“A BILLION Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language” tells the story of the creation of Putonghua, or Mandarin, which is an interesting read for both Chinese and foreign students of the language.

    The book is written by American linguist David Moser, who has spent more than 30 years studying Chinese. It is now only selling as an e-book but will be available in paperback in October.

    Currently, Moser is teaching at Capital Normal University in Beijing, where he coordinates a program for foreign students coming to China for summer courses.

    In the book, Moser takes readers back to the early 1900s to see how Chinese intellectuals tried to reform the language after the fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

    Besides the reform in the writing system, Moser also traces the little-known process of how people unified over 100 of so-called dialects into what is widely used now, Putonghua, or the common speech.

    Moser captures the tensions between Putonghua and dialects, because some of the dialects could be arguably considered as another language.

    Many dialects are dying out as there are fewer people speaking them nowadays.

    Near the end of the book, Moser also touches upon how the Internet has been affecting the Chinese language: A lot of Internet slang and a mixture of foreign and Chinese compounds have emerged, and they are used by young people.

    Moser says tracing the reform of Chinese language along the way is a process for foreign learners to understand how Chinese works.

    (China Daily)