A History of the Chinese Language

摘要

The book aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to the historical development of the Chinese language from its proto Sino-Tibetan roots in prehistoric time to Modern Standard Chinese. The content includes phonological change, grammatical development, lexical evolution, vernacular writing, Chinese characters and Modern Chinese dialects. It aims at readers of multiple disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, history and sociolinguistics. The book has a reader-friendly approach and its clear style and neatly packed framework is certainly an advantage for such a complex project. Another plus is that it has a companion website, offering supplementary resources, answer keys and audio recordings of the sounds of Middle and Old Chinese.