Chengdu-Chongqing dialect
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Chengdu-Chongqing dialect or Cheng–Yu (;
Sichuanese Pinyin Sichuanese Pinyin (Si4cuan1hua4 Pin1yin1; ), is a romanization system specifically designed for the Chengdu dialect of Sichuanese. It is mostly used in selected Sichuanese dictionaries, such as the ''Sichuan Dialect Dictionary'', ''Sichuan Dialect ...
: ''Cen2yu2'', ) is the most widely used branch of
Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese language spoken in much of Southwest China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northe ...
, with about 90 million speakers. It is named after
Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...
, the capital city of
Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...
, and
Chongqing Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwes ...
, which was split from Sichuan in 1997. It is spoken mainly in northern and eastern Sichuan, the northeastern part of the
Chengdu Plain The Chengdu Plain (Chinese: 成都平原; Pinyin: Chéngdū Píngyuán), known as Cuanxi Bazi (Chinese: 川西坝子; Sichuanese Pinyin: Cuan1xi1 Ba4zi3) in Sichuanese, is an alluvial plain located in the western part of the Sichuan Basin in so ...
, several cities or counties in southwestern Sichuan (
Panzhihua Panzhihua (), formerly Dukou (), is a prefecture-level city located in the far south of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China, at the confluence of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers. It has an administrative area of , and a population at the 2 ...
,
Dechang Dechang ( is a county of southern Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture Liangshan (; Yi: ''Niep Sha'', pronounced ), officially the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, is an autonomou ...
,
Yanyuan Yanyuan County (; ii, ꋂꂿꑤ ce mo xiep) is a county in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China, bordering Yunnan province to the west. The county is located in Sichuan's rugged Hengduan Mountains in southwest Sichuan, but the county se ...
,
Huili Huili (; Yi: or ''nyi ddix xiep'' or ''hop li xiep'') is a county-level city of far southern Sichuan province, China. It is under the administration of the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. The county-level city was severely affected by t ...
and Ningnan), southern
Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...
and western
Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...
.李蓝(2009年第1期),《西南官话的分区(稿)》,方言 This uniform dialect is formed after the great migration movement in
Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
and
Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
, and is greatly influenced by the
Chinese varieties Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
of
Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
the immigrants spoke from Hubei, Xiang and
Gan The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to: Places *Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden" China * Gan River (Jiangxi) * Gan River (Inner Mongolia), * Gan County, in Jiangxi province * Gansu, abbreviated ''Gā ...
. So it keeps fewer characteristics of Sichuan's original
Ba-Shu Chinese Ba-Shu Chinese (; Sichuanese Pinyin: Ba¹su²yu³; ), or Old Sichuanese (or Old Szechwanese; ), is an extinct Sinitic language formerly spoken in what is now Sichuan and Chongqing, China. This language is first attested in '' Fangyan'' during ...
than other Sichuanese dialects, such as
Minjiang dialect The Minjiang dialect (, ; ) is a branch of Sichuanese, spoken mainly in the Min River (''Mínjiāng'') valley or along the Yangtze in the southern and western parts of the Sichuan Basin in China. There is also a language island of the Minjiang ...
.


Distributions

Chengdu-Chongqing Dialect is spoken within central Chongqing, Chengdu and surrounding provinces. Chengdu-Chongqing dialect is a branch of Sichuan dialect. Academically, Chongqing dialects are spoken in main urban area of Chongqing, with one-fifth population of the Chongqing city. In a broad sense, Chongqing dialect is spoken with all districts of Chongqing City. Eg:
Tongliang District Tongliang District () is a district of Chongqing Municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which ...
,
Hechuan District Hechuan () is a district in the northern part of Chongqing Municipality, People's Republic of China, located at the meeting point of the Jialing, Fu and Qu rivers, with a history of 1,500 years. Hechuan is away from downtown Chongqing's Yuz ...
,
Fuling District Fuling District () is a district in central Chongqing, China. The area is known for ''zha cai'', a hot pickled mustard tuber, as well as serving as the location of former U.S. Peace Corps teacher Peter Hessler's best-selling memoir '' River Tow ...
, Zhanjiang District, etc. Chongqing dialect its considered as a branch of Southwestern Mandarin. The Chengdu-Chongqing dialect is mutually intelligible with dialects spoken in its satellite districts such Sichuan. But, as all public schools and most broadcast communication in urban Chongqing use Mandarin exclusively, nearly all speakers of the dialect are good at Chongqing dialect and Mandarin. Owing to migration within China, traditional Chongqing dialect is getting similar to Mandarin, many residents of the city cannot speak the local dialect but can usually understand it, and get fluent to it after a few months or years in the area.


History

With Chinese government declared movement to Chongqing during the World War II, Chongqing became the Provisional capital of the republic of China, when migration boost the population of the city. Chongqing dialect mixes the merits of various local dialects, with wits and humor, gains popularity with its users.


Phonology


Tone

Chengdu-Chongqing dialect has four phonemic tones: dark level tone, light level tone, rising tone and departing tone. These tones are of same pitch as Sichuan dialects ( Minjiang, Renfu, Yajin).


Initial

The Chengdu-Chongqing dialect in most regions doesn't have tongue retroflex (tʂ group initials), except for
Bazhong Bazhong () is a prefecture-level city in north-eastern Sichuan province, China. Its population was 2,712,894 at the 2020 census whom 1,064,766 lived in Bazhou and Enyang urban districts. History Bazhong became a prefecture-level city in 1993. Its ...
district and Panxi area (except for
Panzhihua Panzhihua (), formerly Dukou (), is a prefecture-level city located in the far south of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China, at the confluence of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers. It has an administrative area of , and a population at the 2 ...
), where the consonants of the tongue curling are similar but not the same as Mandarin. Chongqing dialect with 45 districts using has 20 initials, 5 initials do not exist: ʂ ʂʰ Chengdu dialect with 77 districts using has 21 initials, 4 initials no dot exist: ʂ ʂʰ The following is the initial consonant inventory of Chengdu-Chongqing dialect: In particular, the consonants of Chengdu are comparable but not identical to those in Mandarin. See the inventories below:


Final

A final, the remainder of syllable after the initial, consists of an optional medial
glide Glide may refer to: * Gliding flight, to fly without thrust Computing *Glide API, a 3D graphics interface *Glide OS, a web desktop *Glide (software), an instant video messenger *Glide, a molecular docking software by Schrödinger (company), Schr ...
, a
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
and an optional final consonants. There are 42 types of finals in Sichuan dialect; four Sichuanese finals do not exist in Beijing: ai ɛ and o On the other hand, three Beijing finals do not exist in Sichuanese: ŋ and ŋ Chengdu dialect with 62 districts using has 36 finals, Chongqing dialect with 37 districts using it has 37 finals. The following is the inventory of Sichuanese finals, transcribed in the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
:


Vowels and consonants

Tones of Chongqing-Chengdu dialect is very similar, but not the same as that of Sichuanese. About one third of Sichuan dialects have special entering tone, with a relatively independent set of finals, eg: æ æ ɐ ɐ ʊ ɵ etc. These vowels keep the throw tight, ensures the muscles of the larynx and oral cavity tense during pronounce, so that the entire syllable exhibits a rough and tight state. The vowels in Chengdu are given below: The following table shows the tense vowels of Chengdu-Chongqing dialect, and a comparison with other Sichuanese dialects:


Literary and colloquial readings of Chongqing-Chengdu dialect

Affected by Mandarin for a long time, literary and colloquial readings appears in Chongqing-Chengdu dialect. Colloquial readings is usually the inherent reading style from ancient Sichuan dialect, mainly appears in high-frequency everyday communication; Literary readings are close to modern Mandarin, normally appears in written language. The literary and colloquial readings have been developing in the recent decades. However, affected by the promotion of Mandarin Chinese by the Chinese government, literary readings are becoming dominant, and some pronunciations have the tend to disappear. Literary and colloquial readings of Chinese character in Chengdu are shown below. Note: the table is only based on 《成都语音的初步研究》in 1958, the changes of Chengdu dialect in recent years are not considered:


Vocabulary

As a branch of Sichuanese, Chengdu-Chongqing dialect is mainly composed of three parts: ancient Ba-Shu Chinese, vocabulary brought by immigrants in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and lingua franca of ancient China. Chengdu-Chongqing dialect is a branch of Sichuan dialect, which is very different compared with other Chinese. Yunnan dialect, which is considered very similar to Sichuan dialect, only shares 58.3% identical words. Sichuan dialect is also influenced by
Xiang Chinese Xiang or Hsiang (; ); Changsha Xiang: ''sian1 y3'', also known as Hunanese (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in northern Guangxi and parts of neighborin ...
and
Gan Chinese Gan, Gann or Kan is a group of Sinitic languages spoken natively by many people in the Jiangxi province of China, as well as significant populations in surrounding regions such as Hunan, Hubei, Anhui, and Fujian. Gan is a member of the Siniti ...
, the vocabulary of Sichuan dialect is very different from northern Mandarin, with only 47.8% similar vocabulary. Recently, many
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...
have been introduced to Chengdu and Chongqing from standard Mandarin and
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
. Meanwhile, new words are developing Chengdu and Chongqing, which then spread at a dramatic speed through China. For example, “雄起”(xióng qǐ) (meaning to "cheer up"), is a typical Chengdu-Chongqing word that gets popular in China, equivalent to "加油" (''jiāyóu'') in standard Mandarin.


References

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