Periodisation.

Modern Chinese	People's Republic of China	1949 - Present	Standard Putonghua. Reform of the written script - simplification of the characters.
	Republic of China (China) Republic of China (Taiwan)	1912 - 1949 1949 - Present	Standard Guo Yu. Widespread reform of the Chinese language. Attempt to introduce romanisation with the view of replacing the cumbersome Chinese script. Literature is written in colloquial style.
Recent Chinese	Qing	1644-1911	Influx of Northern Dialects into Central China with the coming of the Mongols. Yuan rimebook ZhongYuan YinYun 1324, shows the loss of occlusive endings. Chinese regain hold over China, and begin reinforcing and strengthening the Great Wall. Hardships and corruption brings down the Ming empire, to the victorious Manchu. The Qing government is set up, and eventually become sinicised. Qing KangXi Dictionary enumerates 47000 plus characters. Qing scholar Qian DaXin discovers that the ancients had no labio-dental and alvelo-palatal initials
	Ming	1368-1644
	Yuan	1279-1368
Middle Chinese	Song Liao XiXia Jin	960-1279 907-1125 1032-1227 1115-1234	GuangYun rimebook 1008, JiYun Rimebook 1038. QiYinLue, YunJing rimebooks. GuangYun rimes later condensed into the PingShui Yun of 1252. In the Song Dynasty, a massive population move southward leaves a depopulated north.
	Five Dynasties Ten Kingdoms	907-960 902-979
	Tang	618-907	QieYun rimebook 601. Tang poets gather some 900,000 sonnets and poems. Towards the end of Tang phase, unrest splits Tang empire, causing war, and once again, population movement.
	Sui	581-618
	Northern Dynasties Southern Dynasties	420-589 386-581	First account of the four types of tones, Ping, Shang, Qu and Ru by Shen Yao.
Old Chinese	Eastern Jin Sixteen Kingdoms	317-420 304-439	Translation of Buddhist scriptures into Chinese, enabling the introduction of the FanQie system of intial and rime to transcribe non-Chinese sounds. First recorded contact with the inhabitants of the Japanese Islands.
	Western Jin	265-317
	Three Kindoms	220-280
	Eastern Han Xin Western Han	25-220 9-23 206 BC-25 AD	Introduction of Buddhism to China. ShuoWen JieZi 100AD. At the end of the Han Dynasty, a massive population exodus heads southwards.
	Qin	221 BC - 206 BC	Li Si's XiaoZhuan codifies the meanings to Chinese characters for the first time. Differing glyphs from different part of the empire are simplified and unified into one representative glyph each.
Ancient Chinese	Warring States Springs and Autumns Period Eastern Zhou	475 BC - 221 BC 770 BC - 476 BC 770 BC - 256 BC	Oldest Chinese poetry is collected by Confucious in ShiJing. Leaps in philosophical and moral thought. Da Zhuan script.
	Western Zhou	1066 BC - 771 BC
	Shang	16th Century BC - 1066 BC	Shang bronze inscriptions. Oracle bone inscriptions. Earliest inscriptions in the BanPo neolithic excavations in northern China.
	Xia	21st Century BC - 16th Century BC