Before 1949 Mandarin was only spoken in Manchuria and Beijing city(essentially a Manchu enclave). So what did the Chinese speak then? The masses all spoke their own vernacular languages, the ruling elite spoke English to each other. Meetings of cabinet
Ministers were conducted in English, just like in todayโs India. Mandarin is a creole between a Liaodong Sinic language and the Altaic Manchu language developed in the 16th and 17th centuries. It became the lingua franca of China after the 1644 Manchu conquest of China. In Qing
dynasty China Mandarin was only spoken by the Manchu ruling class and imperial officials and civil servants. The vast majority of Chinese never leant to speak Mandarin prior to the founding of the Peopleโs Republic in 1949. China was in a position very similar to Indiaโs today,
diverse, disunited, corrupt, weak, chaotic, demoralized. The CCP led a Revolution and changed everything. The CCP transformed a premodern empire into the Superpower we know today.
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