Beijing dialect
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Beijing dialect ( zh, s=北京话, t=北京話, p=Běijīnghuà), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the
urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...
of
Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
. It is the phonological basis of
Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
, the official language in the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and one of the official languages of
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
and the
Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
. Despite the similarity to Standard Chinese, it is characterized by some "iconic" differences, including the addition of a final rhotic to some words (e.g. ). During the Ming, southern dialectal influences were also introduced into the dialect.


History


Status as prestige dialect

As the political and cultural capital of
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, Beijing has held much historical significance as a city, and its speech has held sway as a lingua franca. Being officially selected to form the basis of the phonology of
Standard Mandarin Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern Standard language, standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the Republic of ...
has further contributed to its status as a prestige dialect, or sometimes ''the'' prestige dialect of Chinese. Other scholars have referred to it as the "elite Beijing accent." Until at least the late 18th century, the standard language of the Chinese elite had been the Nanjing dialect, despite political power having already been located in Beijing. Through the nineteenth century, evidence from Western dictionaries suggests that a shift occurred in the court from a Nanjing-based standard to a more local Beijing-based one. During the
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
it was used alongside the
Manchu language Manchu ( ) is a critically endangered language, endangered Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchu people, Manchus, it was one of the official language ...
as the official court language. The establishment of phonology of Standard Chinese dates from a 1913 decision by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, which took the Beijing dialect as its base but retained a lot of phonology from other varieties of Mandarin, resulting in the Old National Pronunciation. This was overturned in 1926, resulting in the "pronunciation of the educated natives of Beijing" officially adopted as the basis for the phonology of Standard Chinese (Guoyu) in 1926. In 1955, the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
declared that Standard Chinese was to be "modeled on the pronunciation of Beijing, draws on Northern Chinese as its base dialect, and receives its syntactic norms from exemplary works of vernacular literature". The Beijing dialect has been described as carrying a lot of "cultural heft." According to Zhang Shifang, professor at Beijing Language and Culture University,
"As China's ancient and modern capital, Beijing and thus its linguistic culture as well are representative of our entire nation's civilization... For Beijing people themselves, the Beijing dialect is an important symbol of identity."
Some argue that
Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
is the "only dialect which has attained a level of prestige that rivals that of the standard national language." The dialect has been described as "the official language of the entertainment industry", making it also the "showbiz accent." Even within Beijing the dialect varies. Those north of the
Forbidden City The Forbidden City () is the Chinese Empire, imperial Chinese palace, palace complex in the center of the Imperial City, Beijing, Imperial City in Beijing, China. It was the residence of 24 Ming dynasty, Ming and Qing dynasty, Qing dynasty L ...
spoke with a more "refined" accent than the poorer people, craftsmen, and performers of the south.


Younger generation

Some fear that the vernacular Beijing dialect will disappear. According to a 2010 study by Beijing Union University, 49% of young Beijingers born after 1980 prefer to speak standard Mandarin rather than the Beijing dialect. According to a UN report, nearly 100 Chinese dialects, especially those spoken by the 55 ethnic minorities in China, are endangered.


Mutual intelligibility

The Beijing dialect is generally mutually intelligible with other Mandarin dialects, including Standard Chinese. However it is not intelligible with other Sino-Tibetan languages or even other Chinese languages including
Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
,
Hokkien Hokkien ( , ) is a Varieties of Chinese, variety of the Southern Min group of Chinese language, Chinese languages. Native to and originating from the Minnan region in the southeastern part of Fujian in southeastern China, it is also referred ...
, and
Wu Chinese , region = Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces; overseas and migrant communities , ethnicity = Wu , speakers = million , date = 2021 , ref = e27 , fa ...
. The Dungan language is a Sinitic language derived from Mandarin spoken throughout
Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...
, particularly in
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir Mountains, Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Kyrgyzstan, largest city. Kyrgyz ...
and
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...
. Speakers like Dungan poet and scholar Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak the Beijing dialect could understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand Beijing Mandarin.


Phonology

In fundamental structure, the
phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
of the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are almost identical. In part, this is because the pronunciation of Standard Chinese was based on Beijing pronunciation. However, the Beijing dialect also has vernacular readings of characters which are not only different, but have initial and final combinations that are not present in Standard Chinese, such as , , , , and . Other differences exist, including the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the , a
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
, except for a few words pronounced that do not have this suffix. In Standard Chinese, these also occur but much less often than they appear in the Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as , or rhotacization, as is considered one of the iconic characteristics of Beijing Mandarin. When /w/ occurs in syllable-initial position, many speakers use before vowels other than as in , and as in , e.g. . When occurs before a glide or vowel it is often eliminated along with any following glides so is pronounced and as . Sibilant initials differ significantly between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect. The initials are pronounced as in Beijing. are pronounced as by some female speakers, a feature known as . Moreover, the Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are usually considered too "colloquial" for use in Standard Chinese. These are often dependent on which syllables are stressed and unstressed. For example, in fast speech, initial consonants go through
lenition In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
if they are in an unstressed syllable: pinyin] before become , so can sound like ; can sound like , resulting in a "swallowing of consonants", or . become , so can sound like ; pinyin go through phonation, voicing to become ; intervocalic also lose aspiration and can be voiced, sounding identical to ; similar changes also occur on other consonants. is voiced and relaxed in intervocalic positions, resulting in Affricates are elided into fricatives when not word initial, such as becoming Some of these changes yield syllables that violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as Street, which locals pronounce as . The literary tones of the Beijing dialect tend to be more exaggerated than Standard Chinese. In Standard Chinese, the four tones are high flat, high rising, low dipping, and falling; in the Beijing dialect, the first two tones are higher, the third one dips more prominently, and the fourth one falls more. However, toneless syllables are incredibly common in the vernacular Beijing dialect and the third tone is realized as a low tone instead of a dipping tone, known as a "half third tone".


Influence on Manchu

The Chinese Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing had a major impact on the phonology of the dialect of Manchu spoken in Beijing, and since Manchu phonology was transcribed into Chinese and European sources based on the sinified pronunciation of Manchus from Beijing, the original authentic Manchu pronunciation is unknown to scholars. The Manchus that lived in Beijing were influenced by the Beijing dialect insofar as pronouncing Manchu sounds was hard for them, and they pronounced Manchu according to Chinese phonetics. In contrast, the Manchus of Aigun,
Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...
could both pronounce Manchu sounds properly and mimic the sinified pronunciation of Manchus in Beijing. This was because they learned the Beijing pronunciation from either studying in Beijing or from officials sent to Aigun from Beijing. They could also tell them apart, using the Chinese influenced pronunciation of Beijing to demonstrate that they were better educated and had "superior stature" in society.


Influence on Mongolian

A substantial proportion of the loanwords in Mongolian are derived from Chinese, with the oldest layer of loanwords in Written Mongolian being Chinese in origin. Much of Mongolian spoken in
Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
has been affected by Mandarin; lexical influence is claimed to be strong in Khorchin Mongolian, whilst there have been claims of phonetic influence from Mandarin Chinese in the Kharchin variety of Mongolian. The aspirated bilabial stop /pʰ/ and the labial approximant /w/ are phonemes only found in loanwords from Chinese and Tibetan, evident in their limited distribution in Mongolian. Substantial
diglossia In linguistics, diglossia ( , ) is where two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" v ...
can also be observed in Inner Mongolia.


Vocabulary

The Beijing dialect typically uses many words that are considered slang, and therefore occur much less or not at all in Standard Chinese. Speakers not native to Beijing may have trouble understanding many or most of these. Many of such slang words employ the rhotic
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...
"-r", which is known as erhua. Examples include: * (referring to manner or attribute) * , usually followed by if used as an imperative, usually used when rejecting a favor or politeness from close friends * * * * * * * , equivalent to Standard Chinese * , especially things to do * , often used in place of . * , often used in place of . Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing: * , now used outside Beijing * , heard often on public transportation, from
Classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...
* , equivalent to Standard Chinese or * , a stronger version of Standard Chinese and believed to derive from Note that some of the slang are considered to be , that are carry-overs from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated speakers, for example: * , similar to , which is more often used by the younger generation * Others may be viewed as
neologisms In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...
used among younger speakers and in "trendier" circles: * * ) when describing a person * , used in basketball * , with a negative connotation


Manchu and Mongol loanwords

The dialect also contains both Manchu and Mongol loanwords: * , from Middle Mongolian 'water well' (cf. modern Mongolian ) or 'passage' (modern Mongolian ), possibly with influence from Chinese and . * , from Middle Mongolian 'post station' (cf. modern Mongolian 'guide'). * , from Manchu


Grammar

There are syntactic differences between Standard Mandarin and the Beijing dialect. Both southern Chinese and southern Mandarin syntactic features were incorporated into Standard Mandarin, while the Beijing dialect retains features of northern Mandarin. The Beijing dialect also uses colloquial expressions differently. There is a conditional loss of the classifier under certain circumstances after the numeral , usually pronounced as with the second tone, as if undergoing tone sandhi with the classifier after it. In general, Standard Chinese is influenced by
Classical Chinese Classical Chinese is the language in which the classics of Chinese literature were written, from . For millennia thereafter, the written Chinese used in these works was imitated and iterated upon by scholars in a form now called Literary ...
, which makes it more condense and concise. The Beijing dialect can therefore seem more longwinded; but this is sometime balanced by the generally faster speaking rate and phonetic reductions of colloquial Beijing speech.


Examples

*
Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...
: *Beijing dialect:


Notes


See also

* Chinese in New York City * List of Chinese dialects * Putonghua *
Varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...
* Sino-Tibetan languages


References


External links

* *

* (the University of Michigan)(Digitized May 14, 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Beijing Dialect Mandarin Chinese City colloquials Culture in Beijing