Guoyu
Wade-Giles) or Guóyǔ (in pinyin) (國語 ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄩˇ) (literally "national language") is the official spoken language of the Republic of China on Taiwan, based on a set of official pronunciation of Chinese language words. Guoyu was the official spoken language of all China before mainland China came under the control of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the nearly identical Putonghua has been the official spoken language of mainland China.
Guoyu is based on Beijing dialect, which comes under the category of Beifanghua, a group of Chinese dialects spoken across northern and southwestern China. Both Guoyu and Beifanghua (as well as Putonghua) are translated as "Mandarin" into English.
Unlike Putonghua, which is influenced by non-Beijing forms of Mandarin1, Kuo-yü is in theory based only on the pronunciation of Beijing dialect. In practice, the differences between Putonghua and Guoyu are slight. Differences are mainly found in the tone of some words.
Guoyu originally referred to the language the Emperor spoke. It was the Xianbei language during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Mongolian during the Yuan Dynasty and Manchu during the Qing Dynasty. Guoyu in the sense of national language was coined in Japan (kokugo in Japanese) and then was loaned into Chinese.
Kuo-yü is the official term on Taiwan used to refer to standardized Mandarin. The term Kuo-yü is rarely used in Mainland China, because declaring a Beijing dialect-based standard to be the national language would be deemed unfair to other Chinese dialects and ethnic minorities. Instead the term Putonghua (common speech), with the implication that Putonghua is simply a lingua franca. Some in Taiwan, especially proponents of Taiwan independence also object to the term "Guoyu" to refer to standardized Mandarin on the grounds that the "nation" referred to in the name of the language is China and that Taiwan is or should be independent. They prefer to refer to Mandarin with the terms "Beijing dialect" or Zhongwen (writing of China). As with most things political in Taiwan, some support the name for precisely the same reasons that others oppose them.
Notes
1 The word "Mandarin" here refers to Beifanghua, not Guoyu or Putonghua.
