Beijing dialect

{{short description|Dialect of Beijing Mandarin spoken in the capital of the PRC}}

{{For|the major branch of Mandarin spoken in Beijing, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning and Tianjin|Beijing Mandarin (division of Mandarin)}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Beijing dialect

| nativename = {{lang|zh|北京话}}
{{lang|zh-Latn|Běijīnghuà}}

| altname = Pekingese, Beijingese

| region = Beijing urban districts{{cite book |last=Zhou |first=Yimin |date=2002 |title= 现代北京话研究 |publisher=Beijing Normal University Press |page=202 |isbn=7-303-06225-4 }}

| speakers = ?

| familycolor = Sino-Tibetan

| fam2 = Sinitic

| fam3 = Chinese

| fam4 = Mandarin

| fam5 = Beijing Mandarin

| map =

| mapcaption =

| nation =

| isoexception = dialect

| iso6 = bjjg

| linglist = cmn-bej

| lingname =

| glotto = beij1234

| glottorefname = Beijing Mandarin

| lingua = 79-AAA-bb

| ietf = cmn-u-sd-cnbj

| notice = IPA

| states = China

| stand1 = Standard Chinese

| stand2 = Taiwanese Mandarin

| stand3 = Singaporean Mandarin

| stand4 = Malaysian Mandarin

}}

The Beijing dialect ({{lang-zh|s=北京话|t=北京話|p=Běijīnghuà}}), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of China and one of the official languages of Singapore and the Republic of China. Despite the similarity to Standard Chinese, it is characterized by some "iconic" differences, including the addition of a final rhotic {{zhi|c=儿|p=-r}} to some words (e.g. {{zhi|c=哪儿|p=nǎr}}).{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} During the Ming, southern dialectal influences were also introduced into the dialect.

History

{{See also|History of Modern Standard Chinese}}

=Status as prestige dialect=

As the political and cultural capital of China, Beijing has held much historical significance as a city, and its speech has held sway as a lingua franca. Being officially selected to form the basis of the phonology of Standard Mandarin has further contributed to its status as a prestige dialect, or sometimes the prestige dialect of Chinese.{{cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-mandarin-20160603-snap-story.html|title=Learning Mandarin is really, really hard — even for many Chinese people|last=Kaiman|first=Jonathan|website=Los Angeles Times|date=3 June 2016 |access-date=2019-06-16}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mf5ODQAAQBAJ&q=beijing+dialect+is+prestige+dialect&pg=PA20|title=Geek in China: Discovering the Land of Alibaba, Bullet Trains and Dim Sum|last=Christensen|first=Matthew B.|date=2016-11-15|publisher=Tuttle Publishing|isbn=9781462918362}}

Other scholars have referred to it as the "elite Beijing accent."{{cite web|url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ecs/research/research-centres/ldc/publications/workingpapers/the-papers/56.pdf|title=The enregisterment of Putonghua in practice|last=Jie|first=Dong|date=2009|page=4}}

Until at least the late 18th century, the standard language of the Chinese elite had been the Nanjing dialect, despite political power having already been located in Beijing. Through the nineteenth century, evidence from Western dictionaries suggests that a shift occurred in the court from a Nanjing-based standard to a more local Beijing-based one.{{cite book |last1=Huang |first1=Chu-Ren |last2=Jing-Schmidt |first2=Zhuo |last3=Meisterernst |first3=Barbara |title=The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Applied Linguistics |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317231141 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HGPDwAAQBAJ |access-date=18 June 2019 }}

During the Qing dynasty it was used alongside the Manchu language as the official court language.{{Cite journal|last=Simmons|first=Richard Vanness|date=2017|title=Whence Came Mandarin? Qīng Guānhuà, the Běijīng Dialect, and the National Language Standard in Early Republican China|journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society|volume=137|issue=1|pages=63–88|doi=10.7817/jameroriesoci.137.1.0063|issn=0003-0279|jstor=10.7817/jameroriesoci.137.1.0063}}

The establishment of phonology of Standard Chinese dates from a 1913 decision by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation, which took the Beijing dialect as its base but retained a lot of phonology from other varieties of Mandarin, resulting in the Old National Pronunciation. This was overturned in 1926, resulting in the "pronunciation of the educated natives of Beijing" officially adopted as the basis for the phonology of Standard Chinese (Guoyu) in 1926.{{cite book|last1=Chen|first1=Ping|title=Modern Chinese: History and Sociolinguistics|date=1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, U.K.|isbn=9780521645720|pages=[https://archive.org/details/modernchinesehis00chen/page/16 16]–19|edition=1st|url=https://archive.org/details/modernchinesehis00chen|url-access=registration}}

In 1955, the People's Republic of China declared that Standard Chinese was to be "modeled on the pronunciation of Beijing, draws on Northern Chinese as its base dialect, and receives its syntactic norms from exemplary works of vernacular literature".{{cite journal |last1=Wen-Chao Li |first1=Chris |title=Conflicting notions of language purity: the interplay of archaising, ethnographic, reformist, elitist and xenophobic purism in the perception of Standard Chinese |journal=Language & Communication |date=April 2004 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=97–133 |doi=10.1016/j.langcom.2003.09.002 }}

The Beijing dialect has been described as carrying a lot of "cultural heft." According to Zhang Shifang, professor at Beijing Language and Culture University,

"As China's ancient and modern capital, Beijing and thus its linguistic culture as well are representative of our entire nation's civilization... For Beijing people themselves, the Beijing dialect is an important symbol of identity."

Some argue that Cantonese is the "only dialect which has attained a level of prestige that rivals that of the standard national language."{{Cite journal|last=Li|first=David C. S.|title=Chinese as a Lingua Franca in Greater China|date=January 2006|journal=Annual Review of Applied Linguistics|volume=26|pages=149–176|doi=10.1017/S0267190506000080|doi-broken-date=8 May 2025 |s2cid=62096508 |issn=1471-6356}}

The dialect has been described as "the official language of the entertainment industry", making it also the "showbiz accent."{{cite web|url=http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/09/how_well_do_you_know_your_chinese_a/|title=How well do you know your Chinese accents? A quick guide to 5 common accents and what they say about the speaker|date=2011-06-09|website=Shanghaiist|access-date=2019-06-16|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190617131123/http://shanghaiist.com/2011/06/09/how_well_do_you_know_your_chinese_a/|archive-date=17 June 2019|author-last1=Colwell|author-first1=Jessica}}

Even within Beijing the dialect varies. Those north of the Forbidden City spoke with a more "refined" accent than the poorer people, craftsmen, and performers of the south.

= Younger generation =

Some fear that the vernacular Beijing dialect will disappear.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/world/asia/china-beijing-dialect.html|title=The Disappearing Dialect at the Heart of China's Capital|last=Feng|first=Emily|date=2016-11-23|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-06-16|issn=0362-4331}} According to a 2010 study by Beijing Union University, 49% of young Beijingers born after 1980 prefer to speak standard Mandarin rather than the Beijing dialect.{{cite web|url=http://paper.people.com.cn/mszk/html/2013-01/14/content_1200609.htm|title=民生周刊|website=paper.people.com.cn|access-date=2019-06-16|language=zh-hans}} According to a UN report, nearly 100 Chinese dialects, especially those spoken by the 55 ethnic minorities in China, are endangered.{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-languages-idUSTRE62B0EW20100312|title=China's minority languages face threat of extinction|date=2010-03-12|work=Reuters|access-date=2019-06-16}}

Mutual intelligibility

The Beijing dialect is generally mutually intelligible with other Mandarin dialects, including Standard Chinese. However it is not intelligible with other Sino-Tibetan languages or even other Chinese languages including Cantonese, Hokkien, and Wu Chinese.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The Dungan language is a Sinitic language derived from Mandarin spoken throughout Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Speakers like Dungan poet and scholar Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak the Beijing dialect could understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand Beijing Mandarin.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZoNCAAAAYAAJ&q=shivaza|title=Monumenta serica, Volume 33|author=Fu ren da xue (Beijing, China)|author2=S.V.D. Research Institute|author3=Society of the Divine Word|author4=Monumenta Serica Institute|publisher=H. Vetch|year=1977|page=351|access-date=2011-02-15}}

Phonology

{{More citations needed|date=June 2019}}

{{see also|Standard Chinese#Phonology}}

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.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} However, the Beijing dialect also has vernacular readings of characters which are not only different, but have initial and final combinations that are not present in Standard Chinese, such as {{zhi|c=嗲|p=diǎ}}, {{zhi|c=塞|p=sēi}}, {{zhi|c=甭|p=béng}}, {{zhi|c=忒|p=tēi}},{{Cite web|url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00724219/document|title=Beijing, the Language of|last=Chirkova|first=Yen}} and {{zhi|c=色|p=shǎi}}.

Other differences exist, including the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the {{zhi|c=儿|p=-r}} {{IPA|/-ɚ/}}, a noun suffix, except for a few words pronounced {{IPA|[ɐɚ̯]}} that do not have this suffix. In Standard Chinese, these also occur but much less often than they appear in the Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as {{zhi|c=儿化|p=érhuà}}, or rhotacization, as is considered one of the iconic characteristics of Beijing Mandarin.

When /w/ occurs in syllable-initial position, many speakers use ] before vowels other than [o] as in {{zhi|c=我}} {{transliteration|zh|ISO|wǒ}}, and [u] as in {{zhi|c=五|p=wǔ}}, e.g. {{zhi|c=尾巴}} {{transliteration|zh|ISO|wěiba}} {{IPA|[ʋei̯˨pa˦]}}.{{cite journal|title=Divergent places of articulation: [w] and [ʋ] in modern spoken Mandarin|url=http://naccl.osu.edu/sites/naccl.osu.edu/files/NACCL-23_1_12.pdf|author1=Seth Wiener |author2=Ya-ting Shih |name-list-style=amp |journal=NACCL}}

When {{IPAslink|ŋ}} occurs before a glide or vowel it is often eliminated along with any following glides so {{zhi|c=中央|p=zhōngyāng}} is pronounced {{zhi|p=zhuāng}} and {{zhi|c=公安局|p=gōng'ānjú}} as {{zhi|p=guānjú}}.{{Cite web|url=https://pinyin.sogou.com/zimeiti/article/1255|title=太可爱了,"北京话十级"最全段子! - 搜狗字媒体|website=pinyin.sogou.com|access-date=2020-04-14|archive-date=2020-02-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200211071138/http://pinyin.sogou.com/zimeiti/article/1255|url-status=dead|language=zh-hans}}

Sibilant initials differ significantly between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect. The initials {{IPA|{{angle bracket|z c s}}}} {{IPA|/ts tsʰ s/}} are pronounced as {{IPA|[tθ tθʰ θ]}} in Beijing. {{angle bracket|j q x}} {{IPA|/tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/}} are pronounced as {{IPA|/ts tsʰ s/}} by some female speakers, a feature known as {{zhi|c=女国音|p=nǚguóyīn|l=female Standard Chinese}}.

Moreover, the Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are usually considered too "colloquial" for use in Standard Chinese. These are often dependent on which syllables are stressed and unstressed. For example, in fast speech, initial consonants go through lenition if they are in an unstressed syllable: pinyin] {{angbr IPA|{{transliteration|zh|ISO|zh ch sh}}}} {{IPA|/tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/}} before {{angbr IPA|{{transliteration|zh|ISO|e i u}}}} become {{angbr IPA|r}} {{IPA|/ɻ/}}, so {{zhi|c=不知道|p=bùzhīdào|l=don't know}} can sound like {{transliteration|zh|ISO|bùrdào}}; {{zhi|c=老师|p=lǎoshī}} can sound like {{transliteration|zh|ISO|lǎor}}, resulting in a "swallowing of consonants", or {{zhi|c=吞音|p=tūnyīn}}.

{{angbr IPA|j q x}} {{IPA|/tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/}} become {{angbr IPA|y}} {{IPA|/j/}}, so {{zhi|c=赶紧去|p=gǎnjǐnqù|l=go quickly}} can sound like {{transliteration|zh|ISO|gǎnyǐnqù}}; pinyin {{angbr IPA|b d g}} {{IPA|/p t k/}} go through voicing to become {{IPA|[b d ɡ]}}; intervocalic {{angbr IPA|p t k}} {{IPA|/pʰ tʰ kʰ/}} also lose aspiration and can be voiced, sounding identical to {{angbr IPA|b d g}}; similar changes also occur on other consonants.{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}}

{{angbr IPA|f}} is voiced and relaxed in intervocalic positions, resulting in ].{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}

Affricates are elided into fricatives when not word initial, such as {{zhi|c=茅厕|p=máocè}} becoming {{zhi|p=máosi.}}

Some of these changes yield syllables that violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as {{zhi|c=大柵欄|p=Dà Zhàlán}} Street, which locals pronounce as {{zhi|p=Dàshlàr}}.[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2931#more-2931 Language Log]{{cite web |title=A Quick Guide to China's Main Dialects |url=http://english.visitbeijing.com.cn/a1/a-X9XUV48A34845502973AE3 |website=english.visitbeijing.com.cn |access-date=18 June 2019}}{{cite web |last1=Hu |first1=King |title=A Question That Is Not a Question |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/35961/1/QuestionNotQuestion.pdf |access-date=18 June 2019}}

The literary tones of the 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 the Beijing dialect, the first two tones are higher, the third one dips more prominently, and the fourth one falls more.{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}} However, toneless syllables are incredibly common in the vernacular Beijing dialect and the third tone is realized as a low tone instead of a dipping tone, known as a "half third tone".{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}

=Influence on Manchu=

{{Main|Manchu language}}

{{Quote box

|quote = Many of the Manchu words are now pronounced with some Chinese peculiarities of pronunciation, so k before i and e=ch', g before i and e=ch, h and s before i=hs, etc. H before a, o, u, ū, is the guttural Scotch or German ch.

|source = A Manchu Grammar: With Analysed Texts, Paul Georg von Möllendorff, p. 1.{{cite book|title=A Manchu Grammar: With Analysed Texts|first=Paul Georg von|last=Möllendorff|year=1892|edition=reprint|location=Shanghai|publisher=Printed at the American Presbyterian mission Press|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924023341112|page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924023341112/page/n38 1] |access-date=1 April 2013| ref = {{harvid|}} }}[https://archive.org/details/cu31924023341112/page/n38]

}}

The Chinese Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing had a major impact on the phonology of the dialect of Manchu spoken in Beijing, and since Manchu phonology was transcribed into Chinese and European sources based on the sinified pronunciation of Manchus from Beijing, the original authentic Manchu pronunciation is unknown to scholars.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHwPAAAAYAAJ|title=Manchu Grammar, Part 8|volume=7 of Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 8 Uralic and Central Asian Studies|editor-first=Liliya M.|editor-last=Gorelova|year=2002|publisher=Brill|page=77|isbn=9004123075|access-date=25 August 2014}}{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=30kHAQAAIAAJ|title=Cahiers de linguistique: Asie orientale, Volumes 31-32|others=Contributor Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale|year=2002|publisher=Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale|page=208|access-date=25 August 2014}}

The Manchus that lived in Beijing were influenced by the Beijing dialect insofar as pronouncing Manchu sounds was hard for them, and they pronounced Manchu according to Chinese phonetics. In contrast, the Manchus of Aigun, Heilongjiang could both pronounce Manchu sounds properly and mimic the sinified pronunciation of Manchus in Beijing. This was because they learned the Beijing pronunciation from either studying in Beijing or from officials sent to Aigun from Beijing. They could also tell them apart, using the Chinese influenced pronunciation of Beijing to demonstrate that they were better educated and had "superior stature" in society.{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FpEyQ1tUYTkC |title= Archives polonaises d'etudes orientales, Volumes 8-10 |first=S. M. |last= Shirokogoroff |chapter= Reading and Transliteration of Manchu Lit. |orig-year= August 1929 |others=Contributors Polskie Towarzystwo Orientalistyczne, Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk Orientalistycznych |year=1934 |publisher= Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe. |page=122 |access-date=25 August 2014}}

= Influence on Mongolian =

{{See also|Mongolian language#Loanwords and coined words}}

{{Expand section|date=June 2019}}

A substantial proportion of the loanwords in Mongolian are derived from Chinese, with the oldest layer of loanwords in Written Mongolian being Chinese in origin.{{cite book |last1=Poppe |first1=Nicholas |title=Grammar of Written Mongolian |date=1974 |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |isbn=9783447006842 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mVKR3Da2B7MC }} Much of Mongolian spoken in Inner Mongolia has been affected by Mandarin; lexical influence is claimed to be strong in Khorchin Mongolian, whilst there have been claims of phonetic influence from Mandarin Chinese in the Kharchin variety of Mongolian.{{cite book |last1=Janhunen |first1=Juha A. |title=Mongolian |date=2012 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=9789027273055 |page=12 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7MQ-2hmvMu0C |access-date=18 June 2019 }} The aspirated bilabial stop /pʰ/ and the labial approximant /w/ are phonemes only found in loanwords from Chinese and Tibetan, evident in their limited distribution in Mongolian.{{cite book |last1=Janhunen |first1=Juha A. |title=Mongolian |date=2012 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |isbn=9789027273055 |page=27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7MQ-2hmvMu0C |access-date=18 June 2019 }} Substantial diglossia can also be observed in Inner Mongolia.{{cite book |title=More morphologies : contributions to the Festival of Languages, Bremen, 17 Sep to 7 Oct, 2009 |date=2012 |publisher=Brockmeyer Verlag |isbn=9783819608964 |pages=89–120 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AdiUO_kJJjcC}}

Vocabulary

The 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", which is known as erhua. Examples include:

  • {{zhi|c=倍儿|p=bèir|l=very', 'especially}} (referring to manner or attribute)
  • {{zhi|c=别价|p=biéjie|l=do not}}, usually followed by {{zhi|c=呀}} if used as an imperative, usually used when rejecting a favor or politeness from close friends
  • {{zhi|c=搓火儿|p=cuōhuǒr|l=to be angry}}
  • {{zhi|c=颠儿了|p=diārle|l=to leave', 'to run away}}
  • {{zhi|c=二把刀|p=èrbǎdāo|l=klutz}}
  • {{zhi|c=撒丫子|p=sayazi|l=to let go on feet', 'to go', 'leave}}
  • {{zhi|c=㞞蔫儿|p=sóngniār|l=no backbone', 'spiritless}}{{efn|Often written as {{zhi|c=怂|p=sóng}}.}}
  • {{zhi|c=消停|p=xiāoting|l=to finally become quiet and calm}}
  • {{zhi|c=辙|p=zhé|l=way to do something}}, equivalent to Standard Chinese {{zhi|c=办法}}
  • {{zhi|c=褶子了|p=zhezile|l=ruined}}, especially things to do
  • {{zhi|c=上|p=shang}}, often used in place of {{zhi|c=去|l=to go}}.
  • {{zhi|c=搁|p=ge}}, often used in place of {{zhi|c=放|l=to place}}.

Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing:

  • {{zhi|c=抠门儿|p=kōumer|l=stingy', 'miserly}}, now used outside Beijing
  • {{zhi|c=劳驾|p=láojia|l=excuse me!}}, heard often on public transportation, from Classical Chinese
  • {{zhi|c=溜达|p=liūda|l=to stroll about}}, equivalent to Standard Chinese {{zhi|c=逛街}} or {{zhi|c=散步}}
  • {{zhi|c=特|p=tè, tēi|l=very}}, a stronger version of Standard Chinese {{zhi|c=很}} and believed to derive from {{zhi|c=特别}}

Note that some of the slang are considered to be {{zhi|c=土话|p=tuhua|l=base, uneducated language}}, that are carry-overs from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated speakers, for example:

  • {{zhi|c=起小儿|p=qíxiǎor|l=since a young age}}, similar to {{zhi|c=打小儿}} {{zhi|p=dǎxiǎor}}, which is more often used by the younger generation
  • {{zhi|c=晕菜|p=yūncài|l=to be disoriented', 'to be confused', 'to be bewildered}}

Others may be viewed as neologisms used among younger speakers and in "trendier" circles:

  • {{zhi|c=爽|p=shuǎng|l=cool (in relation to a matter), cf.}}
  • {{zhi|c=酷|p=kù}}) when describing a person
  • {{zhi|c=套瓷儿|p=tàocír|l=to toss in the hoop}}, used in basketball
  • {{zhi|c=小蜜|p=xiǎomì|l=special female friend}}, with a negative connotation

= Manchu and Mongol loanwords =

The dialect also contains both Manchu and Mongol loanwords:

  • {{zhi|c=胡同|p=hútòng|l=hutong}}, from Middle Mongolian {{Transliteration|xng|quddug}} 'water well' (cf. modern Mongolian {{lang|mn|худаг}}) or {{Transliteration|xng|ɣudum}} 'passage' (modern Mongolian {{lang|mn|гудам}}), possibly with influence from Chinese {{zhi|c=衕|l=street', 'passage}} and {{zhi|c=巷|l=lane', 'alley}}.
  • {{zhi|c=站|p=zhàn|l=station}}, from Middle Mongolian {{Transliteration|xng|ǰamči}} 'post station' (cf. modern Mongolian {{lang|mn|замч}} 'guide').
  • {{zhi|c=哏哆/哏叨|p=hēnduo|l=to reproach}}, from Manchu {{Transliteration|mnc|hendu}}{{cite journal |last1=Wadley |first1=Stephen A. |title=Altaic Influences on Beijing Dialect: The Manchu Case |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |date=1996 |volume=116 |issue=1 |pages=99–104 |doi=10.2307/606376 |issn=0003-0279|jstor=606376 }}{{cite web |title=还是关于东北话 |url=http://www.wangxiaofeng.me/?p=9205 |access-date=18 June 2019 | archive-date=2022-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221130044141/https://www.wangxiaofeng.me/9205.html |language=zh-hans |url-status=dead}}

Grammar

There are syntactic differences between Standard Mandarin and the Beijing dialect.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fg89AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA40|title=Missionary recorder: a repository of intelligence from eastern missions, and a medium of general information, Volume 1|publisher=American M.E. Mission Press.|year=1867|location=FOOCHOW|page=40|access-date=23 September 2011}}

Both southern Chinese and southern Mandarin syntactic features were incorporated into Standard Mandarin, while the Beijing dialect retains features of northern Mandarin.{{cite book |last1= Chirkova |first1= Katia |last2=Chen |first2= Yiya |editor1-last= Sybesma |editor1-first=Rint |title= Encyclopedia of Chinese Linguistics |chapter= {{zhi|p=Běijīng}} Mandarin, the language of {{zhi|p=Běijīng}} |chapter-url= http://www.katia-chirkova.info/resources/drafts/BeijingMandarin.pdf |location= Leiden |publisher= Brill |page=11 }} The Beijing dialect also uses colloquial expressions differently.

There is a conditional loss of the classifier under certain circumstances after the numeral {{zhi|c=一|l=one}}, usually pronounced as {{zhi|p=yí}} with the second tone, as if undergoing tone sandhi with the classifier {{zhi|c=个|p=gè}} after it.{{cite web |last1=Zhao |first1=Hui |title=Language Variation and Social Identity in Beijing |url=https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/36230/Zhao_H_PhD_final_050318.pdf |access-date=18 June 2019}}

In general, Standard Chinese is influenced by Classical Chinese, which makes it more condense and concise. The Beijing dialect can therefore seem more longwinded; but this is sometime balanced by the generally faster speaking rate and phonetic reductions of colloquial Beijing speech.{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}}

= Examples =

{{Update|type=|date=June 2019|reason=More examples and better examples are needed}}

{{fs interlinear|lang=zh|indent=3

|{{zhi|c=今天}} {{zhi|c=会}} {{zhi|c=下雨,}} {{zhi|c=所以}} {{zhi|c=出门}} {{zhi|c=的}} {{zhi|c=时候}} {{zhi|c=要}} {{zhi|c=记得}} {{zhi|c=带}} {{zhi|c=雨伞。}}

|{{zhi|p=Jīntiān}} {{zhi|p=huì}} {{zhi|p=xiàyǔ,}} {{zhi|p=suǒyǐ}} {{zhi|p=chūmén}} {{zhi|p=de}} {{zhi|p=shíhou}} {{zhi|p=yào}} {{zhi|p=jìde}} {{zhi|p=dài}} {{zhi|p=yǔsan.}}

|It is going to rain today, so remember to bring an umbrella when you go out.}}

  • Beijing dialect:

{{fs interlinear|lang=zh|indent=3|italics3=yes

|{{zhi|c=今儿}} {{zhi|c=得}} {{zhi|c=下雨,}} {{zhi|c=(所以)}} {{zhi|c=出门儿}} {{zhi|c=时候}} {{zhi|c=记着}} {{zhi|c=带}} {{zhi|c=伞!}}

|{{zhi|p=Jīnr}} {{zhi|p=děi}} {{zhi|p=xiàyǔ}}, ({{zhi|p=suǒyǐ}}) {{zhi|p=chūménr}} {{zhi|p=shíhòu}} {{zhi|p=jìzhe}} {{zhi|p=dài}} {{zhi|p=sǎn!}}

|{{zhi|p=Jīar}} {{zhi|p=děi}} {{zhi|p=xiàyǔ}}, ({{zhi|p=suǒyǐ}}) {{zhi|p=chūmér}} {{zhi|p=ríhòu}} {{zhi|p=jìr}} {{zhi|p=dài}} {{zhi|p=sǎn!}}|c3=(with phonetic reductions)|}}

Notes

{{Notelist}}

See also

References

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}