Beijing dialect

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.[2]

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.[15]

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.[2] 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 嗲; diǎ, 塞; sēi, 甭; béng, 忒; tēi,[16] and 色; shǎi.

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; -r /-ɚ/, a noun suffix, except for a few words pronounced [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 儿化; érhuà, or rhotacization, as is considered one of the iconic characteristics of Beijing Mandarin.[2][3]

When /w/ occurs in syllable-initial position, many speakers use [ʋ] before vowels other than [o] as in 我 wǒ, and [u] as in 五; wǔ, e.g. 尾巴 wěiba [ʋei̯˨pa˦].[17][16]

When /ŋ/ occurs before a glide or vowel it is often eliminated along with any following glides so 中央; zhōngyāng is pronounced zhuāng and 公安局; gōng'ānjú as guānjú.[18]

Sibilant initials differ significantly between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect. The initials ⟨z c s⟩ /ts tsʰ s/ are pronounced as [tθ tθʰ θ] in Beijing. ⟨j q x⟩ /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ are pronounced as /ts tsʰ s/ by some female speakers, a feature known as 女国音; nǚguóyīn; 'female Standard Chinese'.[16]

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] ⟨zh ch sh⟩ /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ before ⟨e i u⟩ become ⟨r⟩ /ɻ/, so 不知道; bùzhīdào; 'don't know' can sound like bùrdào; 老师; lǎoshī can sound like lǎor, resulting in a "swallowing of consonants",[3] or 吞音; tūnyīn.

⟨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]; intervocalic ⟨p t k⟩ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ also lose aspiration and can be voiced, sounding identical to ⟨b d g⟩;[16] similar changes also occur on other consonants.

⟨f⟩ is voiced and relaxed in intervocalic positions, resulting in [ʋ].

Affricates are elided into fricatives when not word initial, such as 茅厕; máocè becoming máosi.[16]

Some of these changes yield syllables that violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as 大柵欄; Dà Zhàlán Street, which locals pronounce as Dàshlàr.[19][20][21]

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. 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".

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:

• 倍儿; bèir; 'very'', 'especially' (referring to manner or attribute)
• 别价; biéjie; 'do not', usually followed by 呀 if used as an imperative, usually used when rejecting a favor or politeness from close friends
• 搓火儿; cuōhuǒr; 'to be angry'
• {颠儿了; diārle; 'to leave'', 'to run away'
• 二把刀; èrbǎdāo; 'klutz'
• 撒丫子; sayazi; 'to let go on feet'', 'to go'', 'leave'
• 㞞蔫儿; sóngniār; 'no backbone'', 'spiritless'[lower-alpha 1]
• 消停; xiāoting; 'to finally become quiet and calm'
• 辙; zhé; 'way to do something', equivalent to Standard Chinese 办法
• 褶子了; zhezile; 'ruined', especially things to do
• 上; shang, often used in place of 去; 'to go'.
• 搁; ge, often used in place of 放; 'to place'.

Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing:

• 抠门儿; kōumer; 'stingy'', 'miserly', now used outside Beijing
• 劳驾; láojia; 'excuse me!', heard often on public transportation, from Classical Chinese
• 溜达; liūda; 'to stroll about', equivalent to Standard Chinese 逛街 or 散步
• 特; tè, tēi; 'very', a stronger version of Standard Chinese 很 and believed to derive from 特别[30]

Note that some of the slang are considered to be 土话; tuhua; 'base', 'uneducated language', that are carry-overs from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated speakers, for example:

• 起小儿; qíxiǎor; 'since a young age', similar to 打小儿 dǎxiǎor, which is more often used by the younger generation
• 晕菜; yūncài; '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. 酷; kù) when describing a person
• 套瓷儿; tàocír; 'to toss in the hoop', used in basketball
• 小蜜; xiǎomì; 'special female friend', with a negative connotation

There are syntactic differences between Standard Mandarin and the Beijing dialect.[33] Both southern Chinese and southern Mandarin syntactic features were incorporated into Standard Mandarin, while the Beijing dialect retains features of northern Mandarin.[34] The Beijing dialect also uses colloquial expressions differently.

There is a conditional loss of the classifier under certain circumstances after the numeral 一; 'one', usually pronounced as yí with the second tone, as if undergoing tone sandhi with the classifier 个; gè after it.[30][34]

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.

• Chinese in New York City
• List of Chinese dialects
• Putonghua
• Varieties of Chinese
• Sino-Tibetan languages

• Balfour, Frederic Henry (1883). Idiomatic Dialogues in the Peking Colloquial for the Use of Students. SHANGHAI, HANKOW ROAD: Printed at the "North-China Herald" office. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• George Carter Stent; Donald MacGillivray (1898). A Chinese and English vocabulary in the Pekinese dialect (3rd ed.). American Presbyterian Mission Press. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
• Ireneus László Legeza (1969). Guide to transliterated Chinese in the modern Peking dialect, Volume 2. E. J. Brill. Retrieved 1 March 2012.(the University of Michigan)(Digitized May 14, 2008)