Mandarin (pronounced man-duh-rin)
(1) In Imperial China, a member of any of the nine
ranks of public officials, each distinguished by a particular kind of button
worn on the cap.
(2) By extension, an influential or senior government
official or bureaucrat.
(3) In informal (derogatory) use, a pedantic or elitist
bureaucrat.
(4) By extension, a member of an elite or powerful group
or class, as in intellectual or cultural milieus (usually but not necessarily paid
officials of institutions and it tends to be derogatory). The word is sometimes applied to any
authority thought deliberately superior or complex; esoteric, highbrow or obscurantist.
(5) As “Standard Mandarin”, an official language of China
and Taiwan, and one of four official languages in Singapore; Putonghua, Guoyu
or Huayu (initial capital letter).
(6) A northern Chinese dialect, especially as spoken in
and around Beijing (initial capital letter).
(7) A small, spiny citrus tree, Citrus reticulata, native
to China, bearing lance-shaped leaves and flattish, orange-yellow to
deep-orange loose-skinned fruit, some varieties of which are called tangerines;
a small citrus tree (Citrus nobilis), cultivated for its edible fruit; the
fruit of such tree, resembling small tangerines.
(8) In botany, any of several plants belonging to the
genus Disporum or Streptopus, of the lily family, as S. roseus (rose mandarin)
or D. lanuginosum (yellow mandarin), having drooping flowers and red berries.
(9) Of or relating to a mandarin or mandarins.
(10) In ornithology, an ellipsis of mandarin duck (Aix galericulata).
(11) Elegantly refined, as in dress, language or taste.
(12) A color in the orange spectrum.
(13) In ichthyology, as mandarin fish, the term applied
to a number of brightly-colored species.
1580–1590: From the Portuguese mandarim & mandarij (or the older Dutch mandorijn), an alteration (by association with mandar (to order) of the Austronesian Malay menteri & manteri, from the Hindi mantrī and the Sanskrit मन्त्रिन् (mantrin) (minister, councillor), from मन्त्र (mantra), (counsel, maxim, mantra) + -इन् (-in) (an agent suffix). In Chinese folk etymology, the word originates from Mandarin 滿大人／满大人 (Mǎndàrén (literally “Manchu (important man”)). Mantra was ultimately from the primitive Indo-European root men- (to think) and the evolution of mandarin (in the sense of Chinese civil administration) was influenced in Portuguese by (mandar) (to command, order). It was used generically of the several grades of Chinese officials who had entered the civil service (usually by way of the competitive exam); the Chinese equivalent was kwan (public servant) and by the early twentieth century it came to be used of “an important person” though often in a resentful manner rather than the sense of “a celebrity”. The use to describe the small fruit was first noted in 1771 and was from the French mandarine, feminine of mandarin, based on the association with the color often used for the robes worn by mandarins in the Chinese civil service. Mandarin, mandarinship, mandarinism & mandarinate are nouns, mandarinal is an adjective; the noun plural is manderins.
In fashion, the mandarin collar (a short unfolded stand-up collar on a shirt or jacket) was a style adopted by Western fashion houses and said to be reminiscent of (though sometimes with exaggerated dimensions) the style depicted in the clothing of mandarins in Imperial China. The mandarin gown (technically a cheongsam which was actually from the Cantonese 長衫／长衫 (coeng saam) (long robe) was (1) a tight-fitting and usually brightly colored and elaborately patterned formal woman's dress, split at the thigh (known also as a qipao) & (2) a plain colored, tight-fitting dress with a short split at the thigh, worn as a school uniform by schoolgirls in Hong Kong. Some dictionaries and food guides include “Mandarin cuisine” as a descriptor of the food associated with the area around Beijing but there’s little evidence of use and the main distinction in the West seems to be between Beijing cuisine and Cantonese cuisine from the south. However, “Mandarin” is a most popular element in the names of Chinese restaurants in the West.
The use to describe the standard language of the nation was a calque of the Chinese 官話／官话 (Guānhuà) (spoken language of the mandarins), as an extension from mandarin (bureaucrat of the Chinese Empire) to the language used by the imperial court and sometimes by imperial officials elsewhere; from this, it was in the twentieth century adopted as a synonym for “Modern Standard Chinese” although academics and translators note the ambiguity which developed after the use was extended in the early seventeenth century to a number of northern dialects of Chinese to the extent they consider Manderin a branch of the Chinese languages and consisting of many dialects; Guanhua or Beifanghua. Standard Mandarin (the language of the elites, media and education) and Mandarin Chinese (the group of Northern Chinese dialects together with Standard Mandarin) are not wholly interchangeable and within China are described differently.
There are some forks of Mandarin Chinese which, but for a few words and phrases, are unintelligible to speakers of Standard Mandarin and the whole set of Mandarin languages are parts of the broader group of languages and dialects (or topolects) spoken. The evolution of Mandarin to become both the imperial lingua franca and the official “court language” of the Ming and Qing dynasties was in part a pragmatic solution to the mutual unintelligibility of the varieties of spoken Chinese which had emerged over centuries. It became prevalent during the late Ming (1368-1644) and early Qing (1636-1912) eras and, because of the centralization of Imperial administration, the particular court dialect spoken in Beijing became dominant by the mid-nineteenth century and substantially formed what was by the time of the formation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949, it was “Standard Chinese”.
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