"The received view of standard Mandarin is that it has been Pekingese-based for at least six hundred years. Recent research, little known outside a small circle of specialists, has revealed that this view is flawed and that for most of its history this standard language had little to do with Pekingese. The present paper introduces these new developments to the academic community at large."

Local access dig.pdf. [Coblin-History of Mandarin.pdf].