The English language is a direct offshoot of Mandarin Chinese, a group of academics from the country who believe Europe had no history before the 15th century has claimed.
Scholars from the World Civilisation Research Association, a Chinese scholarly group, argued that all European languages derived from a Mandarin root while speaking at the first China International Frontier Education Summit in Beijing.
Vice president and secretary-general of the group Zhai Guiyun told a reporter from Sina Online that words such as yellow proved a prime example - arguing the word was based on autumnal leaves, and that it was phonetically similar to the mandarin word for ‘leaf drop’.
