China's greatest achievement during the period of traditional linguistics was the introduction of

The greatest achievement of historical comparative linguistics since its inception has been a clearer understanding of the affinities between languages, especially in the genealogical classification of Indo-European languages, which has yielded quite conclusive evidence. Secondly, it has contributed to an understanding of the patterns of expression and areas of use of the original mother tongues in question; for example, European scholars are now confident that the original Indo-European mother tongues originated in the area north of the Black Sea.

As a scientific research tool, historical comparative linguistics can be used not only for Indo-European languages, but also for other languages. Since the 20th century, Swedish sinologist Gao Benhan, Chinese linguists Luo Changpei, Lu Zhiwei, Wang Li, Li Fanggui, Li Rong and others have used this scientific method to formulate the phonological system of the Chinese language in the ancient and Middle Ages, to make a preliminary study on the relationship between the Chinese language and the related languages, and to put the long history of Chinese phonology into perspective. This has raised the study of Chinese phonetics, which has a long historical tradition in China, to a new scientific level.