Standard Chinese
History
Geographic distribution
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Denti-alveolar | Alveolo-palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Stop | aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | ʔ | |
| unaspirated | p | t | k | |||
| Affricate | aspirated | tsʰ | tɕʰ | |||
| unaspirated | ts | tɕ | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | ɕ | h | ||
| Liquid | l | w | ||||
- The checked tone ʔ and -m codas are maintained. For example, 甘肅 is read as Gamsu /kamsu/.
- [ts, tsʰ, s] are often palatalized to [tɕ, tɕʰ, ɕ] in front of front high vowels [i, y], a feature called źian-twan-ho-liu 尖團合流. Derived from Slavic languages, is represented in orthography by placing an acute accent ◌́ over the consonant to indicate its palatalization.
- Retroflexes found in Beiging Mandarin are merged into their alveolar counterparts. Retroflex [ɻ] is often merged into [j].