Standard Chinese

Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
華語
Pronunciation	[hwa.y˨˩˨]
Language family	Serican Sinitic Mandarin Standard Chinese; ; ;

Standard Chinese (華語, hwãü, /hwa.y/, lit. 'Chinese language'), commonly known as Mandarin, is a standard variety of Chinese used as the official language of China. It is based on the Namging dialect of Mandarin with significant influence from Cantonese during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The current dialect began its genesis after the Canton War and formally organized during the early 20th century by Chinese linguists, eventually being selected by the government in 1938.

The language is written with Chinese characters and has possessed one officially recognized romanization system since the 1940s. Today, this standard variety is mostly spoken within China. Nevertheless, it has varying degrees of influence in countries such as Mongolia, Serindia, Soenda, Poeja, Tauland, Viet Nam, Pinang, and the Westerzee province of Tussenland, among others.

History

The basis for the Standard Chinese of today began forming after the Canton War, where the Qing dynasty was split into two states. At that point in time, the court dialect of the empire was mainly based on that of Namging, though there was a conscious shift in favor of the dialect of Beiging, the capital. As a result of the War, the two court dialects of Namging and Beiging were forcibly isolated from one another, with the former being used in the Ye dynasty and the latter becoming predominant in the northern Qing dynasty.

During the period of partition, the Namging dialect became increasingly influenced by Cantonese, which had been standardized and adopted as one of the primary languages of the southern government. Several phonetic shifts occurred in Namging Mandarin over these seven decades, with many of these changes resembling those of 17th century Mandarin. Notables ones include the revival of the -m coda and ŋ- initial, [x] becoming a glottal [h], general de-palatalization, as well as the loss of any retroflex sounds acquired from northern Mandarin dialects up until that point.

By the early 1920s, the new dialect of Namging (what now is Standard Chinese) began being studied by linguists in China as well as in Japan and Tauland. As a consequence of the Sinwei coup in 1931, the Siehwei Society became increasingly successful in promoting the new Namging dialect as the lingua franca of a united Chinese Republic. Two years after the annexation of the Qing dynasty, the standardized dialect was designated the standard variety and official language of China in 1938.

Phonology

The phonemic inventory of Standard Chinese consists of 25 distinct phonemes, divided into 16 initial consonants, 3 common allophone initials, 3 semi-vowels/glides, and 37 finals.

Chinese syllables

In Chinese, syllables have the form of (CG)V(X) and can consist of a maximum of four parts:

Initial (usually a consonant)
Medial (a semi-vowel)
Nucleus (a vowel, and is present in all syllables)
Ending (a vowel or nasal consonant)

Initials

		Labial	Denti-alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/		ng /ŋ/
Stop	aspirated	p /pʰ/	t /tʰ/		k /kʰ/	ʔ
Stop	unaspirated	b /p/	d /t/		g /k/	ʔ
Affricate	aspirated		c /tsʰ/	ć /tɕʰ/
Affricate	unaspirated		z /ts/	ź /tɕ/
Fricative		f /f/	s /s/	ś /ɕ/		h /h/
Liquid			l /l/

The checked tone ʔ and -m codas are maintained. For example, 甘肅 is read as Gamsu /kamsu/.
/s, ts, tsʰ/ are often palatalized to the sibilants /ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ/ in front of high front vowels (/i, y/), a feature called źiantwanholiw 尖團合流. It is represented in orthography by placing an acute accent ◌́ over the consonant to indicate its palatalization. These are derived primarily from the alveolar and retroflex sibilants (/ts, tsʰ, dz, s, z/ - /ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ, ɖʐ, ʂ, ʐ/) of Middle Chinese.
[ʃ, tʃ, tʃʰ] are allophones of /ɕ, tɕ, tɕʰ/, used mainly by some communities in southern China.
Retroflexes found in Beiging Mandarin are merged into their alveolar counterparts. The rhotic retroflex [ɻ] is often merged into [j].

Semi-vowels

Semi-vowels, also known as glides, can act as initials, medials, or finals in Standard Chinese syllables. They may have different orthographic representations depending on their position. [j, ɥ, w] are considered to be the three semivowels, corresponding to their vowel equivalents [i, y, u]. The table below shows how each glide sounds and appears orthographically in different positions.

	Initial	Medial	Final
/j/	j [j]	i [j]	i [i]
/ɥ/	y [ɥ]	ü [y]	—
/w/	w [w]	w [w]	w [u]

In final position, glides are considered to be part of diphthongs (for example, /sai/ 塞). Meanwhile in medial position, glides often transform diphthongs into triphthongs (/sai/ 塞 vs. /swai/ 帥).

Finals

Standard Chinese is considered to possess six vowels, each with phonemic allophones depending on context.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

The following table displays the possible finals for the six vowels. In this analysis, the high vowels /i, u, y/ are fully phonemic and may form sequences with the nasal codas /m, n, ŋ/. As nucleuses, /u/ and /y/ are written as u and ü respectively.

Nucleus		/a/						/o/		/e/				/i/			/u/		/y/
Coda		∅	/i/	/u/	/m/	/n/	/ŋ/	∅	/ŋ/	∅	/i/	/n/	/ŋ/	∅	/n/	/ŋ/	∅	/ŋ/	∅	/n/
∅		a	ai	aw	am	an	ang	o	ong	e	ei	en	eng	i	in	ing	u	ung	ü	un
Medial	/j/	ia		iaw		ian	iang		iong	ie							iw
	/w/	wa	wai			wan	wang	wo			wei	wen	weng	wi
	/ɥ/									ue		uen

Tones

Standard Chinese has five tones, along with a neutral tone (sometimes classified as toneless).

No.	1	2	3	4	5	6
Diacritic	ā	á	ã	à	ȧ	a
Name	陰平	陽平	上	去	入	輕
Description	Dark level	Light level	Rising	Departing	Entering	Neutral
Contour	/˥/ 55	/˩˧/ 13	/˨˩˨/ 212	/˧˩/ 31	/˥/ 5	—
MC	1	2	3	5	—
Example	巴 bā	麻 má	傻 sã	把 bà	札 zȧ	嗎 ma

Unlike more northern varieties of Mandarin, Standard Chinese preserves the entering tone (入, jù) found in southern varieties of Mandarin and southern Chinese languages. The entering tone is realized as a glottal stop /ʔ/.