Central Plains Mandarin, or ''Zhongyuan'' Mandarin (), is a variety of

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

spoken in the central and southern parts of

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

, southwestern part of

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

, southern part of

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

, far southern part of

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

, northern

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

, northern parts of

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

, southern

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

and southern

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

. The archaic dialect in

Peking opera Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines instrumental music, vocal performance, mime, martial arts, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became ...

is a form of Zhongyuan Mandarin. Among

Hui people The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Islam in China, Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the Northwest China, northwestern provinces and in the Zhongy ...

, Zhongyuan Mandarin is sometimes written with the

Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet, or the Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is a unicase, unicameral script written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most ...

, called

Xiao'erjing Xiao'erjing, Xiaorjing, Xiaojing or Benjing, is a Arabic script, Perso-Arabic script used to write Sinitic languages, including Lanyin Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin, Northeastern Mandarin, and Dungan language, Dungan. It is used on occasion ...

("Children's script").

Subdialects

* Zheng-Kai (郑开) region: e.g.

Kaifeng Kaifeng ( zh, s=开封, p=Kāifēng) is a prefecture-level city in east-Zhongyuan, central Henan province, China. It is one of the Historical capitals of China, Eight Ancient Capitals of China, having been the capital eight times in history, and ...

(开封) dialect,

Zhengzhou Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan, China. Located in northern Henan, it is one of the nine National central city, national central cities in China, and serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational center of the province. Th ...

(郑州) dialect * Luo-Song (洛嵩) region: e.g.

Luoyang dialect The Luoyang dialect is a dialect of Zhongyuan Mandarin spoken in Luoyang and nearby parts of Henan province. The old Luoyang dialect served as one of historical standards of Chinese from the Warring States period into the Ming Dynasty, which di ...

(洛阳话) * Nan-Lu (南阳) region: e.g.

Nanyang Nanyang is the romanization of two common Chinese place names. It may refer to: Written as * Nanyang (region), a Chinese term denoting the Southeast Asian lands surrounding the South China Sea ;China * Nanyang Fleet, Qing dynasty naval fleet bas ...

(南阳) dialect * Luo-Xiang (漯项) region: e.g.

Zhumadian Zhumadian ( zh, s= , t= , p=Zhùmǎdiàn; Postal romanization, postal: Chumatien) is a prefecture-level city in southern Henan province of China, province, China. It borders Xinyang to the south, Nanyang, Henan, Nanyang to the west, Pingdingshan to ...

(驻马店) dialect * Shang-Fu (商阜) region: e.g.

Shangqiu Shangqiu ( zh, ), Postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shangkiu, is a city in eastern Henan province, Central China. It borders Kaifeng to the northwest, Zhoukou to the southwest, and the provinces of Shandong and Anhui to the northeast ...

(商丘) dialect,

Fuyang Fuyang (, previously romanized as Fowyang) is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Anhui province, China. It is bordered by Henan province to the west and the cities of Bozhou to the northeast, Huainan to the southeast, and Lu'an to the sou ...

(阜阳) dialect * Xin-Beng (信蚌) region: e.g.

Xinyang Xinyang ( zh, s= , t=信陽 , p=Xìnyáng; Postal romanization, postal: Sinyang) is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Henan province of China, province, People's Republic of China, the southernmost administrative division in the province. It ...

(信阳) dialect,

Bengbu Bengbu () is a city in northern Anhui Province, China. Its population was 3,296,408 registered residents at the 2020 census. 1,968,027 lived in the built-up area made of four Bengbu urban districts and Fengyang County in Chuzhou Prefecture, large ...

(蚌埠) dialect * Yan-He (兖菏) region: e.g.

Jining Jining () is a former capital of Shandong. Is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Shandong province. It borders Heze to the southwest, Zaozhuang to the southeast, Tai'an to the northeast, and the provinces of Henan and Jiangsu to the no ...

(济宁) dialect * Xu-Huai (徐淮) region: e.g. Xuzhou dialect (徐州话) * Fenhe (汾河) region: e.g.

Linfen Linfen () is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Shanxi province, People's Republic of China, China, bordering Shaanxi province to the west. Linfen City is located in the southern part of Shanxi Province, with the remaining branches of T ...

(临汾) dialect, Wanrong (万荣) dialect * Guanzhong region (关中), e.g.

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

(西安) dialect * Qin-Long (秦陇) region: e.g.

Xining Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...

(西宁) dialect, Dunhuang (敦煌) dialect * Longzhong (陇中) region: e.g.

Tianshui Tianshui is a prefecture-level city in Gansu province, China, and is the province's second-largest city (behind the provincial capital Lanzhou). Located in the southeast of the province, the city strides along the upper reaches of the Wei River a ...

(天水) dialect,

Dingxi Dingxi ( zh, c=定西 , p=Dìngxī), also known as Longyou ( zh, c=陇右, p=Lǒngyòu) is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of Gansu province, People's Republic of China. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,524,097 inhabitants, of ...

(定西) dialect * Hezhou (河州) Region: e.g. Gangou dialect (甘沟话) (influenced by Monguor) * Nanjiang (南疆) Region: e.g. Yanqi dialect, Tulufan dialect **

Dungan language Dungan ( or ) is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in the Chu Valley of southeastern Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan. It is the native language of the Dungan people, a Hui subgroup that fled Qing China in the 19th century. It evolved f ...

, written in

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

, introduced many

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

loanwords, spoken mainly in Chu Valley and

Fergana Valley The Fergana Valley (also commonly spelled the Ferghana Valley) in Central Asia crosses eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Encompassing three former Republics of the Soviet Union, Soviet republics, the valley is e ...

in Central Asia

Phonology

In Central Plains Mandarin, some phonological changes have affected certain syllables but not Standard Chinese. and have shifted to before the vowel . Standard Mandarin's , and have shifted to before . has shifted to before .

References

Citations

Sources

* * * Mandarin Chinese Articles containing video clips Languages of Gansu {{St-lang-stub

Subdialects

Phonology

See also

References

Citations

Sources