Jilu or Ji–Lu Mandarin, formerly known as Beifang Mandarin "Northern Mandarin", is a dialect 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
Chinese provinces of
Hebei (冀, Jì) and the western part of
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 ...
(魯, Lǔ) and
Xunke,
Tangwang &
Jiayin counties of
Heilongjiang. Its name is a combination of the abbreviated names of the two provinces, which derive from ancient local provinces. The names are combined as ''Ji–Lu Mandarin''.
Although these areas are near Beijing, Ji–Lu has a different accent and many lexical differences from the
Beijing dialect, which is the basis for
Standard Chinese, the official national language. There are three dialect groups: Bao–Tang, Shi–Ji, and Cang–Hui.
[Cahiers de linguistique: Asie orientale - Volume 37, Issues 1-2 2008 -- Page 32 "Therefore, given that the uses of gei as a direct object marker or an agent marker do not appear to be typical for other dialects of the Greater Beijing Mandarin and Jì-Lǔ Mandarin area, and that it is attested at best sporadically in earlier ..."]
People from the eastern part of Shandong, or the
Jiaodong Peninsula, speak
Jiaoliao Mandarin.
Dialect groups
* (), incorporating a large part of
Tianjin
Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...
and northern part of
Hebei province.
**
Tianjin dialect ()
** ()
** ()
* 石济片, incorporating a large part of central
Hebei province including the capital
Shijiazhuang and western part of
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 ...
province, including the capital
Jinan
**
Xingtai dialect ()
** ()
**
Jinan dialect ()
* (), incorporating the coastal region of the Yellow River Delta (including the prefecture-level city of
Cangzhou, from which it takes its name)
The
Bao–Tang dialect shares the same tonal evolution of the
checked tone from
Middle Chinese as
Beijing Mandarin and
Northeastern Mandarin. Moreover, the popularization of Standard Chinese in the two provincial capitals has induced changes in the
Shi–Ji dialect causing the former to shift rapidly towards the standard language.
References
Further reading
*
Mandarin Chinese
Varieties of Chinese
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