The Old National Pronunciation () was the system established for the phonology of standard Chinese as decided by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation from 1913 onwards, and published in the 1919 edition of the ''Guóyīn Zìdiǎn'' (, "Dictionary of National Pronunciation"). Although it was mainly based on the phonology of the Beijing dialect, it was also influenced by historical forms of northern Mandarin as well as other varieties of Mandarin and even some varieties of

Wu Chinese The Wu languages (; Wu romanization and IPA: ''wu6 gniu6'' [] ( Shanghainese), ''ng2 gniu6'' [] (Suzhounese), Mandarin pinyin and IPA: ''Wúyǔ'' []) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Zhejiang Provin ...

. The artificial nature of the system proved impractical, and in 1926 a decision was made to normalize the pronunciations to the natural pronunciations found in Beijing, which resulted in a revised ''Guóyīn Chángyòng Zìhuì'' (, "Vocabulary of National Pronunciation for Everyday Use") published in 1932.

Phonology

The Old National Pronunciation was similar to the phonology of the Beijing dialect, but with four additional distinctions derived from

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

that were still maintained in other dialects: # Three more initials, derived from the

initials In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

of Middle Chinese: , as two initials, and . # Preservation of the "round-sharp distinction" (). The

alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...

initials of the Beijing dialect (), written in pinyin as ''j'', ''q'' and ''x'', originated in a merger between

velar Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...

initials () and alveolar affricates () before the front vowels and . In the Old National Pronunciation, the former group were treated as

palatals Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Characteristi ...

, but the latter group remained as alveolars. # A distinction between and . # Preservation of the

checked tone A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a sy ...

(). Although how it was to be realized was not specifically detailed in the original dictionary, it was often given pronounced with a final

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

, as in

Lower Yangtze Mandarin Lower Yangtze Mandarin () is one of the most divergent and least mutually-intelligible of the Mandarin languages, as it neighbours the Wu, Hui, and Gan groups of Sinitic languages. It is also known as Jiang–Huai Mandarin (), named after ...

varieties such as the

Nanjing dialect The Nanjing dialect, also known as Nankinese, or Nanjing Mandarin, is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Nanjing, China. It is part of the Jianghuai group of Chinese varieties. Phonology A number of features distinguish the Nanjing diale ...

. The actual phonetic values of these tones were not prescribed in the 1919 edition of the ''Dictionary of National Pronunciation''. Although various proposals of merging values from different areas of China were raised, the ''de facto'' standard was to use the tonal system of Beijing, and to simply read the entering tone (which the Beijing dialect lacked as a distinctive tone) as a shortened departing tone, falling in nature, as shown from sets of

gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

recordings of Wang Pu, a member of the Commission, and of noted linguist

Yuen Ren Chao Yuen Ren Chao (; 3 November 1892 – 25 February 1982), also known as Zhao Yuanren, was a Chinese-American linguist, educator, scholar, poet, and composer, who contributed to the modern study of Chinese phonology and grammar. Chao was born a ...

Phonetic symbols

The notation used to indicate the prescribed pronunciation was ''zhuyin zimu'' (also known as ''zhuyin fuhao'', as adopted by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation. In the following tables, the zhuyin fuhao symbols are shown with equivalents in the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioners A ...

and modern

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

(where applicable). The tone system used at the time was different from the modern version of zhuyin fuhao: the dark level tone was unmarked, and the light level, rising, departing and entering tone each had a single dot marked at the bottom left, top left, top right and bottom right corners respectively, thus resembling the tone-marking system of Middle Chinese to a large degree.

Notes

References

{{Chinese_language History of the Chinese language Standard Chinese