Spoken Chinese

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Chinese
Geographic distribution:	China
Genetic classification:	Sino-Tibetan  Sinitic   Chinese
Subdivisions:	Min Chinese descendants of Middle Chinese (see map)
Primary branches of Chinese

Spoken Chinese (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語) comprises many regional varieties, the primary ones being Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. These are not mutually intelligible, but for sociological and political reasons are considered a single Chinese language^{[by whom?]}.

Although the English word dialect is often used to translate the Chinese term fangyan (Chinese: 方言; literally "regional speech"), the lack of mutual intelligibility between the major (and many minor) fangyan is at odds with the normal English use of the word dialect. The nonce term topolect has been coined as a more literal translation of fangyan, but "variety" will be used here.

Contents 1 Classification 2 Diversity 2.1 Local classifications 3 Sociolinguistics 3.1 Bilingualism with Mandarin 3.2 Political issues 4 Examples of variations 5 Comparison of vocabularies 6 Phonology 7 See also 8 References 8.1 Footnotes 8.2 Notations 9 External links

[edit] Classification

Chinese people make a strong distinction between written language (文, Pinyin: wén) and spoken language (语/語 yǔ). English does not necessarily have this distinction. As a result the terms Zhongwen (中文) and Hanyu (漢語) in Chinese are both translated in English as "Chinese".

Within China, it is common perception that these varieties are distinct in their spoken forms only, and that the language, when written, is common across the country. Therefore even though China is home to hundreds of relatively unique spoken languages, literate people are usually able to communicate through written language effectively.

[edit] Diversity

Chinese consists of several dialect continuums. Differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, with few radical breaks. However, the degree of change in intelligibility varies immensely depending on region. For example, the varieties of Mandarin spoken in all three northeastern Chinese provinces are mutually intelligible, but in the small province of Zhejiang a person from one valley may be completely unable to comprehend the language from the next, though both are considered dialects of Wu Chinese.

There is little formal study of any variety but Standard Mandarin. Outside of China, the only two varieties commonly presented in formal courses are Standard Mandarin and Standard Cantonese. Inside China, second-language acquisition can only be achieved through immersion in the local language.

The varieties of Chinese classified into the following groups:

• Mandarin 官话/官話 (also Northern 北方話/北方话): (c. 836 million speakers) This is the group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, and makes up the largest spoken language in China. Standard Mandarin, called Putonghua or Guoyu in Chinese, which is often also translated as "Mandarin" or simply "Chinese", belongs to this group. It is the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China, and Singapore. Mandarin Chinese is also the official language of the Republic of China, currently governing Taiwan, although there are minor differences in this standard from the form standardized in the PRC.^[1]

Mandarin is characterized by four tones, compared to eight in Cantonese, and the loss of final consonants, so that while Middle Chinese had an inventory of -p, -t, -k, -m, -n, ng, Standard Mandarin only has -n, -ng. Mandarin has adjusted to the high number of homonyms created by these losses through word compounding. The use of compounds is generally less frequent in other dialects.

• Wu 吴语/吳語: (c. 77 million) spoken in the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the municipality of Shanghai. Wu includes Shanghai dialect, sometimes taken as the representative of all Wu dialects. Wu's subgroups are extremely diverse, especially in the mountainous regions of Zhejiang and eastern Anhui. The group possibly comprises hundreds of distinct spoken forms which are not mutually intelligible amongst each other. The Wu dialect is notable among Chinese dialects in having kept "voiced" (actually slack voiced) initials, such as /b̥/, /d̥/, /ɡ̊/, /z̥/, /v̥/, /d̥ʑ̊/, /ʑ̊/ etc.
• The Min languages 闽语/閩語: (c. 60 million) spoken in Fujian, Taiwan, parts of Southeast Asia particularly in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore, and amongst Overseas Chinese who trace their roots to Fujian and Taiwan. The largest Min language is Hokkien, which is spoken in Southern Fujian, Taiwan, and by many Chinese in Southeast Asia and includes the Taiwanese, and Amoy dialects amongst others. Min is the only branch of Chinese that cannot be directly derived from Middle Chinese. It is also the most diverse, divided into seven subgroups defined on the basis of relative mutual intelligibility: Min Nan (which includes Hokkien and Teochew), Min Dong (which includes the Fuzhou dialect), Min Bei, Min Zhong, Pu Xian, Qiong Wen, and Shao Jiang.
• Cantonese (Yue) 粤语/粵語: (c. 71 million) spoken in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Southeast Asia and by Overseas Chinese with an ancestry tracing back to the Guangdong region. Used by linguistics, "Cantonese" covers all the Yue dialects, such as Taishanese, though the term is also used to refer specifically to the Standard Cantonese of Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Similar to Wu and Min, not all subgroups of Cantonese are mutually intelligible. Some dialects of Yue have intricate sets of tone compared to other Chinese dialects, with up to seven or eight tones. Yue keeps a full complement of Middle Chinese word-final consonants (p, t, k, m, n, ng).
• Xiang (Hunanese) 湘语/湘語:(c. 36 million) spoken in Hunan. Xiang is usually divided into the "old" and "new" dialects, with the new dialects being significantly influenced by Mandarin.^{[citation needed]}
• Hakka (Kèjiā) 客家话/客家話: (c. 34 million) spoken by the Hakka people, a cultural group of the Han Chinese, in several provinces across southern China, in Taiwan, and in parts of Southeast Asia such as Malaysia and Singapore. The term "Hakka" itself translates as "guest families", and many Hakka people consider themselves to be descended from Song-era refugees from North China, although genetic and linguistic evidence suggests that the Hakka originated right around where they are today. Hakka has kept many features of northern Middle Chinese that have been lost in the North. It also has a full complement of nasal endings, -m -n -ŋ and occlusive endings -p -t -k, maintaining the four categories of tonal types, with splitting in the ping and ru tones, giving six tones. Some dialects of Hakka have seven tones, due to splitting in the qu tone. One of the distinguishing features of Hakka phonology is that Middle Chinese voiced initials are transformed into Hakka voiceless aspirated initials.
• Gan 赣语/贛語: (c. 31 million) spoken in Jiangxi. In the past, it was viewed as closely related to Hakka dialects, because of the way Middle Chinese voiced initials have become voiceless aspirated initials, as in Hakka, and were hence called by the umbrella term "Hakka-Gan dialects". This term has, however, now become obsolete.

There is some dispute as to whether the following varieties should be classified separately:

• Huizhou 徽语/徽語: (c. 3.2 million) spoken in the southern parts of Anhui—usually classified as a dialect of Gan.
• Jin 晋语/晉語: spoken in Shanxi, as well as parts of Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, and Inner Mongolia. It is often classed as a dialect of Mandarin.
• Pinghua 平话/平話: (c. 2 million) spoken in parts of the Guangxi. It is sometimes classed as a dialect of Cantonese.

Some varieties remain unclassified. These include:

• Danzhou dialect 儋州话/儋州話: spoken in Danzhou, Hainan.
• Xianghua 乡话/鄉話: spoken in a small strip of land in western Hunan, this group of dialects has not been conclusively classified.
• Shaozhou Tuhua 韶州土话/韶州土話: spoken at the border regions of Guangdong, Hunan, and Guangxi. This is an area of great linguistic diversity, and has not yet been conclusively described or classified.

In addition, the Dungan language (东干语/東干語) is a dialect of Mandarin spoken in Kyrgyzstan. However, it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet as a result of Soviet rule.

Chinese	Min Min Bei Min Bei Shaojiang Min Dong Min Zhong Puxian Min Nan Hokkien Teochew Qiongwen Leizhou Hainanese Middle Chinese Guan Jin Mandarin Dungan Huizhou Wu Wu Wenzhou Gan Hakka Xiang Pinghua Yue Cantonese Taishanese

[edit] Local classifications

Generally, when referring to a local dialect in everyday speech, the speaker will refer to the dominant city in the region as a marker of the dialect as a whole. For example, a Wu speaker would not ask a fellow Wu speaker if they speak "Wu", but would rather ask whether or not they speak the dialect from Suzhou or Hangzhou, known as Suzhouhua and Hangzhouhua, respectively, in Chinese. Generally dialects are branded according to cities, geographical regions, or provinces. This method of informal classification is commonly used in spoken language. Provinces whose dialects are more homogeneous within its boundaries, such as Shaanxi, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, etc. tend to refer to their own dialects by the name of the province (although sub-dialects exist and can be referred to locally by the name of a city). In more diverse provinces such as Fujian, dialects are informally classified by mutual intelligibility into Min Nan (闽南话), Min Dong (闽东话), and Min Bei (闽北话); in Zhejiang, where there is vast variance in spoken language, dialects are generally classified by cities or counties — as such, no singular "Zhejiang dialect" exists. An area with widespread homogeneity in spoken language is the three provinces of Northeastern China, whose spoken language is collectively known as Northeastern Mandarin, or Dongbei Hua (东北话) in Chinese.

[edit] Sociolinguistics

This section called "Sociolinguistics" is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (November 2008)

[edit] Bilingualism with Mandarin

In southern China (not including Hong Kong and Macau), where the difference between Standard Mandarin and local dialects are particularly pronounced, well-educated Chinese are generally fluent in Standard Mandarin, and most people have at least a good passive knowledge of it, in addition to being native speakers of the local dialect. The choice of dialect varies based on the social situation. Standard Mandarin is usually considered more formal and is required when speaking to a person who does not understand the local dialect. The local dialect (be it nonstandard Mandarin or non-Mandarin altogether) is generally considered more intimate and is used among close family members and friends and in everyday conversation within the local area. Chinese speakers will frequently code switch between Standard Mandarin and the local dialect. Parents will generally speak to their children in dialect, and the relationship between dialect and Mandarin appears to be mostly stable. Local languages give a sense of identity to local cultures.

Knowing the local dialect is of considerable social benefit and most Chinese who permanently move to a new area will attempt to pick up the local dialect. Learning a new dialect is usually done informally through a process of immersion and recognizing sound shifts. Generally the differences are more pronounced lexically than grammatically. Typically, a speaker of one dialect of Chinese will need about a year of immersion to understand the local dialect and about three to five years to become fluent in speaking it. Because of the variety of dialects spoken, there are usually few formal methods for learning a local dialect.

Due to the variety in Chinese speech, Mandarin speakers from each area of China are very often prone to fuse or "translate" words from their local tongue into their Mandarin conversations. In addition, each area of China has its recognizable accents while speaking Mandarin. Generally, the nationalized standard form of Mandarin pronunciation is only heard on news and radio broadcasts. Even in the streets of Beijing, the flavour of Mandarin varies in pronunciation from the Mandarin heard on the media.

[edit] Political issues

Within mainland China, there has been a consistent drive towards promoting the standard language （大力推广普通话 dàlì tuīguǎng Pǔtōnghuà）; for instance, the education system is entirely Mandarin-medium from the second year onwards. However, usage of local dialect is tolerated, and in many informal situations socially preferred. Unlike in Hong Kong, where colloquial Cantonese characters are often used for formal occasions, within the PRC a character set closer to Mandarin tends to be used. At the national level, differences in dialect generally do not correspond to political divisions or categories, and this has for the most part prevented dialect from becoming the basis of identity politics. Historically, many of the people who promoted Chinese nationalism were from southern China and did not natively speak the national standard language, and even leaders from northern China rarely spoke with the standard accent. For example, Mao Zedong often emphasized his Hunan origins in speaking, rendering much of what he said incomprehensible to many Chinese. One consequence of this is that China does not have a well developed tradition of spoken political rhetoric, and most Chinese political works are intended primarily as written works rather than spoken works.

Another factor that limits the political implications of dialect is that it is very common within an extended family for different people to know and use different dialects. In addition, while speaking similar dialect provides very strong group identity at the level of a city or county, the high degree of linguistic diversity limits the amount of group solidarity at larger levels. Finally, the linguistic diversity of southern China makes it likely that in any large group of Chinese, Standard Mandarin will be the only form of speech that everyone understands.

On the other hand in Taiwan, the government had a policy of promoting Standard Mandarin over the local languages, such as Taiwanese and Hakka. This policy was implemented rigidly when Standard Mandarin was the only language of instruction in schools, while English was offered as the compulsory second language. Since late 1990s, other languages have also been offered as a second language.

[edit] Examples of variations

The Min languages are often regarded as furthest removed linguistically from Standard Mandarin, in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary. To illustrate: in Taiwanese, a variety of Hokkien, a Min language, to express the idea that one is feeling a little ill ("I am not feeling well."), one might say (in Pe̍h-oē-jī):

Goá kā-kī lâng ū tām-po̍h-á bô sóng-khoài.

我家己人有淡薄無爽快。

which, when translated cognate-by-cognate into Mandarin would be spoken as an awkward or semantically unrecognizable sentence:

Wǒ jiājǐ rén yǒu dànbó wú shuǎngkuài.

Could roughly be interpreted as:
My family's own person is weakly not feeling refreshed.

Where as when spoken colloquially in Mandarin, one would either say:

Wǒ zìjǐ yǒu yīdiǎn bù shūfu.

我自己有一點不舒服。

I myself feel a bit uncomfortable.

or:

Wǒ yǒu yīdiǎn bù shūfu.

我有一點不舒服。

I feel a bit uncomfortable.

the latter omitting the reflexive pronoun (zìjǐ), not usually needed in Mandarin.

Some people, particularly in northern China, would say:

Wǒ yǒu diǎnr bù shūfu.

我有點兒不舒服。

Literally: I am [a] bit[DIM.] uncomfortable.

[edit] Comparison of vocabularies

^{[Wu, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Min Nan missing tone]}

English	Mandarin	Wu	Xiang	Gan	Hakka	Yue	Min Nan
I	uɔ˨˩˦	ŋu	ŋo	ŋo	ŋai	ŋɔ˩˧	ɡua
you	ni˨˩˦	noŋ	n̩	n̩	n	nei˩˧	li
he	tʰa˥˥	ɦi	tʰa	ʨiɛ	kʰi	kʰœy˩˧	i
this	ʈʂɤ˥˩	ɡəʔ	ko	ko	e	ni˥	ʨɪt
that	na˥˩	ᴇ	la	hɛ	ke	kɔ˧˥	he
human	ʐən˧˥	ɳin	zən	ɳin	ŋin	jɐn˨˩	laŋ
man	nan˧˥	nø	lan	lan	nam	nam˨˩	lam
woman	ny˨˩˦	ɳy	ɳy	ɳyn	ŋ	nɵy˩˧	li
father	pa˥˩pa˩	ɦiᴀ	ia	ia	a pa	pa˥	lau pe
mother	ma˥˥ma˨	ɳiã	m ma	ɳiɔŋ	a me	ma˥	lau bo
child	ɕiɑʊ˩xai˧˥	ɕiɔ nø	ɕi ŋa ʦɿ	ɕi ŋa ʦɿ	se ŋin e	sɐi˧ lou˧˥	ɡɪn a
fish	y˧˥	ɦŋ	y	ɳiɛ	ŋ e	jy˨˩	hi
snake	ʂɤ˧˥	zo	sə	sa	sa	sɛ˨˩	ʦua
meat	ʐɤʊ˥˩	ɳioʔ	zəu	ɳiuk	ŋiuk	jʊk˨	baʔ
bone	ku˨˩˦	kuəʔ	ku	kut	kut	kʷɐt˥	kut
eye	iɛn˨˩˦	ŋᴇ	ŋan	ŋan	muk	ŋan˩˧	bak
ear	əɻ˨˩˦	ɳi	ə	ɵ	ŋi	ji˩˧	hĩ
nose	pi˧˥	biɪʔ	pi	pʰit	pʰi	pei˨	pʰĩ
to eat	ʈʂʰʐ̩˥˥	ʨʰiɪʔ	ʨʰia	ʨʰiak	sɿt	sɪk˨	ʨiaʔ
to drink	xɤ˥˥	xaʔ	ʨʰia	ʨʰiak	sɿt/jim	jɐm˧˥	lɪm
to say	ʂuɔ˥˥	kã	kan	ua	ʋa/ham	kɔŋ˧˥	kɔŋ
to hear	tʰiŋ˥˥	tin	tʰin	tʰiaŋ	tʰaŋ	tʰɛŋ˥	tʰiã
to see	kʰan˥˩	kʰɤ	uan	mɔŋ	kʰon	tʰɐi˧˥	kʰuã
to smell	uən˧˥	mən	uən	ɕiuŋ	ʋun/pʰi	mɐn˨˩	pʰĩ
to sit	tsuɔ˥˩	zu	ʦo	ʦʰo	ʦʰɔ	ʦʰɔ˩˧	ʦe
to lie	tʰɑŋ˨˩˦	kʰuən	tʰan	kʰun	tʰoŋ	fɐn˧	to
to stand	ʈʂan˥˥	liɪʔ	ʦan	ʨʰi	kʰi	kʰei˩˧	kʰia
sun	tʰai˥˩iɑŋ˧˥	ɳiɪʔ dɤ	tʰai ian	ɳit tʰɛu	ŋit tʰɛu	tʰai˧ jœŋ˨˩	lɪt tʰau
moon	yɛ˥˩liɑŋ˩	ɦyɪʔ liã	ye lian	ɳiot kuɔŋ	ŋiet kuɔŋ	jyt˨ kʷɔŋ˥	ɡeʔ niu
mountain	ʂɑn˥˥	sᴇ	san	san	san	san˥	suã
water	ʂuei˨˩˦	sʅ	ɕyei	sui	sui	sœy˧˥	ʦui
red	xʊŋ˧˥	ɦoŋ	xən	fuŋ	fuŋ	hʊŋ˨˩	aŋ
green	ly˥˩	loʔ	ləu	liuk	liuk	lʊk˨	lɪk
yellow	xuɑŋ˧˥	uã	uan	uɔŋ	ʋoŋ	wɔŋ˨˩	ŋ
white	pai˧˥	bᴀʔ	pə	pʰak	pʰak	pak˨	peʔ
black	xei˥˥	həʔ	xə	hɛt	ʋu	hɐk˥	ɔ
daytime	pai˧˥tʰiɛn˥˥	ɳiɪʔ ɕiã	pə tʰiẽ	ɳit sɔŋ	ŋit sɿn tʰeu	jɐt˨ tʰɐu˧˥	dʒɪt ɕi
night	iɛ˥˩uan˨˩˦	ɦiᴀ li	uan san	ia li	am pu tʰeu	jɛ˨ man˩˧	am ɕi
	Mandarin	Wu	Xiang	Gan	Hakka	Yue	Min

Tones

Language family	Language	Number of tones	Tone in descending order
Mandarin	Beijing dialect	4	˥˥
			˧˥
			˨˩˦
			˥˩
Wu	Shanghai dialect	5	˥˧
			˧˦
			˨˧
			˥˥
			˩˨
Xiang	Changsha dialect	6	˧˧
			˩˧
			˦˨
			˥˥
			˨˩
			˨˦
Gan	Nanchang dialect	7	˦˨
			˨˦
			˨˩˧
			˥˥
			˨˩
			˥
			˨
Hakka	Meixian dialect	6	˦˦
			˩˩
			˧˩
			˥˨
			˩
			˥
Yue	Guangzhou dialect	9	˥˥
			˨˩
			˧˥
			˩˧
			˧˧
			˨˨
			˥
			˧
			˨
Min	Xiamen dialect	7	˥˥
			˨˦
			˥˩
			˩˩
			˧˧
			˨
			˥

[edit] Phonology

This section called "Phonology" is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (November 2008)

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The phonological structure of each syllable consists of a nucleus consisting of a vowel (which can be a monophthong, diphthong, or even a triphthong in certain varieties) with an optional onset or coda consonant as well as a tone. There are some instances where a non-vowel is used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where the nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable.

Across all the spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda, but syllables that do have codas are restricted to /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /p/, /t/, /k/, or /ʔ/. Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Mandarin, are limited to only two, namely /n/ and /ŋ/. Consonant clusters do not generally occur in either the onset or coda. The onset may be an affricate or a consonant followed by a semivowel, but these are not generally considered consonant clusters.

The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation.

All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 10 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese.

A very common example used to illustrate the use of tones in Chinese are the four main tones of Standard Mandarin applied to the syllable ma. The tones correspond to these five characters:

Chinese tone usage common example

Traditional hanzi	Simplified hanzi	Romanization	Semantic	Tone
媽	妈	mā	"mother"	high level
麻		má	"hemp"	high rising
馬	马	mǎ	"horse"	low falling-rising
罵	骂	mà	"scold"	high falling
嗎	吗	ma	question particle	neutral

	Listen to the tones This is a recording of the four main tones. Fifth, or neutral, tone is not included.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

[edit] See also

• Identification of the varieties of Chinese
• Languages of China
• List of Chinese dialects
• Sinitic linguistic family
• varieties of Chinese

[edit] References

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Notations

• Branner, David Prager. (2000). Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology — the Classification of Miin and Hakka. Trends in Linguistics series, no. 123. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• DeFrancis, John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6
• Hannas, William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1892-X (paperback); ISBN 0-8248-1842-3 (hardcover)

[edit] External links

• Details on many Chinese Dialects(e.g. Classification)
• Technical Notes on the Chinese Language Dialects, by Dylan W.H. Sung(Phonology & Official Romanisation Schemes)
• Discovering dialects
• Hello Mandarin: Introduction of Mandarin / Putonghua
• CEDICT Chinese English Dictionary
• Editorial on use of dialects from China Daily. Raymond Zhou. 19 November 2005
• Chinese Example Sentences

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