In the late imperial period, more than two-thirds of the Han Chinese population used a variant of Mandarin Chinese as their native tongue. However, there was a larger variety of languages in certain areas of southeast China, like Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Guangxi. Since the Qin dynasty, which standardized the various forms of writing that existed in China, a standard literary Chinese had emerged with vocabulary and grammar that was significantly different from the various forms of spoken Chinese. A simplified and elaborated version of this written standard was used in business contracts, notes for Chinese opera, ritual texts for Chinese folk religion, and other daily documents for educated people.