Standard Chinese

Standard Chinese (Chinese: 華語, lit. 'Chinese speech'), commonly Chinese or Mandarin, is the modern standardised form of Chinese that was developed between the Canton War (1857) and the Great War (1939). It is largely based on the imperial Mandarin of Namging as well as Cantonese. The dialect is designated as the official language of the Chinese Republic and is used in Tauland and the Chinese diaspora.

Phonology

Standard Chinese consists of 17 initials and 33 finals.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatals	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m [m] 摸	n [n] 挪		ng [ŋ] 我
Stop	plain	b [p] 波	d [t] 多		g [k] 哥	[ʔ] 亞
	aspirated	p [pʰ] 婆	t [tʰ] 拖		k [kʰ] 卡
Affricative	plain		z [ts] 知
	aspirated		c [tsʰ] 雌
Fricative		f [f] 科	s [s] 思	x [ʃ] 書		h [h] 何
Approximant			l [l] 羅	j [j] 也	w [w] 華

Vowels

IPA		Oral					Nasal
		-	-a	-e	-i	-u	-m	-n	-ng
[a]	a	a 呀			ai 矮	au 歐	am 痷	an 恩	ang 鶯
[ɛ~e]	e	e 誒			ei 非		em 舐		eng 鏡
[i~ɪ]	i	i 衣	ia 夏	ie 切		iu 妖	im 淹	in 煙	ing 英
[ɔ~o]	o	o 柯			oi 哀	ou 奧		on 安	ong 康
[u~ʊ]	u	u 烏			ui 煨			un 碗	ung 甕
[œ]	eu	eu 靴						eun 順	eung 香
[y]	iu	iu 於						iun 冤

Finals of Mandarin dialects

Several finals that exist in Mandarin dialects of northern China do not exist in Standard Mandarin. They are instead substituted with other finals in order to read certain characters.

	Original final	Replacement
喬	iao	iu
僉	ian	im
彊	iang	eung
匔	iong	ung, eng
㔍	ua	a
鎈	uo	o, iu
膗	uai	oi, ai, a
汆	uan	iun
刅	uang	ong
傳	üan	eung

Vocabulary

Main article: Table of Chinese characters