in Mainland China “bases its pronunciation on the speech of Beijing, its lexicon on the core vocabulary of Northern Chinese, and its syntax on the norms of exemplary vernacular literature” (Li 1999, 32).

Modern Standard Chinese contains characteristics of languages with the basic word order Subject-Object-Verb.

MANDARIN as BRANCH OF NORTHERN CHINESE & PREMODERN CHINESE

Northern Chinese consist of dialect from northern and southwestern China as an extensive communication with the Guanhua lingua franca. This is the largest Sino-Tibetan speakers. The Mandarin family is distinguished from other dialects of Chinese by way of five shared innovations: velar palatalization; spirantalization of initial /m/; merger of final /m/ with /n/; loss of initial /m/; and the development of voiced obstruents into voiceless aspirated and unaspirated initials depending on tone. Within the Mandarin family are three main divisions comprising eight subdialects (after Liu 1995): Southern Mandarin includes the Yangzi (Jianghuai guanhua) and Southwestern (Xinan guanhua) subdialects; Central Mandarin includes the Central Plains (Zhongyuan guanhua) and Northwestern (Lanyin guanhua) varieties; and Northern Mandarin includes Northeastern (Dongbei guanhua), North Central (Jilu guanhua), Peninsular (Jiaoliao guanhua), and Beijing Mandarin (Beijing guanhua).

The Modern Standards Chinese has history from Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) to today. From the Tang dynasty (618–907) period, the northern Chinese language was adopted by peoples of Turkic, Mongol, and Tungus-Manchu, resulting simplification of Middle Chinese (265–1269) guanhua known as Mandarin.

The premodern Mandarin Chinese was three parts according to the historical periods. Early Mandarin (1269–1455) is typified by the opera manual Zhongyuan Yinyun (Rhymes of the Central Plains, 1324) by Zhou Deqing (1277–1365). Middle Mandarin (1455–1795) is preserved in Chinese-Korean language primers such as Hongmu Jeongun Yeokhun (Standard Rhymes of the Reign of Hongwu, Annotated and Transcribed, 1455) and Saseong Tonghae (Thorough Investigation of the Four Tones, 1517), as well as the Yunlue Huitong (Summary Compendium of Rhymes, 1642) and other Chinese rhyme manuals. Mandarin from the mid-nineteenth century to the present is considered to have changed very little and is referred to as Modern Mandarin or Modern Chinese.

Chris Wen-Chao LI, 2009. Berkshire Encyclopedia of China: Modern and Historic Views of the World’s Newest and Oldest Global Power(Vol. 3. ), Gleeson Library, e- encyclopedia