 Many other languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area exhibit similar classifier systems , leading to speculation about the origins of the Chinese system . Ancient classifier @-@ like constructions , which used a repeated noun rather than a special classifier , are attested in Old Chinese as early as 1400 BCE , but true classifiers did not appear in these phrases until much later . Originally , classifiers and numbers came after the noun rather than before , and probably moved before the noun sometime after 500 BCE . The use of classifiers did not become a mandatory part of Chinese grammar until around 1100 CE . Some nouns became associated with specific classifiers earlier than others , the earliest probably being nouns that signified culturally valued items such as horses and poems . Many words that are classifiers today started out as full nouns ; in some cases their meanings have been gradually bleached away so that they are now used only as classifiers . 
