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Chinese is a polysemous word, usually referred to as language, literature and culture for short. Its original meaning is "language".

Chinese is generally regarded as a comprehensive subject of language and culture. Language and articles, language knowledge and cultural knowledge are inseparable from it. It can also be said that Chinese is the sum total of written or oral language works formed by using language rules, specific language vocabulary and formation process.

Chinese is an important teaching subject in the basic education curriculum system. Its teaching content is language and culture, and its operating form is also language and culture. Chinese ability is the basis of learning other disciplines and sciences, and it is also an important humanities and social science, and a tool for people to exchange ideas with each other. It is characterized by the unity of instrumentality and humanity.

Chinese is also the main subject offered by schools and other educational institutions in China.

Philology is a general term for studying language and characters from the perspective of literature, which generally includes philology, exegetics, phonology, collation and so on. China is rich in ancient literature, with special characters and developed Chinese, so Chinese in a broad sense should also include linguistics, that is, linguistics and philology.

However, linguistics is a big category in international academic disciplines, so instead, philology belongs to linguistics and becomes a branch of linguistics.

The origin of the name

The etymology of "Chinese" is "language and writing", whose abbreviation is "Chinese", which appeared in the 1980s of 19. 1905, after the Qing dynasty abolished the imperial examination system, it began to open new schools. Chinese was taught in ancient Chinese, so it was called "Chinese" at that time.

After the May 4th Movement broke out, Chinese classes were challenged by advocating vernacular Chinese and opposing classical Chinese, so primary schools were changed to "national language". The teaching materials have distinctive oral features, all of which are vernacular prose, children's songs and stories. Chinese classes are still offered in middle schools. In the 1920s and 1930s, Wei Bingxin, Cheng Qibao, Ye Shengtao, Zhu Ziqing, Xia Mianzun and others widely used the term "China people".

At that time, the word "Chinese course" had appeared (the goal orientation of the course was re-examined in The Origin of Mother Tongue Course), and Ye Shengtao and Xia Mianzun also began to try to compile new Chinese textbooks, but unfortunately they were forced to stop because of Japanese invasion of China. After the national liberation, Mr. Ye Shengtao and others once again proposed that "Mandarin" and "Chinese language" should be merged into one and renamed as "Chinese".

This proposal was adopted by the education authorities of the North China government and then extended to the whole country. Since then, "Chinese" has become a common name for mother tongue courses in primary and secondary schools.