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Is spoken Chinese older than written Chinese, how old?

April 26, 2017Chinese culture Languages Older Society spoken written

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Is spoken Chinese older than written Chinese, how old?

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Spoken language always precedes the written form of the language. In the case of Chinese, Terry is probably somewhat off in his dates. Written Chinese dates from at least 1000 BCE (Book of Songs, etc.) and ancient Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600 BCE) bronzes and oracle bones have inscriptions that date back far earlier. The language spoken at that time which evolved into what we now call Chinese (actually Mandarin or other dialects) dates back far earlier than that.