Shenyang Mandarin () is a dialect of

Northeastern Mandarin Northeastern Mandarin ( or / ''Dōngběiguānhuà'' "Northeast Mandarin") is the subgroup of Mandarin varieties spoken in Northeast China with the exception of the Liaodong Peninsula and few enclaves along Amur and Ussuri rivers. The classifica ...

used by people in and around Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province and the largest city in

Northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of ...

. It is very close to Standard Chinese but has some notably distinctive words. Some people consider it a strong accent rather than a distinct dialect. Because of its similarity to the standard language,

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

can be used to represent its pronunciation. Its usage is dwindling as schools in Shenyang teach only the standard language. The most distinctive aspect of the Shenyang dialect is the much lower pitch of the first tone than in Standard Mandarin. It would be positioned at 2, rather than 5, on the chart shown (right). As a result, it can sound rather like the third tone. Like the

Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...

, the Shenyang dialect is characterized by

erhua Erhua ( ); also called erization or rhotacization of syllable finals) is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "er" (注音：, common words: 、、) sound (transcribed in IPA as ) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. Erhuayin () i ...

(儿化). Some of the words in the Shenyang dialect come from other languages like the

Manchu language Manchu (Manchu:, ) is a critically endangered East Asian Tungusic language native to the historical region of Manchuria in Northeast China. As the traditional native language of the Manchus, it was one of the official languages of the Qin ...

. One example is 旮旯儿 ''gālár'' 'corner'. Examples of words in various Northeastern dialects (not necessarily specific to Shenyang) include:

Phonology

Shenyang dialect has 19 initial consonants, as opposed to the 21 in Standard Mandarin. Notably, the retroflex consonants , and in Standard Mandarin are pronounced as , and , respectively, while is omitted. While lost in Standard Mandarin,

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 ...

is preserved in the Shenyang dialect. also exists in the Shenyang dialect. Standard Mandarin diphthongs tend to be pronounced as monophthongs in the Shenyang dialect. For example, becomes , and becomes .

References

Mandarin Chinese {{SinoTibetan-lang-stub