pǔtōnghuà 

普通话

Standard Mandarin Chinese

Historically, Mandarin Chinese was called 官话 (guānhuà---"speech of officials") by the Chinese people.

The name 普通话 (pǔtōnghuà) originates in the early 20th century, during the last days of the Qing Dynasty (清朝 Qīngcháo), although at this time, the official language of China was known as 国语 (guóyǔ).

After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, the new Republic of China desired to standardize a common national language, and eventually the Beijing dialect was chosen as the pronunciation standard. This dialect was originally called 国语 (guóyǔ), but after the shift of power to the People's Republic of China, the name guóyǔ was replaced by  pǔtōnghuà in 1955.

Putonghua is the official language of the People's Republic of China (Mainland China). It is based on the Beijing dialect, which was used during the much of the Qing Dynasty as the official language of the Imperial Court.

But Putonghua is not the only language spoken in China. There are five major language families with a total of up to 250 distinct language or dialect. This wide divergence intensifies the need of a unifying language that is understood by all Chinese people.

Historically, the written language was the unifying source of many of the Chinese languages, since Chinese characters have the same meaning wherever they are used, even though they may be pronounced differently in different regions.

The use of a common spoken language has been promoted since the rise of the People's Republic of China, which established Putonghua as the language of education throughout the Chinese territory.

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YESMYMANDARIN LANGUAGE SCHOOL