The earliest historical linguistic evidence of the spoken Chinese language dates back approximately 4500 years,[1] while examples of the writing system that would become written Chinese are attested in a body of inscriptions made on bronze vessels and oracle bones during the Late Shang period (c. 1250 – 1050 BCE),[2][3] with the very oldest dated to c. 1200 BCE.
[4] The oldest attested written Chinese—comprising the oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century BCE by the Shang dynasty royal house in modern Anyang, Henan—is also the earliest direct evidence of the Sinitic languages.
The first known use of the Chinese writing system is divinatory inscriptions into tortoise shells and oracle bones during the Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BCE).
During the first half of the Zhou dynasty (1122–256 BCE), writing descended from the Shang is found texts including inscriptions on bronze artefacts, the Classic of Poetry, the history of the Book of Documents, and portions of the I Ching.
[citation needed] Moreover, Mandarin, called Guanhua ('officials' speech') was at first based on the Nanjing dialect, and became the dominant vernacular in northern China during the early Qing.
[citation needed] This situation changed with the creation of an elementary school education system committed to teaching Standard Chinese in both mainland China and Taiwan, but not Hong Kong or Macau.
In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and parts of Guangxi, Cantonese remains the everyday language used in business and education.
[citation needed] After the establishment of the Kuomintang (KMT), the 1913 Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation planned to use Guanhua as the basis of a national dialect, redubbing it as Guoyu ('national language').