Standard Chinese
Mandarin (Chinese: 華語, lit. Chinese speech), also known as Wah-yu and officially as New Namgin Mandarin, is a Sinitic language and acts as the official language and lingua franca of China. Modern Mandarin began forming in the 1860s after the Canton War, eventually becoming a koiné. It was implemented as reunified China's sole official language in 1942 by the new Republican government.