southwestern mandarin
Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2002 7:46 pm
Hey guys. It's great to have a mandarin forum here. However, most topics are about standard mandarin, or Beijing dialect. This time I'd like to tell you a little bit more about a subdialect of mandarin--southwestern mandarin.
Southwestern mandarin has BY FAR THE LARGEST number of speakers compared to other branches of mandarin. It is spoken in the whole southwest China (Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Chongqing), part of central China(Wuhan area), northern Guangxi (Guilin and Liuzhou) and some sparse locations. Totally 250 million people use SW mandarin as native language.
Although SW mandarin is found in such a vast area, it does not vary much internally. All of the speakers can understand each other and moreover, even the tones are very similar.
The represent is Sichuan (Szechwan) dialect, or more specifically, Chengdu dialect. Somtimes Chongqing (Chungking) dialect is presented, but virtually these two dialects differ very slightly, not so much as Chicago to Boston.
Some features:
1. Four tones like Beijing. The rusheng (入聲) is changed into yangping (陽平), with very few exceptions.
"pen" bi3(Beijing)->bi2(Chengdu), "six" liu4(Beijing)->lu2 or liu2(Chengdu)
2. No zh, ch, sh, r. Confuse n and l. But there is [z], substituting r of Beijing.
3. No ing or eng, with the substitution of in and en.
4. No "e" as in Beijing. But has [e], like the "e" in "get" of English.
No "uo", but has "o". shuo(Beijing)->so(Chengdu)
5. Many words end with "er" in oral language. Some are different with Beijing.
6. Intials of j,q,x of some words in Beijing are g,k,h in Chengdu.
"street" jie(Beijing)->gai(Chengdu) "salty" xian(Beijing)->han(Chengdu)
There are some other features, but I am too lazy to type.
My mother speaks SW mandarin so I have interest in it.
Southwestern mandarin has BY FAR THE LARGEST number of speakers compared to other branches of mandarin. It is spoken in the whole southwest China (Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Chongqing), part of central China(Wuhan area), northern Guangxi (Guilin and Liuzhou) and some sparse locations. Totally 250 million people use SW mandarin as native language.
Although SW mandarin is found in such a vast area, it does not vary much internally. All of the speakers can understand each other and moreover, even the tones are very similar.
The represent is Sichuan (Szechwan) dialect, or more specifically, Chengdu dialect. Somtimes Chongqing (Chungking) dialect is presented, but virtually these two dialects differ very slightly, not so much as Chicago to Boston.
Some features:
1. Four tones like Beijing. The rusheng (入聲) is changed into yangping (陽平), with very few exceptions.
"pen" bi3(Beijing)->bi2(Chengdu), "six" liu4(Beijing)->lu2 or liu2(Chengdu)
2. No zh, ch, sh, r. Confuse n and l. But there is [z], substituting r of Beijing.
3. No ing or eng, with the substitution of in and en.
4. No "e" as in Beijing. But has [e], like the "e" in "get" of English.
No "uo", but has "o". shuo(Beijing)->so(Chengdu)
5. Many words end with "er" in oral language. Some are different with Beijing.
6. Intials of j,q,x of some words in Beijing are g,k,h in Chengdu.
"street" jie(Beijing)->gai(Chengdu) "salty" xian(Beijing)->han(Chengdu)
There are some other features, but I am too lazy to type.
My mother speaks SW mandarin so I have interest in it.