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 18 initials (excluding the glottal stop) and 31 finals.

Consonants/initials

		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/finals

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]	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

Tones

Tone name	Low level	Low rising	High level
Number	1	2	3
Tone value	11	13/15	55
Diactric		á	a, ā
Example		企 (kéi)	媽 (ma)