Kunming dialect

The Kunming dialect (simplified Chinese: 昆明话; traditional Chinese: 昆明話; pinyin: Kūnmíng Huà) is an official dialect of Southwestern Mandarin Chinese. Luo Changpei describes it as having "simple phonemes, elegant vocabulary, and clear grammar. "

Beginnings

The beginnings of the Kunming dialect are closely linked with the migration of the Han Chinese to Yunnan. The differences between "old" Kunming dialect and the "new" dialect began in the 1940s. In the aftermath of the Second Sino-Japanese War, large numbers of refugees from the north of China and the Jiangnan region fled to Kunming, with profound effects for the politics, economy and culture of the city. This large influx of outsiders also had an influence on the local dialect, which slowly developed into the "new" Kunming dialect.

The tones, pronunciation, and lexicon are distinct between Northern Mandarin and Kunming dialect.^[1]

Vocabulary

The Kunming dialect’s basic vocabulary exhibits a high degree of consistency with northern Chinese and standard dialects. Although words in the Kunming dialect typically possess substantial differences in pronunciation from their counterparts in standard Mandarin and can be unintelligible even to other Chinese speakers, a large portion of the dialect’s morphology and word meanings are identical to those of other northern dialects. The Kunming dialect also preserves an exceptionally high number of classical Chinese words. In particular, a number of phrases dating from northern literary works produced during the Yuan and Ming dynasties remain in common usage in the Kunming dialect’s popular vernacular despite having virtually disappeared from usage in northern China.

References