It has been observed on many occasions that Chinese changed greatly since the turn of the century, especially during the last 30 years, perhaps more rapidly and more profoundly than any other one of the principal world languages. The changes led to the birth of a branch of Chinese linguistics specifically concerned with them, and beside numerous textbooks and dictionaries, there appeared a voluminous series of studies dedicated exclusively to their description. Chi Wen-shun, the compiler of one of the dictionaries, noted the feeling of having become illiterate on the part of an educated Chinese émigré reading the People's Daily, while others, including the present author, have gone so far as to speak of Chinese as a divided language, in a sense similar to that of a divided country in the political sphere.