This article is about the group of Chinese language varieties. For the standardized variety, seeStandard Chinese. For the court lingua franca during the Ming and Qing dynasties, seeMandarin (late imperial lingua franca).
Most Mandarin varieties have fourtones. The final stops ofMiddle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a finalglottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including that of Beijing, retainretroflex initial consonants, which have been lost in southern Chinese languages.
Thecapitals of China have been within the Mandarin-speaking area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as alingua franca for government officials and the courts since the 14th century.[3] In the early 20th century, a standard form based on the Beijing dialect, with elements from other Mandarin varieties, was adopted as thenational language. Standard Chinese is theofficial language of China[4] andTaiwan,[5] one of four officiallanguages of Singapore and one of six official languages of theUnited Nations.[6] Recent increased migration from Mandarin-speaking regions of China and Taiwan has now resulted in the language being one of the more frequently used varieties of Chinese amongChinese diaspora communities. It is also the most commonlytaught Chinese language.
The English word "mandarin" (fromPortuguesemandarim, fromMalaymenteri, fromSanskritmantrī,mantrin, meaning 'minister or counsellor') originally meant anofficial of theMing andQing empires.[7][8][a]Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using akoiné language based on various northern varieties. WhenJesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it "Mandarin", from its Chinese nameGuānhuà (官话;官話; 'language of the officials').[10]
In everyday English, "Mandarin" refers toStandard Chinese, which is often called simply "Chinese". Standard Mandarin Chinese is based onBeijing dialect, with some lexical and syntactic influence from other Mandarin dialects. It is the official spoken language of thePeople's Republic of China (PRC) andTaiwan (Republic of China, ROC), as well as one of the four official languages ofSingapore, and a high-prestige minority language[11] inMalaysia. It also functions as the language of instruction in mainland China and Taiwan. It is one of thesix official languages of theUnited Nations, under the name "Chinese". Chinese speakers refer to the modern standard language as
Pǔtōnghuà (普通话;普通話; 'common speech') in mainland China,
Guóyǔ (国语;國語; 'national language') in Taiwan or
Huáyǔ (华语;華語; 'Huaxia language') in Malaysia and Singapore,
Linguists use the term "Mandarin" to refer to the diverse group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which Chinese linguists callGuānhuà. The alternative termBěifānghuà (北方话;北方話; 'Northern dialects'), is used less and less among Chinese linguists. By extension, the term "Old Mandarin" or "Early Mandarin" is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty.
Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of "Mandarin" (or so-called "Northern dialects") in a broader sense. Within Chinese social or cultural discourse, there is not a "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of their speakers. Speakers of forms of Mandarin other than the standard typically refer to the variety they speak by a geographic name—for example theSichuan dialect and the Hebei dialect orNortheastern dialect, all being regarded as distinct from the standard language, with which they may not share much mutual intelligibility.
A page of theMenggu Ziyun, covering the syllablestsim tolim
After the fall of theNorthern Song (959–1126) and during the reign of theJin (1115–1234) andYuan (Mongol) dynasties in northern China, a common form of speech developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital, a language referred to as Old Mandarin. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as thequ andsanqu poetry.[15]
The rhyming conventions of the new verse were codified in arime dictionary called theZhongyuan Yinyun (1324). A radical departure from therime table tradition that had evolved over the previous centuries, this dictionary contains a wealth of information on the phonology of Old Mandarin. Further sources are the'Phags-pa script based on the Tibetan alphabet, which was used to write several of the languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese and theMenggu Ziyun, a rime dictionary based on 'Phags-pa. The rime books differ in some details, but overall show many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final plosives and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones.[16]
In Middle Chinese, initialstops andaffricates showed a three-way contrast betweentenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced consonants. There werefour tones, with the fourth or "entering tone", achecked tone comprising syllables ending in plosives (-p,-t or-k). Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch and by the lateTang dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials. When voicing was lost in all languages except the Wu subfamily, this distinction became phonemic and the system of initials and tones was rearranged differently in each of the major groups.[17]
TheZhongyuan Yinyun shows the typical Mandarin four-tone system resulting from a split of the "even" tone and loss of the entering tone, with its syllables distributed across the other tones (though their different origin is marked in the dictionary). Similarly, voiced plosives and affricates have become voiceless aspirates in the "even" tone and voiceless non-aspirates in others, another distinctive Mandarin development. However, the language still retained a final-m, which has merged with-n in modern dialects and initial voiced fricatives. It also retained the distinction between velars and alveolar sibilants in palatal environments, which later merged in most Mandarin dialects to yield a palatal series (renderedj-,q- andx- inpinyin).[18]
The flourishing vernacular literature of the period also shows distinctively Mandarin vocabulary and syntax, though some, such as the third-person pronountā (他), can be traced back to the Tang dynasty.[19]
Until the early 20th century, formal writing and even much poetry and fiction was done inLiterary Chinese, which was modeled on theclassics of theWarring States period and theHan dynasty. Over time, the various spoken varieties diverged greatly from Literary Chinese, which was learned and composed as a special language. Preserved from the sound changes that affected the various spoken varieties, its economy of expression was greatly valued. For example,翼 (yì; 'wing') is unambiguous in written Chinese, but has over 75homophones inStandard Chinese.
The literary language was less appropriate for documents that were meant to be performed or recited, such as plays or stories. From at least the Yuan dynasty plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such asWater Margin, on down to the Qing dynasty novelDream of the Red Chamber and beyond, there developed a literature inwritten vernacular Chinese (白话;白話;báihuà). In many cases, this written language reflected Mandarin varieties and since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin-speaking regions and beyond.[20]
Hu Shih, a pivotal figure of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled "A History of Vernacular Literature" (Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ).
Zhongguo Guanhua (中國官話), orMedii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published byÉtienne Fourmont (withArcadio Huang) in 1742[21]
The Chinese have different languages in different provinces, to such an extent that they cannot understand each other.... [They] also have another language which is like a universal and common language; this is the official language of the mandarins and of the court; it is among them like Latin among ourselves.... Two of our fathers [Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci] have been learning this mandarin language... — Alessandro Valignano, Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales, I:28 (1542–1564)[22]
Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in many parts ofSouth China spoke only their local variety. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known asGuānhuà. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined.[3]
Officials varied widely in their pronunciation; in 1728, theYongzheng Emperor, unable to understand the accents of officials fromGuangdong andFujian, issued a decree requiring the governors of those provinces to provide for the teaching of proper pronunciation. Although the resulting Academies for Correct Pronunciation (正音書院;Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) were short-lived, the decree did spawn a number of textbooks that give some insight into the ideal pronunciation. Common features included:
loss of the Middle Chinese voiced initials except forv-
merger of-m finals with-n
the characteristic Mandarin four-tone system in open syllables, but retaining a final glottal stop in "entering tone" syllables
retention of the distinction betweenpalatalized velars and dental affricates, the source of the spellings "Peking" and "Tientsin" for modern "Beijing" and "Tianjin".[23]
As the last two of these features indicate, this language was akoiné based on dialects spoken in theNanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect.[24] This form remained prestigious long after the capital moved toBeijing in 1421, though the speech of the new capital emerged as a rival standard. As late as 1815,Robert Morrison based thefirst English–Chinese dictionary on this koiné as the standard of the time, though he conceded that the Beijing dialect was gaining in influence.[25] By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court.[26]
The variant of Mandarin as spoken by educated classes inBeijing was made the official language of China by theQing dynasty in the early 1900s and the successive Republican government. In the early years of theRepublic of China, intellectuals of theNew Culture Movement, such asHu Shih andChen Duxiu, successfully campaigned for the replacement ofLiterary Chinese as the written standard bywritten vernacular Chinese, which was based on northern dialects. A parallel priority was the definition of a standard national language (traditional Chinese:國語;simplified Chinese:国语;pinyin:Guóyǔ;Wade–Giles:Kuo²-yü³). After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt atan artificial pronunciation, theNational Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic, founded in 1949, retained this standard, calling itpǔtōnghuà (simplified Chinese:普通话;traditional Chinese:普通話;lit. 'common speech').[27] Some 54% of speakers of Mandarin varieties could understand the standard language in the early 1950s, rising to 91% in 1984. Nationally, the proportion understanding the standard rose from 41% to 90% over the same period.[28]
This standard language is now used in education, the media, and formal occasions in bothmainland China andTaiwan, as well as among theChinese community of Singapore.[29][30] However, in other parts of theChinese-speaking world, namelyHong Kong andMacau, the standard form of Chinese used in education, the media, formal speech, and everyday life remains the localCantonese because of their colonial and linguistic history.[31] While Standard Mandarin is now the medium of instruction in schools throughout China, it still has yet to gain traction as a common language among the local population in areas where Mandarin dialects are not native.[32] In these regions, people may be eitherdiglossic or speak the standard language with a notable accent.[33] However, since the start of the 21st century, there has been an effort of mass education in Standard Mandarin Chinese and discouragement of local language usage by the Chinese government in order to erase these regional differences.[34]
From an official point of view, the mainland Chinese and the Taiwanese governments maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. The codified forms of bothPǔtōnghuà andGuóyǔ base theirphonology on the Beijing accent, and also take some elements from other sources, and deviate from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, andpragmatics.[35] Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school-standard" Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin varieties that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to theBeijing dialect.[36]
The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, althoughsimplified characters are used in mainland China and Singapore, whiletraditional characters remain in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.[37] Singapore has followed mainland China in officially adopting simplified characters.[38]
Mandarin is spoken across northern and southwestern China, with some pockets in neighbouring countries.Unlike their compatriots on the southeast coast, few Mandarin speakers engaged inoverseas emigration until the late 20th century, but there are now significant communities of them in cities across the world.[39]
Most Han Chinese living in northern and southwestern China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. TheNorth China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese varieties, with great internal diversity, particularly inFujian.[40][41]
However, the varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations inpronunciation,vocabulary, andgrammar,[42] and many Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible.[b]
Most ofnortheast China, except forLiaoning, did not receive significant settlements by Han Chinese until the 18th century,[48] and as a result theNortheastern Mandarin dialects spoken there differ little from theBeijing dialect.[49] TheManchu people of the area now speak these dialects exclusively; their native language is only maintained in northwesternXinjiang, whereXibe, a modern dialect, is spoken.[50]
The frontier areas ofnorthwest China were colonized by speakers of Mandarin dialects at the same time, and the dialects in those areas similarly closely resemble their relatives in the core Mandarin area.[49] The Southwest was settled early, but the population fell dramatically for obscure reasons in the 13th century, and did not recover until the 17th century.[49] The dialects in this area are now relatively uniform.[39] However, long-established cities even very close toBeijing, such asTianjin,Baoding,Shenyang, andDalian, have markedly different dialects.
Standard Mandarin is one of the official languages ofTaiwan. The Taiwanese standard of Mandarin differs very little from that of mainland China, with differences largely in some technical vocabulary developed from the 1950s onwards.[51]
While the spoken standard of Taiwanese Mandarin is nearly identical to that of mainland China, the colloquial form has been heavily influenced by other local languages, especiallyTaiwanese Hokkien. Notable differences include: the merger ofretroflex sounds (zh, ch, sh, r) with thealveolar series (z, c, s), frequent mergers of the "neutral tone" with a word's original tone, and absence oferhua.[52]Code-switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien is common, as the majority of the population continues to also speak the latter as a native language.[53]
Mandarin is one of the four official languages ofSingapore along withEnglish,Malay, andTamil. Historically, it was seldom used by theChinese Singaporean community, which primarily spoke the Southern Chinese languages ofHokkien,Teochew,Cantonese, orHakka.[54] The launch of theSpeak Mandarin Campaign in 1979 by the government prioritized the language over traditional vernaculars in an attempt to create a common ethnic language and foster closer connections to China.[55] This has led to a significant increase and presence of Mandarin usage in the country, coupled with a strong decline in usage of other Chinese variants.
Standard Singaporean Mandarin is nearly identical to the standards of China and Taiwan, with minor vocabulary differences. It is the Mandarin variant used in education, media, and official settings. Meanwhile, a colloquial form called Singdarin is used in informal daily life and is heavily influenced in terms of both grammar and vocabulary by local languages such as Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay. Instances of code-switching with English, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, or a combination of any of these is also common.
InMalaysia, Mandarin has been adopted by local Chinese-language schools as the medium of instruction with the standard based on that of Singapore. However, it is not as widespread in daily life among theMalaysian Chinese community, asHokkien speakers continue to form a plurality among the ethnic Chinese population andCantonese serves as the common language (especially in commerce and local media).[56] An exception is in the state ofJohor, where Mandarin is increasingly used alongside Cantonese as a lingua franca in part due to Singaporean influence.[57] As in Singapore, the local colloquial variant of Mandarin exhibits influences from Cantonese and Malay.
In northernMyanmar, aSouthwestern Mandarin variant close to the Yunnanese dialect is spoken by local Chinese and other ethnic groups. In somerebel group-controlled regions, Mandarin also serves as the lingua franca.[58]
The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features.[64]
In 1936,Wang Li produced the first classification based on phonetic criteria, principally the evolution ofMiddle Chinese voiced initials. His Mandarin group included dialects of northern and southwestern China, as well as those ofHunan and northernJiangxi.[65]Li Fang-Kuei's classification of 1937 distinguished the latter two groups asXiang andGan, while splitting the remaining Mandarin dialects between Northern, Lower Yangtze and Southwestern Mandarin groups.[66]
The widely accepted seven-group classification ofYuan Jiahua in 1960 kept Xiang and Gan separate, with Mandarin divided into Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jiang–Huai (Lower Yangtze) subgroups.[67][68]Of Yuan's four Mandarin subgroups, the Northwestern dialects are the most diverse, particularly in the province ofShanxi.[39] The linguistLi Rong proposed that the northwestern dialects of Shanxi and neighbouring areas that retain a final glottal stop in the Middle Chineseentering tone (plosive-final) category should constitute a separate top-level group calledJin.[69] He used this classification in theLanguage Atlas of China (1987).[13] Many other linguists continue to include these dialects in the Mandarin group, pointing out that the Lower Yangtze dialects also retain the glottal stop.[70][71]
The southern boundary of the Mandarin area, with the centralWu, Gan and Xiang groups, is weakly defined due to centuries of diffusion of northern features. Many border varieties have a mixture of features that make them difficult to classify.The boundary between Southwestern Mandarin and Xiang is particularly weak,[72] and in many early classifications the two were not separated.[73]Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie include theNew Xiang dialects within Southwestern Mandarin, treating only the more conservativeOld Xiang dialects as a separate group.[74]TheHuizhou dialects have features of both Mandarin and Wu, and have been assigned to one or other of these groups or treated as separate by various authors. Li Rong and theLanguage Atlas of China treated it as a separate top-level group, but this remains controversial.[75][76]
Distribution of the eight subgroups of Mandarin plusJin Chinese, which many linguists include as part of Mandarin, according to theLanguage Atlas of China (1987)[77]
TheLanguage Atlas of China calls the remainder of Mandarin a "supergroup", divided into eight dialect groups distinguished by their treatment of the Middle Chinese entering tone (seeTones below):[78][c]
Beijing Mandarin (27 million), spoken in Beijing and environs such asChengde and northernHebei, as well as some areas of recent large-scale immigration, such as northernXinjiang.[81] The Beijing dialect forms the basis of Standard Chinese. This classification is controversial, as a number of researchers view Beijing and Northeastern Mandarin as a single dialect group.[82]
Jilu Mandarin (89 million), spoken inHebei ("Ji") andShandong ("Lu") provinces except theShandong Peninsula, as well as in few counties of Heilongjiang, due to migration. IncludesTianjin dialect.[83] Tones and vocabulary are markedly different. In general, there is substantial intelligibility with Beijing Mandarin.
Jiaoliao Mandarin (35 million), spoken inShandong (Jiaodong) andLiaodong Peninsulas, as well as in few counties of Heilongjiang, due to migration.[84] Very noticeable tonal changes, different in "flavour" from Ji–Lu Mandarin, but with more variance. There is moderate intelligibility with Beijing.
Central Plains Mandarin (186 million), spoken inHenan province, the central parts ofShaanxi in theYellow River valley, easternGansu, as well as southernXinjiang, due to recent migration.[85] There are significant phonological differences, with partial intelligibility with Beijing. TheDungan language spoken inKazakhstan andKyrgyzstan belongs to this group. Dungan speakers such as the poetIasyr Shivaza have reported being understood by speakers of the Beijing dialect, but not vice versa.[86]
Lower Yangtze Mandarin (or Jiang–Huai, 86 million), spoken in the parts ofJiangsu andAnhui on the north bank of theYangtze, as well as some areas on the south bank, such asNanjing inJiangsu,Jiujiang inJiangxi, etc.[88] There are significant phonological and lexical changes to varying degrees, and intelligibility with Beijing is limited. Lower Yangtze Mandarin has been significantly influenced byWu Chinese.
TheAtlas also includes several unclassified Mandarin dialects spoken in scattered pockets across southeastern China, such asNanping inFujian andDongfang onHainan.[90]Another Mandarin variety of uncertain classification is apparentlyGyami, recorded in the 19th century in the Tibetan foothills, who the Chinese apparently did not recognize as Chinese.[91]Some northwestern Mandarin varieties in theQinghai–Gansu sprachbund have undergone drastic changes in phonology, lexicon and grammar.[92]
Asyllable consists maximally of an initial consonant, a medialglide, a vowel, a coda, andtone. In the traditional analysis, the medial, vowel and coda are combined as afinal.[93]Not all combinations occur. For example, Standard Chinese (based on the Beijing dialect) has about 1,200 distinct syllables.[94]
Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include:
one syllable contains maximum four phonemes (maximum three vowels and no consonant cluster)
the disappearance of finalstop consonants and/-m/ (although in many Lower Yangtze Mandarin andJin Chinese dialects, an echo of the final stops is preserved as aglottal stop);
The maximal inventory of initials of a Mandarin dialect is as follows, with bracketed pinyin spellings given for those present in the standard language:[95]
Most Mandarin-speaking areas distinguish between the retroflex initials/ʈʂʈʂʰʂ/ from the apical sibilants/tstsʰs/, though they often have a different distribution than in the standard language. In most dialects of the southeast and southwest the retroflex initials have merged with the alveolar sibilants, so thatzhi becomeszi,chi becomesci, andshi becomessi.[96]
The alveolo-palatal sibilants/tɕtɕʰɕ/ are the result of merger between the historical palatalized velars/kjkʰjxj/ and palatalized alveolar sibilants/tsjtsʰjsj/.[96] In about 20% of dialects, the alveolar sibilants did not palatalize, remaining separate from the alveolo-palatal initials. (The unique pronunciation used inPeking opera falls into this category.) On the other side, in some dialects of easternShandong, the velar initials did not undergo palatalization.
Many southwestern Mandarin dialects mix/f/ and/xw/, substituting one for the other in some or all cases.[97] For example,fei/fei/ "to fly" andhui/xwei/ "grey" may be merged in these areas.
In some dialects, initial/l/ and/n/ are not distinguished. In Southwestern Mandarin, these sounds usually merge to/n/; in Lower Yangtze Mandarin, they usually merge to/l/.[97]
People in many Mandarin-speaking areas may use different initial sounds where Beijing uses initialr-/ɻ/. Common variants include/j/,/l/,/n/ and/w/.[96]
Some dialects have initial/ŋ/ corresponding to the zero initial of the standard language.[96] This initial is the result of a merger of the Middle Chinese zero initial with/ŋ/ and/ʔ/.
Many dialects of Northwestern and Central Plains Mandarin have/pfpfʰfv/ where Beijing has/tʂwtʂʰwʂwɻw/.[96] Examples include/pfu/ "pig" for standardzhū豬/tʂu/,/fei/ "water" for standardshuǐ水/ʂwei/,/vã/ "soft" for standardruǎn軟/ɻwan/.
Most Mandarin dialects have three medial glides,/j/,/w/ and/ɥ/ (spelledi,u andü in pinyin), though their incidence varies.The medial/w/, is lost after apical initials in several areas.[96]Thus Southwestern Mandarin has/tei/ "correct" where the standard language hasdui/twei/.Southwestern Mandarin also has/kaikʰaixai/ in some words where the standard hasjie qie xie/tɕjɛtɕʰjɛɕjɛ/. This is a stereotypical feature of southwestern Mandarin, since it is so easily noticeable. E.g.hai "shoe" for standardxie,gai "street" for standardjie.
Mandarin dialects typically have relatively few vowels.Syllabic fricatives, as in standardzi andzhi, are common in Mandarin dialects, though they also occur elsewhere.[98]The Middle Chinese off-glides/j/ and/w/ are generally preserved in Mandarin dialects, yielding severaldiphthongs andtriphthongs in contrast to the larger sets of monophthongs common in other dialect groups (and some widely scattered Mandarin dialects).[98]
The Middle Chinese coda/m/ was still present inOld Mandarin, but has merged with/n/ in the modern dialects.[96] In some areas (especially the southwest) final/ŋ/ has also merged with/n/. This is especially prevalent in the rhyme pairs-en/-eng/ənəŋ/ and-in/-ing/iniŋ/. As a result,jīn "gold" andjīng "capital" merge in those dialects.
The Middle Chinese final stops have undergone a variety of developments in different Mandarin dialects (seeTones below). InLower Yangtze dialects and some north-western dialects they have merged as a finalglottal stop. In other dialects they have been lost, with varying effects on the vowel.[96] As a result, Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin underwent more vowel mergers than many other varieties of Mandarin. For example:
R-coloring, a characteristic feature of Mandarin, works quite differently in the southwest. Whereas Beijing dialect generally removes only a final/j/ or/n/ when adding the rhotic final-r/ɻ/, in the southwest the-r replaces nearly the entire rhyme.
The syllablema with each of the primary tones in Standard Chinese
In general, no two Mandarin-speaking areas have exactly the same set oftone values, but most Mandarin-speaking areas have very similar tonedistribution. For example, the dialects ofJinan,Chengdu,Xi'an and so on all have four tones that correspond quite well to theBeijing dialect tones of[˥] (55),[˧˥] (35),[˨˩˦] (214), and[˥˩] (51). The exception to this rule lies in the distribution of syllables formerly ending in a stop consonant, which are treated differently in different dialects of Mandarin.[99]
Middle Chinese stops and affricates had a three-way distinction between tenuis, voiceless aspirate and voiced (or breathy voiced) consonants.In Mandarin dialects the voicing is generally lost, yielding voiceless aspirates in syllables with a Middle Chinese level tone and non-aspirates in other syllables.[39]Of thefour tones of Middle Chinese, the level, rising and departing tones have also developed into four modern tones in a uniform way across Mandarin dialects; the Middle Chinese level tone has split into two registers, conditioned on voicing of the Middle Chinese initial, while rising tone syllables with voiced obstruent initials have shifted to the departing tone.[100]The following examples from the standard language illustrate the regular development common to Mandarin dialects (recall that pinyind denotes a non-aspirate/t/, whilet denotes an aspirate/tʰ/):
Reflexes of Middle Chinese initials and tones in modern Mandarin
In traditional Chinese phonology, syllables that ended in a stop in Middle Chinese (i.e. /p/, /t/ or /k/) were considered to belong to a special category known as the "entering tone".These final stops have disappeared in most Mandarin dialects, with the syllables distributed over the other four modern tones in different ways in the various Mandarin subgroups.
In the Beijing dialect that underlies the standard language, syllables beginning with original voiceless consonants were redistributed across the four tones in a completely random pattern.[101] For example, the three characters積脊跡, alltsjek in Middle Chinese (William H. Baxter's transcription), are now pronouncedjī,jǐ andjì respectively. Older dictionaries such asMathews' Chinese-English Dictionary mark characters whose pronunciation formerly ended with a stop with a superscript 5; however, this tone number is more commonly used for syllables that always have a neutral tone (see below).
In Lower Yangtze dialects, a minority of Southwestern dialects (e.g.Minjiang) and Jin Chinese (sometimes considered non-Mandarin), former final stops were not deleted entirely, but were reduced to aglottal stop/ʔ/.[101] (This includes the dialect ofNanjing on which thePostal Romanization was based; it transcribes the glottal stop as a trailingh.) This development is shared withWu Chinese and is thought to represent the pronunciation ofOld Mandarin. In line with traditional Chinese phonology, dialects such as Lower Yangtze and Minjiang are thus said to have five tones instead of four. However, modern linguistics considers these syllables as having nophonemic tone at all.
Reflexes of the Middle Chinese entering tone in Mandarin dialects[102]
* Dialects in and around the Nantong area typically have many more than 4 tones, due to influence from the neighbouringWu dialects.
Mandarin dialects frequently employ neutral tones in the second syllables of words, creating syllables whose tone contour is so short and light that it is difficult or impossible to discriminate. These atonal syllables also occur in non-Mandarin dialects, but in many southern dialects the tones of all syllables are made clear.[101]
There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese exceptShanghainese[citation needed]. This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than southern varieties of Chinese have, and needed to deal with many morehomophones. New words have been formed by addingaffixes such aslao- (老),-zi (子),-(e)r (儿/兒), and-tou (头/頭), or by compounding, e.g. by combining two words of similar meaning as incōngmáng (匆忙), made from elements meaning "hurried" and "busy".A distinctive feature of southwestern Mandarin is its frequent use of nounreduplication, which is hardly used in Beijing. InSichuan, one hearsbāobāo (包包) "handbag" where Beijing usesbāor (包儿).There are also a small number of words that have been polysyllabic since Old Chinese, such ashúdié (蝴蝶) 'butterfly'.
The singularpronouns in Mandarin arewǒ (我) 'I',nǐ (你 or妳) 'you',nín (您) 'you (formal)', andtā (他,她 or它/牠) 'he, 'she', 'it', with -men (们/們) added for the plural. Further, there is a distinction between the plural first-person pronounzánmen (咱们/咱們), which is inclusive of the listener, andwǒmen (我们/我們), which may be exclusive of the listener. Dialects of Mandarin agree with each other quite consistently on these pronouns. While the first and second person singular pronouns are cognate with forms in other varieties of Chinese, the rest of the pronominal system is a Mandarin innovation (e.g.,Shanghainese hasnon侬/儂 'you' andyi伊 'he', 'she').[104]
Because of contact with Mongolian and Manchurian peoples, Mandarin (especially the Northeastern varieties) has some loanwords from these languages not present in other varieties of Chinese, such ashútòng (胡同) "alley".Southern Chinese varieties have borrowed fromTai,[105]Austroasiatic,[106] andAustronesian languages.
There are also many Chinese words which come from foreign languages such asgāo'ěrfū (高尔夫) from "golf";bǐjīní (比基尼) from "bikini", andhànbǎo bāo (汉堡包) from "hamburger".
In general, the greatest variation occurs in slang, in kinship terms, in names for common crops and domesticated animals, for common verbs and adjectives, and other such everyday terms. The least variation occurs in "formal" vocabulary—terms dealing with science, law, or government.
Chinese varieties of all periods are considered prime examples ofanalytic languages, relying on word order and particles instead ofinflection oraffixes to provide grammatical information such asperson,number,tense,mood, orcase.Although modern varieties, including the Mandarin dialects, use a small number of particles in a similar fashion to suffixes, they are still strongly analytic.[107]
The basic word order ofsubject–verb–object is common across Chinese dialects, but there are variations in the order of the two objects ofditransitive sentences.In northern dialects the indirect object precedes the direct object (as in English), for example in the Standard Chinese sentence:
我
wǒ
I
给
gěi
give
你
nǐ
you
一本
yìběn
a
书
shū
book
[我給你一本書]
我 给 你 一本 书
wǒ gěi nǐ yìběn shū
I give you a book
In southern dialects, as well as many southwestern and Lower Yangtze dialects, the objects occur in the reverse order.[example needed][108][109]
Most varieties of Chinese use post-verbal particles to indicateaspect, but the particles used vary.Most Mandarin dialects use the particlele (了) to indicate theperfective aspect andzhe (着;著) for theprogressive aspect.Other Chinese varieties tend to use different particles, e.g. Cantonesezo2 (咗) andgan2 (紧;緊) respectively.The experiential aspect particleguo (过;過) is used more widely, except in Southern Min.[110]
The subordinative particlede (的) is characteristic of Mandarin dialects.[111]Some southern dialects, and a few Lower Yangtze dialects, preserve an older pattern of subordination without a marking particle, while in others aclassifier fulfils the role of the Mandarin particle.[112]
Especially in conversational Chinese, sentence-finalparticles alter the inherent meaning of a sentence. Like much vocabulary, particles can vary a great deal with regards to the locale. For example, the particlema (嘛), which is used in most northern dialects to denote obviousness or contention, is replaced byyo (喲;哟) in southern usage.
Some characters in Mandarin can be combined with others to indicate a particular meaning just like prefix and suffix in English. For example, the suffix -er which means the person who is doing the action, e.g. teacher, person who teaches. In Mandarin the character師 has the same function, it is combined with教, which means 'teach', to form the word 'teacher'.
List of several common Chinese prefixes and suffixes:
Affix
Pronunciation
Gloss
Example
Example gloss
们;們
men
plural for human nouns, same as -s, -es
学生们;學生們,朋友们;朋友們
'students', 'friends'
可
kě
same as -able
可信,可笑,可靠
'trusty', 'laughable', 'reliable'
重
chóng
same as re- (again)
重做, 重建, 重新
'redo', 'rebuild', 'renew'
第
dì
same as -th, -st, -nd
第二,第一
'second', 'first'
老
lǎo
old, or show respect to a certain type of person
老头;老頭,老板;老闆,老师;老師
'old man', 'boss', 'teacher'
化
huà
same as -ize, -en
公式化、制度化、強化
'officialize', 'systemize', 'strengthen'
家
jiā
same as -er or expert
作家、科學家 [科学家]、藝術家 [艺术家]
'writer', 'scientist', 'artist'
性
xìng
same as -ness, -ability
可靠性、實用性 [实用性]、可理解性
'reliability', 'usability', 'understand-ability'
鬼
guǐ
usually used in a disparaging way, similar to -aholic
煙鬼、酒鬼、膽小鬼 [胆小鬼]
'smoker', 'alcoholic', 'coward'
匠
jiàng
a technician in a certain field
花匠,油漆匠,木匠
'gardener', 'painter', 'carpenter
迷
mí
an enthusiast
戏迷;戲迷,球迷,歌迷
'theater fan', 'sports fan', 'groupie (of a musician)'
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[114]
In the early 1950s, only 54% of people in the Mandarin-speaking area could understand Standard Chinese, which was based on the Beijing dialect.[43]
"Hence we see that even Mandarin includes within it an unspecified number of languages, very few of which have ever been reduced to writing, that are mutually unintelligible."[44]
"the common term assigned by linguists to this group of languages implies a certain homogeneity which is more likely to be related to the sociopolitical context than to linguistic reality, since most of those varieties are not mutually intelligible."[45]
"A speaker of only standard Mandarin might take a week or two to comprehend even simple Kunminghua with ease—and then only if willing to learn it."[46]
"without prior exposure, speakers of different Mandarin dialects often have considerable difficulty understanding each other's local vernacular even if they come from the same province, provided that two or more distinct groups of Mandarin are spoken therein. In some cases, mutual intelligibility is not guaranteed even if the Mandarin dialects concerned belong to the same group and are spoken within the same province. As reported by a native speaker of the Zhenjiang dialect (a Jianghuai (Lower Yangtze) Mandarin dialect spoken in the Jiangsu province), it is impossible for her to understand the Nantong dialect (another Jianghuai Mandarin dialect spoken around 140 kilometers away in the same province)."[47]
^Speaker numbers are rounded to the nearest million from figures in the revised edition of theLanguage Atlas of China.[79]
^The development is purely due to the preservation of an early glide which later became/j/ and triggered palatalization, and does not indicate the absence of a vowel merger.
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