Definition of "Mandarin"

[...]and though the ſame word hath one ſignification in the Mandorines Language, and a contrary in Japan and other places, yet knowing one Speech and their Character, you may Travel not only through the Empire of China, but the adjacent Kingdoms.]

, London: John Macock, page 106

Far fewer people understood Mandarin in Hotan than anywhere else I'd been in Xinjiang. It made getting around difficult, as not only did the taxi drivers fail to understand what I was saying, but they couldn't read an address either. Most ignored or didn't know the Chinese names given to the streets anyway.

2014, David Eimer, The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China‎, Bloomsbury USA, page 75

Owner David Yeh says his Little-One bar -- a homophone to Lithuania's Mandarin name "Litaowan" -- started getting more attention last year after Vilnius became the first EU government to donate vaccines.

2022 March 9, “'Lithuania mania' sweeps Taiwan as China spat sizzles”, in France 24‎, archived from the original on 09 March 2022

"Two, three, four, five, south! Six, seven, eight, nine, north!" Strange as it may sound, this is the way the people on the Chinese mainland complain about the lack of clothes, food and other necessities.Absent from the phrases are "one" and "ten"—"i" and "shih" in Chinese Mandarin. The words for "clothes" and "food" sound alike. Also missing are "east" and "west." Their Chinese equivalents when put together as "tung-hsi," stand for "things," "objects" or "matters."

1978 January 8, L. Chen, “What they say of Peiping rule”, in Free China Weekly‎, volume XIX, number 2, Taipei, page 3