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Mandarin Chinese is the most popular dialect, and is used as a lingua franca across China. Linguists classify these varieties as the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family . Within this broad classification, there are between seven and fourteen dialect groups, depending on the classification.
Aside from its use as a diminutive, erhua in the Beijing dialect also serves to differentiate words; for example, 白面 báimiàn 'flour' and 白面儿 báimiànr 'heroin'. [11] Additionally, some words may sound unnatural without rhotacization, as is the case with 花 or 花儿 (huā or huār 'flower'). [11]
This explains why some European transcriptions of Chinese names (especially in postal romanization) contain ki- , hi- , tsi- , si- where an alveolo-palatal might be expected in modern Chinese. Examples are Peking for Beijing ([kiŋ] → [tɕiŋ]), Chungking for Chongqing ([kʰiŋ] → [tɕʰiŋ]), Fukien for Fujian (cf. Hokkien), Tientsin for ...
In the Beijing dialect that underlies the standard language, syllables beginning with original voiceless consonants were redistributed across the four tones in a completely random pattern. [101] For example, the three characters 積 脊 跡, all tsjek in Middle Chinese (William H. Baxter's transcription), are now pronounced jī, jǐ and jì ...
Top-level groups of Chinese varieties identified in the Language Atlas of China, used in the selection of survey sites for the dialect atlas The project spanned 8 years, from 2001 to 2007. A year of preparatory work began in December 2001, including selecting survey sites, codifying fieldwork procedures and conducting trial surveys.
For example, in Korean, the word for comb, pis, is a loan of the Chinese word bì 篦, which means that when the word comb was borrowed into Korean, there was still an [-s] sound at the end of the word that later disappeared from Chinese and gave rise to a departing 去 tone.
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.
Additionally, speakers of Xiguan Accents enhance dental consonants (Chinese: 舌尖齒音).That is to say, downtown people pronounce "知", "雌" and "斯" as [tɕi], [tɕʰi] and [ɕi] (comparatively relaxed in the oral area, close to [tɕ], [tɕʰ] and [ɕ] in IPA; and yet Speakers of Xiguan Accents pronounce [tsi], [tsʰi] and [si] (The tip of tongue pushes up against upper teeth and blocks ...