Central Plains Mandarin

Zhongyuan
中原官话
‎‎‎‎‎جْويُوًا قُوًاخُوَا
RegionYellow River Plain
Native speakers
(170 million cited 1982)
Chinese characters, Xiao'erjing
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
ISO 639-6zgyu
Glottologhuab1238  Central Plain Guanhua
zhon1236  Zhongyuan
Linguasphere79-AAA-bf

The Zhongyuan Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 中原官话; traditional Chinese: 中原官話; pinyin: Zhōngyuán Guānhuà), is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, southern part of Gansu, far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong.

Zhongyuan is spoken by more than 169 million people. It is the primary language of Shaanxi and Henan provinces. It is most prominent in the cities of Xi'an and Zhengzhou; in both cities, Zhongyuan is the most widely spoken language, significantly outstripping Standard Mandarin.

Subdialects

The distribution of core Central Plains Mandarin
An example of a spoken discourse of Central Plains Mandarin by Gao Yaojie, a Chinese HIV doctor from Cao County, Shandong.
An example of a written discourse of Central Plains Mandarin by He Quangui, a Chinese gold miner from Xunyang County, Shaanxi. Note that in most varieties of Chinese, the written discourse is largely the equivalent of reading a text of Standard Beijing Mandarin in a non-Beijing phonology.
An example of a written discourse of Central Plains Mandarin by a native of Tanghe County, Henan.

Phonology

In some varieties of Central Plains Mandarin, some phonological changes have affected certain syllables but not Standard Chinese.

Standard Mandarin's [t͡ʂ], [t͡ʂʰ] and have shifted to [p͜f] before [u]. [ʂ] has shifted to [f] before [u] in some varieties, such as the Yanhe subgroup and the Guanzhong subgroup.

猪 初 书 熟
Middle Chinese Initial [ʈ] [t͡ʃʰ] [ɕ] [ʑ]
Pinyin zhū chū shū shú
Standard Mandarin [ʈʂú] [ʈʂʰú] [ʂú] [ʂǔ]
Guanzhong Mandarin [p͜fu] [p͜fʰu] [fu] [fu]

The phenomenon of [p] and [pʰ] being shifted to [p͜f] before [u] and [o] can be found in Linyou (麟游) and Wugong (武功)

布 跛 坡 朴
Middle Chinese Initial [p] [p] [pʰ] [pʰ]
Pinyin bù bǒ pō pǔ
Standard Mandarin [pû] [pwò] [pʰwó] [pʰù]
Certain varieties of Central Plains Mandarin [p͜fu] [p͜fo] [p͜fʰo] [p͜fʰu]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Gu 2009, p. 214.
  2. ↑ Chappell 2002, p. 244; Gu 2009, p. 214; Chirkova 2008.
  3. ↑ Wang, Lei; Zhuang, Huibin (2022-04-01). "Cross-Generational Analysis of Basic Vowel Changes in Zhongyuan Mandarin: An Experimental Investigation". Sage Open. 12 (2) 21582440221096125. doi:10.1177/21582440221096125. ISSN 2158-2440.
  4. ↑ Wang, Menghuan; Ma, Shuzhen; Hu, Axu (2021). "Experimental Study on Citation Tone of Dingxi Dialect in Gansu Province". In Tavana, Madjid; Nedjah, Nadia; Alhajj, Reda (eds.). Emerging Trends in Intelligent and Interactive Systems and Applications. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing. Vol. 1304. Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 340–345. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63784-2_43. ISBN 978-3-030-63784-2. S2CID 230557863.
  5. ↑ Bai, Dizhou. 关中方音调查报告 [Guan zhong fang yin diao cha bao gao] (in Chinese). Beijing. p. 6.

Sources