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86-524: The QBZ-191 Automatic Rifle ( Chinese : 191式自动步枪 ; pinyin : Yāo jiǔ yāo Shì Zìdòng Bùqiāng ) is a Chinese assault rifle chambered for the 5.8×42mm intermediate cartridge , designed and manufactured by Chongqing Jianshe as a new-generation service rifle for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and People's Armed Police (PAP). The rifle's designation "QBZ" stands for " light weapon (Qīng Wŭqì) – rifle (Bùqiāng) – automatic (Zìdòng)". The new rifle

172-464: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

258-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

344-737: A 4-position adjustable buttstock, ambidextrous fire selector , and a lengthened magazine release lever located in front of the trigger guard for speed-reloading or easier manipulation when wearing gloves. The new polymer magazine has a redesigned surface texture for better grip and a transparent ammunition-checking window. The handguard has provisions at its 3, 6 and 9 o'clock positions, which allow small sections of Picatinny rails to be selectively installed through screw holes, so that various accessories such as flashlight , laser module , foregrip and bipod can be attached. The weapon platform can also be mounted with bayonets , suppressors , and under-barrel grenade launchers . According to Chinese media,

430-505: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

516-595: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

602-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

688-549: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

774-700: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

860-615: A diamond pattern has been reported, similar to the magazines of the Heckler & Koch G36 , commonly used on QBU-191 rifles. Included in the development program, there is also a foregrip developed for the QBZ-191, which includes a bipod design on the bottom surface and an integrated laser . Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

946-450: A flashlight date back to at least the 1930s. To use a handheld light as a tactical light, the handgun is held in one hand, and the light in the other. There are a variety of positions that can be used to allow the light and handgun to be held parallel and provide mutual support, or the light can be held off to the side of the body to present a false target to a potential assailant. Since the weapon and light are not attached to each other,

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1032-564: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

1118-538: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

1204-503: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

1290-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

1376-673: A specific handgun model, but also a specific light, or at least for a light which shares the same or roughly the same form factor. One example of this is the SureFire 300 and 400 model series, which have retained the same form factor despite receiving numerous modifications over time. Pistol lights sharing the same form factor gives the possibility to upgrade lights to newer models and continue to use old holsters, as well as giving better aftermarket support for holsters. Some holsters can safely accommodate different types of lights. Since tactical lights are intended for use in situations where lethal force

1462-610: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

1548-563: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

1634-686: A weapon-mounted tactical light. Handheld lights are generally restricted to use with handguns , as long guns such as rifles and shotguns require two hands to operate. While just about any handheld flashlight can serve in the role of tactical light with the proper technique, some features are more readily adapted to the role. Because the flashlight needs to be reliable and rugged, specialized, more expensive tactical flashlights are generally used by law enforcement officers and soldiers, rather than inexpensive consumer-grade units. Some manufacturers sell lights specifically designed for use as handheld tactical lights. Police training programs in shooting while holding

1720-596: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

1806-689: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

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1892-485: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

1978-549: Is divided into the upper and lower receivers , both are made of aluminium alloy and connected by two assembly pins, while the handguard, pistol grip and telescoping stock are made of polymer material . The reciprocating charging handle is located on the right side, while the bolt -release button sits on the left, above the "rock-and-lock" magazine insertion well. The weapon features a short-stroke piston gas-operation design with rotating bolt . The rifle has improved ergonomics, modularity and customization options, featuring

2064-448: Is held in the holster via the trigger guard , either via a locking mechanism or simply by the holster being a bit tight in that area and holds or clicks the firearm in place. On handguns with lights, however, it is often not possible to make a holster that retain the firearm by the trigger guard, and most such holsters therefore retain the firearm firmly via the light. As such, ready-to-use light bearing holsters not only have to be made for

2150-445: Is likely to be used, reliability is important. Primary lithium batteries are commonly used with tactical lights, due to the long shelf life, high specific energy , and gradual voltage decay over the battery's lifetime. Alkaline batteries also provide moderately long shelf life and low initial cost. In powerful lights with high current draw, the high internal resistance of alkaline cells results in decreased effective capacity. As

2236-595: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

2322-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

2408-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

2494-558: Is still true; for example, SureFire makes dedicated lights that replace the forends of the Mossberg 500 and Benelli M3 shotguns, the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and the M4 carbine . On the other hand, many modern firearms are incorporating rail integration systems , allowing any appropriately-sized rail-compatible tactical light to be attached. Other mounting systems are simple clamps, designed to mount most cylindrical lights parallel to

2580-484: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

2666-496: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

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2752-497: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

2838-540: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

2924-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

3010-735: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

3096-525: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

3182-680: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

3268-579: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

3354-508: The Picatinny rail integration system , thus making the use of the former's modified dovetail rail -mounted sights incompatible without an additional mount. The weapon is able to feed from the 30-round QBZ-95 and QBZ-95-1 magazines, which was commonly present on prototypes, and from the 75-round magazines of the QJB-95 (QBB-95) and QJB-95-1 light support weapons . A more transparent design and

3440-473: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

3526-591: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

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3612-1009: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Tactical light Features particularly associated with tactical lights include shock resistance, reliability, lightweight construction and powerful, long-lasting batteries, and high light intensity. Tactical lights may have optional filters to produce colored light, to not attract bugs, or may emit only infrared radiation for use with night vision equipment. A laser sight may also be added to

3698-555: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

3784-576: The PLA's infantry equipment. The QBZ-191 was first announced in the 2019 Chinese national parade and would gradually replace the QBZ-95 rifle family in Chinese military service. The QBZ-191 features several improvements, aiming to resolve the unsatisfactory issues, such as ergonomics, of the Type 95 platform. It was reported since 2021 that the QBZ-191 would eventually replace the QBZ-95 and QBZ-03 in PLA service. Compared to

3870-571: The QBU-191. The standard QBZ-191 has a full-auto rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute. The full-auto capability is retained on the QBU-191 designated marksman rifle, which could be easily configured into a light support weapon with a drum magazine. Along with the weapon, new accessories were also developed as part of the program, including laser sights , flashlight mounts, optics, foregrips , and magazines. Unlike its predecessor—the QBZ-95 —the QBZ-191 uses

3956-475: The QBZ-191 rifle is chambered in the Chinese-proprietary 5.8×42mm caliber with a redesigned DBP-191 ammunition that has better ballistic performance at medium to long ranges. The rifle has been designed into three variants: a standard rifle version with a 368.3 mm (14.5 in) barrel, a carbine version with a 266.7 mm (10.5 in) barrel called QBZ-192, and a long-barreled DMR version called

4042-406: The acceleration of firearm recoil. A United States patent was issued in 1912 for a night sight for firearms demonstrated on a revolver with a bulb mounted in a shock absorber below the barrel and the grip modified to hold a battery and include a pressure switch . Weapon-mounted lights (sometimes called "weapon lights") offer hands-free use, leaving the operator free to use both hands to control

4128-405: The barrel of most firearms. Using an infrared light in conjunction with night vision goggles can mitigate concern about revealing the user, so long as the target lacks night vision. Also partially mitigating this risk associated with a visible light tactical light is the ability of the tactical light user to temporarily disrupt the night vision of the target. On most handgun holsters , the firearm

4214-475: The bullpup QBZ-95 , the QBZ-191 uses a conventional configuration similar to the QBZ-03 , with greatly improved ergonomics, ambidextrous usability, and better reliability across different environments. The platform features various barrel lengths and handguard configurations. A shorter carbine version was carried by vehicle crews during the 2019 parade. The QBZ-191 rifle features a full-length Picatinny rail on

4300-413: The development and bidding process. Various prototypes of the new weapon platform were leaked online in 2016 and 2017. The QBZ-191 rifle was designed by Norinco 's 208 Research Institute, which also designed the bullpup QBZ-95 assault rifle . According to the director of the 208 Research Institute, QBZ-191 is a component of the new "Integrated Soldier Combat System" ( 单兵综合作战系统 ), which aims to overhaul

4386-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

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4472-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

4558-566: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

4644-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

4730-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

4816-599: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

4902-405: The hand holding it; this allows the light to be dropped if the hand is needed (for a magazine change , for example) and quickly retrieved. Police often use large flashlights like the classic D cell Maglite , a sturdy metal unit which, when held correctly, can double as a billy club and as a tactical light. The flashlight is held in the weak hand, with the back of the flashlight extending past

4988-506: The handheld lights, since they must be sufficiently robust to withstand the recoil of the firearm, and the dedicated mounting hardware also adds to the price. One downside of the weapon-mounted light is that it is always aimed parallel to the bore, so illuminating an object means that it is also targeted. Because of this, weapon-mounted lights may not be appropriate under some rules of engagement . Weapon-mounted lights used to be specific to particular models of firearm, and to some extent that

5074-581: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

5160-516: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

5246-411: The law enforcement officer, due to their minimal impact on the rod cells in the eye, while blue light provides high contrast for detecting blood . Light in the infrared spectrum is only visible through night vision devices, allowing the operator to see clearly while reducing the visibility to those not equipped with night vision equipment. Tactical lights are sometimes combined with a laser to form

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5332-417: The light may be used to illuminate areas that may or may not contain a target, without pointing the weapon at the area. If a target is detected, the handgun can quickly be brought into line to cover the target. A flashlight intended to be used in this way will have provisions for ease of use when used with a handgun. Some models will have a narrow body and a ring designed to fit through the fingers, allowing

5418-623: The light output of LEDs. At one time, xenon bulbs offered the brightest light levels, but recent high-power LEDs are brighter and more efficient than comparable xenon-filled incandescent lamps. Most importantly, LED bulbs are not subject to filament breakage due to the shot recoil of a firearm. Recent advances in high-lux, high-efficiency white LEDs have led to a wave of brighter and more energy-efficient tactical lights. Tactical lights can be fitted with lenses to produce certain colors, Colored lights or filters provide flexibility for different purposes. Red lights are best for preserving night vision for

5504-421: The light to be used in a tight two handed grip on a handgun, with the switch controlled by pulling back with the fingers on the ring. More traditional models can be used as well. Some flashlights feature a momentary on switch so that the light is quickly turned off by releasing finger pressure on the button. Another useful feature is the ability to attach a lanyard to the light, allowing the light to be secured to

5590-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

5676-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

5762-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

5848-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

5934-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

6020-635: The rate of discharge increases, a greater proportion of the cells' power is wasted in its internal resistance. Because of their low internal resistance, lithium batteries are often the primary cell of choice when a high rate of discharge relative to nominal capacity is required. Lithium cells will also provide better performance in cold weather than alkaline cells. High-quality lithium cells are less prone to leakage of electrolyte than alkalines. Rechargeable batteries, such as NiMH and Nicad , are economical options for lights with heavy usage. Rapid capacity loss in comparison to alkaline and lithium batteries limits

6106-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

6192-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

6278-505: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

6364-557: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

6450-589: The thumb. This allows the light to quickly be reversed, swinging the back end of the light forward to strike the target or block a blow. The strong hand can then be used to draw a sidearm, and place the hands back to back to provide support and illumination in the firing position. Smaller tactical flashlights often have crown-like protrusions around the lens to enable its use as a weapon by hammerfist strike. Hand-held flashlights were introduced about 1900 with availability of dry cell batteries and incandescent light bulbs . Early bulbs were often too fragile to survive

6536-609: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

6622-454: The top and comes standard with new 3× daylight prismatic optics called QMK152 and QMK-171A, while a thermal sight is also available. The DMR variant is equipped with a new 3–8.6× scope called QMK-191, and the weapon can also be equipped with the IR5118 digital night vision/thermal scope. The rifle is also equipped with backup iron sights that can be folded down when not in use. The main body

6708-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

6794-547: The use of rechargeable cells to lights in frequent use. With a lithium-ion battery or a low self-discharge NiMH battery , rechargeable battery shelf life is extended. Several new models of tactical flashlights incorporate the ability to be recharged from a USB cable. Bulbs are chosen based on the desired light output and battery life. Generally, high performance bulbs are used, such as xenon bulbs or high power LED lights. LEDs provide maximum battery life due to their energy efficiency, and 2000s technology has greatly increased

6880-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

6966-429: The weapon. For rifles, two hands are needed to use the weapon. Most models have an on/off switch mounted on a short wire. The switch is then mounted somewhere on the gun within easy reach of the firer's fingers. Weapon-mounted lights are most commonly seen on rifles , shotguns , and submachine guns , but small tactical lights are becoming more common on handguns as well. These lights are often much more expensive than

7052-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

7138-508: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

7224-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

7310-551: Was formally revealed at the 70th Anniversary National Day military parade on 1 October 2019, carried by personnel of the PLA Ground Force and People's Armed Police. It is designated as part of the Type 20 ( Chinese : 20式 ; pinyin : 20 Shì ) weapon family by the People's Liberation Army. The Chinese military initiated the development of conventional-layout service rifles in 2014, with multiple manufacturers involved in

7396-481: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

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