Mandarin was actually the name of the language that were spoken among the Chinese officials quoted from wikipedia: The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese

Mandarin was actually the name of the language that were spoken among the Chinese officials quoted from wikipedia: The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay menteri, from Sanskrit mantrī, mantrin, meaning 'minister or counsellor') originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. (end quote) The confusion here is that traditionally the educated Chinese write and speak in different “languages”. Classical Chinese was the standard and proper form of formal writing, whereas Mandarin was the lingua franca of the imperial court and among officials. (People had their own native dialect as well. ) This only changed in the early 20 century with the May Fourth Movements where intellectuals sought to write the spoken language verbatim. The relationship between Classical Chinese in writing and the spoken forms of Chinese is not unlike the relationship between classical Latin and the spoken romance languages in Europe. That said, a proper education in the Chinese language should include both modern Mandarin and classical Chinese, but the classical Chinese part could well be skipped if one is just learning Chinese for basic communication in a modern non academic context. — PS: the line between classical Chinese and spoken Mandarin can be a bit blurry during the Qing period, apparently it was acceptable to incorporate elements of spoken Mandarin into these court communications documents. So called “classical Chinese” lasted more than 2000 years so the language itself has varying styles and forms too in different context and era