[_emacsomancer_]

> The language we call Mandarin has been the native language of some parts of northern China for thousands of years, and was certainly not “created” any time recently.

In the same way that Hindi has been the native language of northern India for thousands of years (which is to say that while the Mandarin of today has connections to earlier forms of Chinese, it is hardly a monolithic, unchanging remnant of thousands of years ago).