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It may be true that Mandarin is based to a very large extent on what the people of the Northern Plain speak, more specifically those of Beijing. I have no idea

by PakG1 8y ago

It may be true that Mandarin is based to a very large extent on what the people of the Northern Plain speak, more specifically those of Beijing. I have no idea, but I've heard it said so many times that I'm willing to consider the possibility while waiting for an explanation to my question. My question is: if this is true, why the heck is the pronunciation for standard Mandarin so different from the standard Beijing and northern accents? Seriously, especially with all the "er"s at the end of various characters. It does not sound similar to what is taught in standard Mandarin classes, and I speak as one who learned standard Mandarin for a number of years (in Canada and in China) and also lived in Beijing for a bit. I'd really like this explained to me, because the ear test tells me this is not true. But again, I've heard it said so many times that I am willing to consider it's possible.

barry-cotter 8y ago
Mandarin is based on the Northern topolect 北方话 but not identical with it. It’s a koiné[1] a dialect that emerged from communication between people who spoke mutually intelligible dialects, like Shamghainese for its river delta. That’s one reason it’s different. The other is the substantial influence from Nanjing Mandarin which would have been considered higher prestige than Beijing Mandarin into the 1800s. Beijing is the biggest influence but Mandarin is really the lingua franca of educated Inperial officials, many of whom would have come from areas where Mandarin doesn’t have retroflex r and of people for whom any variety of Mandarin was a foreign language, learned in adulthood. Lots of these people would just think the 儿话 is for peasants. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koiné_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koiné_language
- PakG1 8y ago
  This is quite interesting. I'd like to do more research to confirm the veracity, but it would make sense, thanks.
spacehunt 8y ago
I think you should form your opinion after hearing what Cantonese (and other regional "dialects") sound like. Then you should be able to appreciate just how close the Northern speech is to Standard Chinese.
- PakG1 8y ago
  I'm not sure why you think I don't know what other dialects sound like. I know what various languages and dialects in China sound like, and am most familiar with Cantonese, Sichuanese, Hunanese, Hakka, Shanghainese, and Yi. Yi sounds positively African and is not a fair comparison, given that it doesn't even share the same writing system and is probably an actually completely different language family. Sichuanese sounds fairly close to standard Mandarin in many respects, and I'm not confident that it's more different from standard Mandarin pronunciation than the northern speech is. My opinion stands after extensive travel throughout northern, southern, eastern, and western China.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Is this the Yi you speak of? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_language It appears to be a Tai Chinese creole or mixed language (like a creole but without the massive simplification in grammar). Yi(Loloish) is definitely a different language family though that wouldn’t stop people writing in Mandarin if they really wanted to. Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese were all written as if they were Classical Chinese to greater or lesser extents until relatively recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loloish_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loloish_languages I’ve heard Sichuanese described as Mandarin without tones. All of Sìchuān speaks different forms of Mandarin for the same reason Manchurians do, recent massive resettlement, though not as recent as in 东北. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_dialects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_dialects
    - PakG1 8y ago
      No, it's the language of the Nuosu people to which I'm referring. Yeah, them being a different language family wouldn't stop them from writing in Mandarin. I know that, having learned Japanese and Korean. My point is that if the original written language is different between two languages, it is a strong indicator that they come from different language families. This does not stop them from starting to use the same writing system at some point in history, especially if one of the languages has no original written form. If Sichuanese sounds similar to Mandarin due to migration, it would certainly explain a lot. Thanks for that bit of information. But I would say that the differences between Sichuanese and standard Mandarin would be more from pronunciation differences than tonal differences.

by PakG1 8y ago

barry-cotter 8y ago

Mandarin is based on the Northern topolect 北方话 but not identical with it. It’s a koiné[1] a dialect that emerged from communication between people who spoke mutually intelligible dialects, like Shamghainese for its river delta. That’s one reason it’s different. The other is the substantial influence from Nanjing Mandarin which would have been considered higher prestige than Beijing Mandarin into the 1800s. Beijing is the biggest influence but Mandarin is really the lingua franca of educated Inperial officials, many of whom would have come from areas where Mandarin doesn’t have retroflex r and of people for whom any variety of Mandarin was a foreign language, learned in adulthood. Lots of these people would just think the 儿话 is for peasants. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koiné_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koiné_language

PakG1 8y ago
This is quite interesting. I'd like to do more research to confirm the veracity, but it would make sense, thanks.

spacehunt 8y ago

I think you should form your opinion after hearing what Cantonese (and other regional "dialects") sound like. Then you should be able to appreciate just how close the Northern speech is to Standard Chinese.

PakG1 8y ago
I'm not sure why you think I don't know what other dialects sound like. I know what various languages and dialects in China sound like, and am most familiar with Cantonese, Sichuanese, Hunanese, Hakka, Shanghainese, and Yi. Yi sounds positively African and is not a fair comparison, given that it doesn't even share the same writing system and is probably an actually completely different language family. Sichuanese sounds fairly close to standard Mandarin in many respects, and I'm not confident that it's more different from standard Mandarin pronunciation than the northern speech is. My opinion stands after extensive travel throughout northern, southern, eastern, and western China.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Is this the Yi you speak of? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_language It appears to be a Tai Chinese creole or mixed language (like a creole but without the massive simplification in grammar). Yi(Loloish) is definitely a different language family though that wouldn’t stop people writing in Mandarin if they really wanted to. Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese were all written as if they were Classical Chinese to greater or lesser extents until relatively recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loloish_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loloish_languages I’ve heard Sichuanese described as Mandarin without tones. All of Sìchuān speaks different forms of Mandarin for the same reason Manchurians do, recent massive resettlement, though not as recent as in 东北. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_dialects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuanese_dialects
  - PakG1 8y ago
    No, it's the language of the Nuosu people to which I'm referring. Yeah, them being a different language family wouldn't stop them from writing in Mandarin. I know that, having learned Japanese and Korean. My point is that if the original written language is different between two languages, it is a strong indicator that they come from different language families. This does not stop them from starting to use the same writing system at some point in history, especially if one of the languages has no original written form. If Sichuanese sounds similar to Mandarin due to migration, it would certainly explain a lot. Thanks for that bit of information. But I would say that the differences between Sichuanese and standard Mandarin would be more from pronunciation differences than tonal differences.