| Beijing dialect | ||||
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| 北京話 / 京腔 Běijinghuà |
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| Spoken in | Beijing and surrounding areas; overseas, in New York City, USA. | |||
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | – | |||
| Linguist List | cmn-bei (Beijing area) | |||
| cmn-bej (Beijing proper) | ||||
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Beijing dialect in the broad sense.
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Beijing dialect, or Pekingese (simplified Chinese: 北京话; traditional Chinese: 北京話; pinyin: Běijīnghuà), is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China.[1] It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, which is used by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore.
Although the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are highly similar, various differences generally make clear to Chinese speakers whether an individual is a native of Beijing speaking the local Beijing variant or is an individual speaking Standard Chinese.
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The term "Beijing dialect" usually refers to the dialect spoken in the urban area of Beijing only. However, linguists have given a broader definition for Beijing Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 北京官话; traditional Chinese: 北京官話; pinyin: Běijīng Guānhuà) that also includes some dialects closely akin to that of urban Beijing.
For example, the topolect of Chengde, Hebei, a city to the north of Beijing, is considered sufficiently close to Beijing dialect to be put into this category. Standard Chinese is also put into this category, since it is based on the local dialect of Beijing.
Dungan language speakers like Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak Beijing dialect can understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand the Beijing Mandarin.[2]
In fundamental structure, the phonology of the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are almost identical. In part, this is because the pronunciation of Standard Chinese was based on Beijing pronunciation. (See Standard Chinese for its phonology charts; the same basic structure applies to the Beijing dialect.)
However, some striking differences exist. Most prominent is the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the -儿 /-ɻ/, a noun suffix, except for a few words pronounced /ɑɻ/ that do not have this suffix. In Standard Chinese, these also occur, but with nowhere near the ubiquity and frequency in which they appear in Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as érhuà (儿化) or rhotacization, as is considered one of the iconic characteristics of Beijing Mandarin.
When /w/ occurs in syllable-initial position, many speakers use [ʋ] before any vowel except [o] as in 我 wǒ, e.g. 尾巴 wěiba [ʋei̯˨pa˦].
Moreover, Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are usually considered too "colloquial" for use in Standard Chinese. For example, in fast speech, initial consonants go through lenition if they are in an unstressed syllable: pinyin ⟨zh ch sh⟩ /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ become ⟨r⟩ /ɻ/, so 不知道 bùzhīdào "don't know" can sound like bùrdào; ⟨j q x⟩ /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ become ⟨y⟩ /j/, so 赶紧去 gǎnjǐnqù "go quickly" can sound like gǎnyǐnqù; pinyin ⟨b d g⟩ /p t k/ go through voicing to become [b d ɡ]; similar changes also occur on other consonants. Also, final -⟨n⟩ /-n/ and (less frequently) -⟨ng⟩ /-ŋ/ can fail to close entirely, so that a nasal vowel is pronounced instead of a nasal consonant; for example, 您 nín ends up sounding like [nĩ˧˥] (nasalized), instead of [nin˧˥] as in Standard Chinese:
| Pinyin | Standard Chinese | Typical pronunciation in Beijing |
|---|---|---|
| an | [an] | [æɨ̃] |
| ian | [i̯ɛn] | [i̯ɛɨ̃] |
| en | [ən] | [əɨ̃] |
| in | [in] | [i̯əɨ̃] |
| ang | [ɑŋ] | [ɑɯ̃] |
| eng | [ɤŋ] | [ɤɯ̃] |
| ing | [iŋ] | [i̯ɤɯ̃] |
Some of these changes yield syllables which are violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as 大柵欄 Dà Zhàlán Street, which locals pronounce as Dàshlàr.[3]
The tones of Beijing dialect tend to be more exaggerated than Standard Chinese. In Standard Chinese, the four tones are high flat, high rising, low dipping, and falling; in Beijing dialect, the first two tones are made higher, the third one dips more prominently, and the fourth one falls more.
Beijing dialect typically uses many words that are considered slang, and therefore occur much less or not at all in Standard Chinese. Speakers not native to Beijing may have trouble understanding many or most of these. Many of such slang words employ the rhotic suffix -r. Examples include:
Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing:
Note that some of the slang are considered to be tuhua (土话), or "base" or "uneducated" language, that are carryovers from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated speakers, for example:
Others may be viewed as neologistic expressions used amongst among younger speakers and in "trendier" circles:
The Beijing dialect was studied by linguists like Joseph Edkins and Robert Morrison.[4]
The grammar of the colloquial Beijing dialect utilizes more colloquial expressions than does Standard Chinese. In general, Standard Chinese is influenced by Classical Chinese, which makes it more condensed and concise; Beijing dialect can therefore seem more longwinded (though note the generally faster speaking rate and phonetic reductions of colloquial Beijing speech).
An example:
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