Chris Wen-Chao LI
Modern Standard Chinese, as the official language of the Chinese-speaking world, came to be equated with the term Mandarin in lay usage. In the Chinese capital Beijing, the city most influential in shaping Mandarin, a large crowd assembles to watch the sunrise events at Tiananmen Square. PHOTO BY TOM CHRISTENSEN.
Mandarin is a linguistic term with four distinct senses: to early European missionaries Mandarin was the lingua franca of dynastic China; to the modern layman
