
Mandarin (; ) is a group of
Chinese (Sinitic) dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
that are natively spoken across most of
northern and southwestern
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones an ...
. The group includes the
Beijing dialect, the basis of the
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of ...
of
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
, the official language of China. Because Mandarin originated in
North China and most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese (). Many varieties of Mandarin, such as
those of the Southwest (including
Sichuanese) and the
Lower Yangtze, are not
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
with the standard language (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in
lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion).
Mandarin is by far the largest of the
seven or ten Chinese dialect groups; it is spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
in the southwest to
Xinjiang in the northwest and
Heilongjiang in the northeast. This is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the
North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas. The second most spoken is
Yue ("Cantonese" because it includes the
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
variety).
Most Mandarin varieties have four
tones. The final stops of
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a final
glottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain
retroflex
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the har ...
initial consonants, which have been lost in southern varieties of Chinese.
The
Chinese capital has been within the Mandarin-speaking area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a
lingua franca for government officials and the courts since the 14th century. By the early 20th century, a standard form based on the Beijing dialect, with elements from other Mandarin dialects, was adopted as the
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the t ...
. Standard Mandarin Chinese is the
official language of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, as well as one of the four official
languages of Singapore. It is also used as one of the official languages of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
. Recent increased migration from Mandarin-speaking regions of China and Taiwan has now resulted in the language being one of the more frequently used varieties of Chinese among
Chinese diaspora
Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.
Terminology
() or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ref ...
communities. It is also the most commonly
taught Chinese variety.
Name
The English word "mandarin" (from
Portuguese ''mandarim'', from
Malay ''menteri'', from
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the l ...
''mantrī'', ''mantrin'', meaning 'minister or counsellor') originally meant an
official
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...
of the
Ming
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
and
Qing
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 ...
empires.
Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a
Koiné language
In linguistics, a koiné language, koiné dialect, or simply koiné (Ancient Greek κοινή, "common anguage) is a standard or common language or dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or ...
based on various northern varieties. When
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it "Mandarin", from its Chinese name ''Guānhuà'' () or 'language of the officials'.
In everyday English, "Mandarin" refers to
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
, which is often called simply "Chinese". Standard Mandarin Chinese is based on
Beijing dialect, with some lexical and syntactic influence from other Mandarin dialects. It is the official spoken language of the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
(PRC) and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
(Republic of China, ROC), as well as one of the four official languages of
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bo ...
, and a high-prestige minority language in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
. It also functions as the language of instruction in Mainland China and Taiwan. It is one of the
six official languages of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
, under the name "Chinese". Chinese speakers refer to the modern standard language as
* ''Pǔtōnghuà'' (, literally 'common speech') in Mainland China,
* ''Guóyǔ'' (, literally 'national language') in Taiwan or
* ''Huáyǔ'' (, literally '
Hua (Chinese) language') in Malaysia and Singapore,
but not as ''Guānhuà''.
Linguists use the term "Mandarin" to refer to the diverse group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which Chinese linguists call ''Guānhuà''. The alternative term ''Běifānghuà'' () or "Northern dialects", is used less and less among Chinese linguists. By extension, the term "Old Mandarin" or "Early Mandarin" is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty.
Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of "Mandarin" (or so-called "Northern dialects") in a broader sense. Within Chinese social or cultural discourse, there is not a common "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of their speakers. Speakers of forms of Mandarin other than the standard typically refer to the variety they speak by a geographic name—for example the
Sichuan dialect and the Hebei dialect or
Northeastern dialect, all being regarded as distinct from the standard language, with which they may not share much mutual intelligibility.
History
The hundreds of modern local
varieties of Chinese
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 mai ...
developed from regional variants of
Old Chinese and
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin, the other six are
Wu,
Gan, and
Xiang in central China and
Min,
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Z ...
, and
Yue on the southeast coast. The ''
Language Atlas of China
The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and minority languages of China.
It was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the ...
'' (1987) distinguishes three further groups:
Jin (split from Mandarin),
Huizhou in the
Huizhou region of
Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
and
Zhejiang, and
Pinghua
Pinghua (; Yale: ''Pìhng Wá''; sometimes disambiguated as /) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of G ...
in
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietna ...
and
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
.
Old Mandarin

After the fall of the
Northern Song (959–1126) and during the reign of the
Jin (1115–1234) and
Yuan (Mongol) dynasties in northern China, a common form of speech developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital, a language referred to as Old Mandarin. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms, such as the ''
qu'' and ''
sanqu'' poetry.
The rhyming conventions of the new verse were codified in a
rime dictionary
A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates characters by tone and rhyme, instead of by radical. The most important rime dictionary tradition began with the ''Qieyun'' (601), whi ...
called the ''
Zhongyuan Yinyun'' (1324). A radical departure from the
rime table tradition that had evolved over the previous centuries, this dictionary contains a wealth of information on the phonology of Old Mandarin. Further sources are the
'Phags-pa script based on the Tibetan alphabet, which was used to write several of the languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese and the ''
Menggu Ziyun
''Menggu Ziyun'' (, "Rimes in Mongol Script") is a 14th-century rime dictionary of Chinese as written in the 'Phags-pa script that was used during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). The only surviving examplar of this dictionary is an 18th-centur ...
'', a rime dictionary based on 'Phags-pa. The rime books differ in some details, but overall show many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final plosives and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones.
In Middle Chinese, initial
stops and
affricates
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pa ...
showed a three-way contrast between
tenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced consonants. There were
four tones
This article summarizes the phonology (the sound system, or in more general terms, the pronunciation) of Standard Chinese (Standard Mandarin).
Standard Chinese phonology is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Actual production varies wi ...
, with the fourth or "entering tone", a
checked tone comprising syllables ending in plosives (''-p'', ''-t'' or ''-k''). Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch and by the late
Tang dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials. When voicing was lost in all languages except the Wu subfamily, this distinction became phonemic and the system of initials and tones was rearranged differently in each of the major groups.
The ''Zhongyuan Yinyun'' shows the typical Mandarin four-tone system resulting from a split of the "even" tone and loss of the entering tone, with its syllables distributed across the other tones (though their different origin is marked in the dictionary). Similarly, voiced plosives and affricates have become voiceless aspirates in the "even" tone and voiceless non-aspirates in others, another distinctive Mandarin development. However, the language still retained a final ''-m'', which has merged with ''-n'' in modern dialects and initial voiced fricatives. It also retained the distinction between velars and alveolar sibilants in palatal environments, which later merged in most Mandarin dialects to yield a palatal series (rendered ''j-'', ''q-'' and ''x-'' in
pinyin).
The flourishing vernacular literature of the period also shows distinctively Mandarin vocabulary and syntax, though some, such as the third-person pronoun ''tā'' (他), can be traced back to the Tang dynasty.
Vernacular literature
Until the early 20th century, formal writing and even much poetry and fiction was done in
Literary Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
, which was modeled on the
classics of the
Warring States period and the
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a w ...
. Over time, the various spoken varieties diverged greatly from Literary Chinese, which was learned and composed as a special language. Preserved from the sound changes that affected the various spoken varieties, its economy of expression was greatly valued. For example, (''yì'', "wing") is unambiguous in written Chinese, but has over 75
homophones in
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
.
The literary language was less appropriate for recording materials that were meant to be reproduced in oral presentations, materials such as plays and grist for the professional story-teller's mill. From at least the Yuan dynasty plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such as ''
Water Margin'', on down to the Qing dynasty novel ''
Dream of the Red Chamber'' and beyond, there developed a literature in
written vernacular Chinese
Written vernacular Chinese, also known as Baihua () or Huawen (), is the forms of written Chinese based on the varieties of Chinese spoken throughout China, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used during imperial China up to ...
(白話/白话, ''báihuà''). In many cases, this written language reflected Mandarin varieties and since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin-speaking regions and beyond.
Hu Shih
Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese libera ...
, a pivotal figure of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled ''Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ'' ("A History of Vernacular Literature").
Koiné of the Late Empire

Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in many parts of
South China
South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...
spoke only their local variety. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known as ''Guānhuà''. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined.
Officials varied widely in their pronunciation; in 1728, the
Yongzheng Emperor
, regnal name =
, posthumous name = Emperor Jingtian Changyun Jianzhong Biaozhen Wenwu Yingming Kuanren Xinyi Ruisheng Daxiao Zhicheng Xian()Manchu: Temgetulehe hūwangdi ()
, temple name = Shizong()Manchu: Šidzung ()
, house = Aisin Gioro ...
, unable to understand the accents of officials from
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
and
Fujian, issued a decree requiring the governors of those provinces to provide for the teaching of proper pronunciation. Although the resulting Academies for Correct Pronunciation () were short-lived, the decree did spawn a number of textbooks that give some insight into the ideal pronunciation. Common features included:
* loss of the Middle Chinese voiced initials except for ''v-''
* merger of ''-m'' finals with ''-n''
* the characteristic Mandarin four-tone system in open syllables, but retaining a final glottal stop in "entering tone" syllables
* retention of the distinction between
palatalized velars and dental affricates, the source of the spellings "Peking" and "Tientsin" for modern "Beijing" and "Tianjin".
As the last two of these features indicate, this language was a
koiné based on dialects spoken in the
Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. This form remained prestigious long after the capital moved to
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
in 1421, though the speech of the new capital emerged as a rival standard. As late as 1815,
Robert Morrison based the
first English–Chinese dictionary on this koiné as the standard of the time, though he conceded that the Beijing dialect was gaining in influence. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court.
Standard Mandarin Chinese
The variant of Mandarin as spoken by educated classes in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
was made the official language of China by the
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-spea ...
in the early 1900s and the successive Republican government. In the early years of the
Republic of China, intellectuals of the
New Culture Movement
The New Culture Movement () was a movement in China in the 1910s and 1920s that criticized classical Chinese ideas and promoted a new Chinese culture based upon progressive, modern and western ideals like democracy and science. Arising out of ...
, such as
Hu Shih
Hu Shih (; 17 December 1891 – 24 February 1962), also known as Hu Suh in early references, was a Chinese diplomat, essayist, literary scholar, philosopher, and politician. Hu is widely recognized today as a key contributor to Chinese libera ...
and
Chen Duxiu
Chen Duxiu ( zh, t=陳獨秀, w=Ch'en Tu-hsiu; 8 October 187927 May 1942) was a Chinese revolutionary socialist, educator, philosopher and author, who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with Li Dazhao in 1921. From 1921 to 1927, he ...
, successfully campaigned for the replacement of
Literary Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
as the written standard by
written vernacular Chinese
Written vernacular Chinese, also known as Baihua () or Huawen (), is the forms of written Chinese based on the varieties of Chinese spoken throughout China, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used during imperial China up to ...
, which was based on northern dialects. A parallel priority was the definition of a standard national language (). After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at
an artificial pronunciation, the
National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic, founded in 1949, retained this standard, calling it ''pǔtōnghuà'' (). Some 54% of speakers of Mandarin varieties could understand the standard language in the early 1950s, rising to 91% in 1984. Nationally, the proportion understanding the standard rose from 41% to 90% over the same period.
This standard language is now used in education, the media, and formal occasions in both
Mainland China and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, as well as among the
Chinese community of Singapore. However in other parts of the
Chinese-speaking world, namely
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...
and
Macau, the standard form of Chinese used in education, the media, formal speech, and everyday life remains the local
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
because of their colonial and linguistic history. While Standard Mandarin is now the medium of instruction in schools throughout China, it still has yet to gain traction as a common language among the local population in areas where Mandarin dialects are not native. In these regions, people may be either
diglossic
In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled "L ...
or speak the standard language with a notable accent. However since the 21st century, there has been an effort of mass education in Standard Mandarin Chinese and discouragement of local language usage by the Chinese government in order to erase these regional differences.
From an official point of view, the mainland Chinese and the Taiwanese governments maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. Technically, both ''Pǔtōnghuà'' and ''Guóyǔ'' base their
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of ...
on the Beijing accent, though ''Pǔtōnghuà'' also takes some elements from other sources. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school-standard" Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin varieties that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the
Beijing dialect. ''Pǔtōnghuà'' and ''Guóyǔ'' also have some differences from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and
pragmatics
In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
.
The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, although
simplified characters
Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the '' Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one ...
are used in mainland China and Singapore, while
traditional characters
Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...
remain in use in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. Overseas communities also tend to use traditional Chinese characters, although younger generations in Malaysia increasingly use simplified characters due to influence from Singapore and mainland China.
Geographic distribution
Mainland China
Most Han Chinese living in northern and southwestern China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The
North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese varieties, with great internal diversity, particularly in
Fujian.
However, the varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
,
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
, and
grammar, and many Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible.
Most of
northeast China, except for
Liaoning, did not receive significant settlements by Han Chinese until the 18th century, and as a result the
Northeastern Mandarin dialects spoken there differ little from the
Beijing dialect. The
Manchu people of the area now speak these dialects exclusively; their native language is only maintained in northwestern
Xinjiang, where
Xibe, a modern dialect, is spoken.
The frontier areas of
northwest China
Northwest China () is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai. It has an area of 3,107,900 km2.
The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid c ...
were colonized by speakers of Mandarin dialects at the same time, and the dialects in those areas similarly closely resemble their relatives in the core Mandarin area. The Southwest was settled early, but the population fell dramatically for obscure reasons in the 13th century, and did not recover until the 17th century. The dialects in this area are now relatively uniform. However, long-established cities even very close to
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
, such as
Tianjin,
Baoding
Baoding (), formerly known as Baozhou and Qingyuan, is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2010 census, Baoding City had 11,194,382 inhabitants out of which 2,176,857 lived in the b ...
,
Shenyang, and
Dalian, have markedly different dialects.
While
Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standa ...
was adopted as China's official language in the early 1900s, local languages continued to be dominant in their respective regions until the establishment of the
People's Republic in 1949 and its promotion of this standard variant. Starting in the
Cultural Revolution and intensifying afterwards, the
Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civ ...
(CCP) has adopted a language policy that pushes for the usage of Standard Mandarin at the expense of other Chinese varieties, including the prohibition of their use in most public settings. As a result, Mandarin is now widespread throughout the country, including in regions where the language is not native.
This language policy has proven to be largely successful, with over 80% of the Chinese population being able to speak Standard Mandarin as of 2020. Nevertheless, despite active discouragement by the CCP, local Chinese and other ethnic languages continue to be the primary medium of communication in daily life in a handful of regions, most notably
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
(where
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
predominates) and
Tibet. Elsewhere in China, Standard Mandarin has heavily influenced local languages through
diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled ...
or in some cases, replaced them entirely (especially among younger generations in urban areas). The Chinese government's current goal is to have 85% of China speak Standard Mandarin by 2025 and for virtually the entire country to speak the language by 2035.
Unlike their compatriots on the southeast coast, few Mandarin speakers engaged in
overseas emigration until the late 20th century, but there are now significant communities of them in cities across the world.
Taiwan
Standard Mandarin is the official language of
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. The Taiwanese standard of Mandarin differs very little from that of mainland China, with differences largely in some technical vocabulary developed from the 1950s onwards.
Mandarin started to become widely spoken in Taiwan following the
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...
's relocation and
influx of refugees from the mainland at the end of the
Chinese Civil War in 1949. At the time
Taiwanese Hokkien
Taiwanese Hokkien () (; Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-uân-uē''), also known as Taigi/Taigu (; Pe̍h-ōe-jī/ Tâi-lô: ''Tâi-gí / Tâi-gú''), Taiwanese, Taiwanese Minnan, Hoklo and Holo, is a variety of the Hokkien language spoken natively by about 7 ...
, and to a lesser extent
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Z ...
, were the Chinese languages used among the local Han Chinese population, while the
Formosan languages
The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather nine separate subfamilies. The Taiwan ...
were natively spoken by many Aboriginal populations. These languages were heavily discouraged from use throughout the
martial law period from 1949 to 1987, resulting in Mandarin replacing Taiwanese as the lingua franca. Starting in the 2000s, the Taiwanese government has made efforts to recognize these local languages and they are now present in public spheres such as media and education, although Mandarin remains the common language.
While the spoken standard of Taiwanese Mandarin is nearly identical to that of mainland China, the colloquial form has been heavily influenced by other local languages, especially Taiwanese. Notable differences include: the merger of
retroflex
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the har ...
sounds (zh, ch, sh, r) with the
alveolar series (z, c, s), frequent mergers of the "neutral tone" with a word's original tone, and absence of
erhua
Erhua ( ); also called erization or rhotacization of syllable finals) is a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "er" (注音:, common words: 、、) sound (transcribed in IPA as ) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. Erhuayin () ...
.
Code-switching
In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
between Mandarin and Taiwanese Hokkien is common, as the majority of the population continues to also speak the latter as a native language.
Southeast Asia
Singapore
Mandarin is one of the four official languages of
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bo ...
along with
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 i ...
,
Malay, and
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
** Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
. Historically, it was seldom used by the
Chinese Singaporean community, which primarily spoke the Southern Chinese languages of
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
,
Teochew,
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
, or
Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Z ...
. The launch of the
Speak Mandarin Campaign in 1979 by the government prioritized the language over traditional vernaculars in an attempt to create a common ethnic language and foster closer connections to China. This has led to a significant increase and presence of Mandarin usage in the country, coupled with a strong decline in usage of other Chinese variants.
Standard Singaporean Mandarin is nearly identical to the standards of China and Taiwan, with minor vocabulary differences. It is the Mandarin variant used in education, media, and official settings. Meanwhile, a colloquial form called
Singdarin is used in informal daily life and is heavily influenced in terms of both grammar and vocabulary by local languages such as Cantonese, Hokkien, and Malay. Instances of code-switching with English, Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay, or a combination of any of these is also common.
Malaysia
In
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, Mandarin has been adopted by local Chinese-language schools as the medium of instruction with the standard based on that of Singapore. However, it is not as widespread in daily life among the
Malaysian Chinese
Malaysian Chinese (; Malay: ''Orang Cina Malaysia''), alternatively Chinese Malaysians, are Malaysian citizens of Han Chinese descent. They form the second largest ethnic group after the Malay majority constituting 22.4% of the Malaysian ...
community, as
Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
speakers continue to form a plurality among the ethnic Chinese population and
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
serves as the common language (especially in commerce and local media). An exception is in the state of
Johor
Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the northwest. Johor shares maritime bor ...
, where Mandarin is increasingly used alongside Cantonese as a lingua franca in part due to Singaporean influence. As in Singapore, the local colloquial variant of Mandarin exhibits influences from Cantonese and Malay.
Myanmar
In northern
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, a
Southwestern Mandarin variant close to the Yunnanese dialect is spoken by local Chinese and other ethnic groups. In some
rebel group-controlled regions, Mandarin also serves as the lingua franca.
Subgroups

The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features.
In 1936,
Wang Li produced the first classification based on phonetic criteria, principally the evolution of
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
voiced initials. His Mandarin group included dialects of northern and southwestern China, as well as those of
Hunan and northern
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into h ...
.
Li Fang-Kuei
Li Fang-Kuei ( Chinese: 李方桂, Cantonese: Lei5 Fong1 Gwai3 ej˩˨ fɔŋ˦ gʷaj˧, Mandarin: Lǐ Fāngguì i˨ faŋ˦ gʷej˥˩ 20 August 190221 August 1987) was a Chinese linguist known for his studies of the varieties of Chinese, his ...
's classification of 1937 distinguished the latter two groups as
Xiang and
Gan, while splitting the remaining Mandarin dialects between Northern, Lower Yangtze and Southwestern Mandarin groups.
The widely accepted seven-group classification of
Yuan Jiahua in 1960 kept Xiang and Gan separate, with Mandarin divided into Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jiang–Huai (Lower Yangtze) subgroups.
Of Yuan's four Mandarin subgroups, the Northwestern dialects are the most diverse, particularly in the province of
Shanxi. The linguist
Li Rong proposed that the northwestern dialects of Shanxi and neighbouring areas that retain a final glottal stop in the Middle Chinese
entering tone
A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syl ...
(plosive-final) category should constitute a separate top-level group called
Jin. He used this classification in the ''
Language Atlas of China
The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and minority languages of China.
It was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the ...
'' (1987). Many other linguists continue to include these dialects in the Mandarin group, pointing out that the Lower Yangtze dialects also retain the glottal stop.
The southern boundary of the Mandarin area, with the central
Wu, Gan and Xiang groups, is weakly defined due to centuries of diffusion of northern features. Many border varieties have a mixture of features that make them difficult to classify.
The boundary between Southwestern Mandarin and Xiang is particularly weak, and in many early classifications the two were not separated.
Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie include the
New Xiang
New Xiang, also known as Chang-Yi (长益片 / 長益片) is the dominant form of Xiang Chinese. It is spoken in northeastern areas of Hunan, China adjacent to areas where Southwestern Mandarin and Gan are spoken. Under their influence, it has l ...
dialects within Southwestern Mandarin, treating only the more conservative
Old Xiang dialects as a separate group.
The
Huizhou dialects have features of both Mandarin and Wu, and have been assigned to one or other of these groups or treated as separate by various authors. Li Rong and the ''Language Atlas of China'' treated it as a separate top-level group, but this remains controversial.
The ''Language Atlas of China'' calls the remainder of Mandarin a "supergroup", divided into eight dialect groups distinguished by their treatment of the Middle Chinese entering tone (see
Tones below):
*
Northeastern Mandarin (98 million), spoken in
northeast China except the
Liaodong Peninsula
The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the ...
. This dialect is closely related to Standard Chinese, with little variation in lexicon and very few tonal differences.
*
Beijing Mandarin (27 million), spoken in Beijing and environs such as
Chengde
Chengde, formerly known as Jehol and Rehe, is a prefecture-level city in Hebei province, situated about 225 km northeast of Beijing. It is best known as the site of the Mountain Resort, a vast imperial garden and palace formerly used by ...
and northern
Hebei, as well as some areas of recent large-scale immigration, such as northern
Xinjiang. The Beijing dialect forms the basis of Standard Chinese. This classification is controversial, as a number of researchers view Beijing and Northeastern Mandarin as a single dialect group.
*
Jilu Mandarin
Jilu or Ji–Lu Mandarin, formerly known as Beifang Mandarin "Northern Mandarin", is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the Chinese provinces of Hebei (Jì) and the western part of Shandong (Lǔ) and Xunke, Tangwang & Jiayin countie ...
(89 million), spoken in
Hebei ("Ji") and
Shandong ("Lu") provinces except the
Shandong Peninsula, as well as in few counties of
Heilongjiang, due to migration. Includes
Tianjin dialect. Tones and vocabulary are markedly different. In general, there is substantial intelligibility with Beijing Mandarin.
*
Jiaoliao Mandarin
Jiaoliao or Jiao–Liao Mandarin () is a primary dialect of Mandarin Chinese, spoken on the Jiaodong Peninsula, from Yantai to Qingdao, Ganyu District in northeastern Jiangsu and the Liaodong Peninsula, from Dalian to Dandong, and in Misha ...
(35 million), spoken in
Shandong (Jiaodong) and
Liaodong Peninsula
The Liaodong Peninsula (also Liaotung Peninsula, ) is a peninsula in southern Liaoning province in Northeast China, and makes up the southwestern coastal half of the Liaodong region. It is located between the mouths of the Daliao River (the ...
s, as well as in few counties of
Heilongjiang, due to migration. Very noticeable tonal changes, different in "flavour" from Ji–Lu Mandarin, but with more variance. There is moderate intelligibility with Beijing.
*
Central Plains Mandarin
Central Plains Mandarin, or ''Zhongyuan'' Mandarin (), is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, southern part of Gansu, far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, n ...
(186 million), spoken in
Henan
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is als ...
province, the central parts of
Shaanxi in the
Yellow River valley, eastern
Gansu, as well as southern
Xinjiang, due to recent migration. There are significant phonological differences, with partial intelligibility with Beijing. The
Dungan language
Dungan ( or ) is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is wr ...
spoken in
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzb ...
and
Kyrgyzstan belongs to this group. Dungan speakers such as the poet
Iasyr Shivaza have reported being understood by speakers of the Beijing dialect, but not vice versa.
*
Lanyin Mandarin (17 million), spoken in central and western
Gansu province (with capital
Lanzhou) and
Ningxia
Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in 1 ...
autonomous region (with capital
Yinchuan
Yinchuan (, ; ) is the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, and was the capital of the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty. It has an area of and a total population of 2,859,074 according to the 2020 Chinese census, and its bui ...
), as well as northern
Xinjiang.
*
Lower Yangtze Mandarin (or Jiang–Huai, 86 million), spoken in the parts of
Jiangsu and
Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
on the north bank of the
Yangtze
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flow ...
, as well as some areas on the south bank, such as
Nanjing in
Jiangsu,
Jiujiang
Jiujiang (), formerly transliterated Kiukiang or Kew Keang, is a prefecture-level city located on the southern shores of the Yangtze River in northwest Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China. It is the second-largest prefecture-level city ...
in
Jiangxi
Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into h ...
, etc. There are significant phonological and lexical changes to varying degrees, and intelligibility with Beijing is limited. Lower Yangtze Mandarin has been significantly influenced by
Wu Chinese.
*
Southwestern Mandarin (260 million), spoken in the provinces of
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 ...
,
Sichuan,
Guizhou
Guizhou (; Postal romanization, formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in the Southwest China, southwest region of the China, People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the pr ...
,
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
, and the Mandarin-speaking areas of
Hunan,
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietna ...
and southern
Shaanxi. There are sharp phonological, lexical, and tonal changes, and intelligibility with Beijing is limited to varying degrees.
The ''Atlas'' also includes several unclassified Mandarin dialects spoken in scattered pockets across southeastern China, such as
Nanping in
Fujian and
Dongfang on
Hainan.
Another Mandarin variety of uncertain classification is apparently
Gyami, recorded in the 19th century in the Tibetan foothills, who the Chinese apparently did not recognize as Chinese.
Phonology
A
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...
consists maximally of an initial consonant, a 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
Flight and ...
, a vowel, a coda, and
tone. In the traditional analysis, the medial, vowel and coda are combined as a ''final''.
Not all combinations occur. For example, Standard Chinese (based on the Beijing dialect) has about 1,200 distinct syllables.
Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include:
* the
palatalization of
velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive ...
s and
alveolar sibilants when they occur before
palatal glides;
* one syllable contains maximum four phonemes (maximum three vowels and no consonant cluster)
* the disappearance of final
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s and /-m/ (although in many Lower Yangtze Mandarin and
Jin Chinese
Jin (; ) is a proposed group of varieties of Chinese spoken by roughly 63 million people in northern China, including most of Shanxi province, much of central Inner Mongolia, and adjoining areas in Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi provinces. The status ...
dialects, an echo of the final stops is preserved as a
glottal stop);
* the presence of
retroflex consonant
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the ha ...
s (although these are absent in many
Southwestern and
Northeastern Mandarin dialects);
* the historical
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most comm ...
of stops and sibilants (also common to most non-Mandarin varieties).
Initials
The maximal inventory of initials of a Mandarin dialect is as follows, with bracketed pinyin spellings given for those present in the standard language:
* Most Mandarin-speaking areas distinguish between the retroflex initials from the apical sibilants , though they often have a different distribution than in the standard language. In most dialects of the southeast and southwest the retroflex initials have merged with the alveolar sibilants, so that ''zhi'' becomes ''zi'', ''chi'' becomes ''ci'', and ''shi'' becomes ''si''.
* The alveolo-palatal sibilants are the result of merger between the historical palatalized velars and palatalized alveolar sibilants . In about 20% of dialects, the alveolar sibilants did not palatalize, remaining separate from the alveolo-palatal initials. (The unique pronunciation used in
Peking opera
Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognize ...
falls into this category.) On the other side, in some dialects of eastern
Shandong, the velar initials did not undergo palatalization.
* Many southwestern Mandarin dialects mix and , substituting one for the other in some or all cases. For example, ''fei'' "to fly" and ''hui'' "grey" may be merged in these areas.
* In some dialects, initial and are not distinguished. In Southwestern Mandarin, these sounds usually merge to ; in Lower Yangtze Mandarin, they usually merge to .
* People in many Mandarin-speaking areas may use different initial sounds where Beijing uses initial ''r-'' . Common variants include , , and .
* Some dialects have initial corresponding to the zero initial of the standard language. This initial is the result of a merger of the Middle Chinese zero initial with and .
* Many dialects of Northwestern and Central Plains Mandarin have where Beijing has . Examples include "pig" for standard ''zhū'' , "water" for standard ''shuǐ'' , "soft" for standard ''ruǎn'' .
Finals
Most Mandarin dialects have three medial glides, , and (spelled ''i'', ''u'' and ''ü'' in pinyin), though their incidence varies.
The medial , is lost after apical initials in several areas.
Thus Southwestern Mandarin has "correct" where the standard language has ''dui'' .
Southwestern Mandarin also has in some words where the standard has ''jie qie xie'' . This is a stereotypical feature of southwestern Mandarin, since it is so easily noticeable. E.g. ''hai'' "shoe" for standard ''xie'', ''gai'' "street" for standard ''jie''.
Mandarin dialects typically have relatively few vowels.
Syllabic fricatives, as in standard ''zi'' and ''zhi'', are common in Mandarin dialects, though they also occur elsewhere.
The Middle Chinese off-glides and are generally preserved in Mandarin dialects, yielding several
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s and
triphthongs in contrast to the larger sets of monophthongs common in other dialect groups (and some widely scattered Mandarin dialects).
The Middle Chinese coda was still present in
Old Mandarin, but has merged with in the modern dialects. In some areas (especially the southwest) final has also merged with . This is especially prevalent in the rhyme pairs ''-en/-eng'' and ''-in/-ing'' . As a result, ''jīn'' "gold" and ''jīng'' "capital" merge in those dialects.
The Middle Chinese final stops have undergone a variety of developments in different Mandarin dialects (see
Tones below). In
Lower Yangtze dialects and some north-western dialects they have merged as a final
glottal stop. In other dialects they have been lost, with varying effects on the vowel. As a result, Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin underwent more vowel mergers than many other varieties of Mandarin. For example:
R-coloring, a characteristic feature of Mandarin, works quite differently in the southwest. Whereas Beijing dialect generally removes only a final or when adding the rhotic final ''-r'' , in the southwest the ''-r'' replaces nearly the entire rhyme.
Tones
In general, no two Mandarin-speaking areas have exactly the same set of
tone values, but most Mandarin-speaking areas have very similar tone ''distribution''. For example, the dialects of
Jinan,
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 ...
,
Xi'an
Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...
and so on all have four tones that correspond quite well to the
Beijing dialect tones of (55), (35), (214), and (51). The exception to this rule lies in the distribution of syllables formerly ending in a stop consonant, which are treated differently in different dialects of Mandarin.
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
stops and affricates had a three-way distinction between tenuis, voiceless aspirate and voiced (or breathy voiced) consonants.
In Mandarin dialects the voicing is generally lost, yielding voiceless aspirates in syllables with a Middle Chinese level tone and non-aspirates in other syllables.
Of the
four tones
This article summarizes the phonology (the sound system, or in more general terms, the pronunciation) of Standard Chinese (Standard Mandarin).
Standard Chinese phonology is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Actual production varies wi ...
of Middle Chinese, the level, rising and departing tones have also developed into four modern tones in a uniform way across Mandarin dialects; the Middle Chinese level tone has split into two registers, conditioned on voicing of the Middle Chinese initial, while rising tone syllables with voiced obstruent initials have shifted to the departing tone.
The following examples from the standard language illustrate the regular development common to Mandarin dialects (recall that pinyin ''d'' denotes a non-aspirate , while ''t'' denotes an aspirate ):
In traditional Chinese phonology, syllables that ended in a stop in Middle Chinese (i.e. /p/, /t/ or /k/) were considered to belong to a special category known as the "
entering tone
A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syl ...
".
These final stops have disappeared in most Mandarin dialects, with the syllables distributed over the other four modern tones in different ways in the various Mandarin subgroups.
In the Beijing dialect that underlies the standard language, syllables beginning with original voiceless consonants were redistributed across the four tones in a completely random pattern. For example, the three characters , all ''tsjek'' in Middle Chinese (
William H. Baxter's transcription), are now pronounced ''jī'', ''jǐ'' and ''jì'' respectively. Older dictionaries such as ''
Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary'' mark characters whose pronunciation formerly ended with a stop with a superscript 5; however, this tone number is more commonly used for syllables that always have a neutral tone (see below).
In Lower Yangtze dialects, a minority of Southwestern dialects (e.g.
Minjiang) and Jin Chinese (sometimes considered non-Mandarin), former final stops were not deleted entirely, but were reduced to a
glottal stop . (This includes the dialect of
Nanjing on which the
Postal Romanization
Postal romanization was a system of transliterating Chinese place names developed by postal authorities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For many cities, the corresponding postal romanization was the most common English-language for ...
was based; it transcribes the glottal stop as a trailing ''h''.) This development is shared with
Wu Chinese and is thought to represent the pronunciation of
Old Mandarin. In line with traditional Chinese phonology, dialects such as Lower Yangtze and Minjiang are thus said to have five tones instead of four. However, modern linguistics considers these syllables as having no
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
tone at all.
Although the system of tones is common across Mandarin dialects, their realization as
tone contours varies widely:
* Dialects in and around the Nantong area typically have many more than 4 tones, due to influence from the neighbouring
Wu dialects.
Mandarin dialects frequently employ neutral tones in the second syllables of words, creating syllables whose tone contour is so short and light that it is difficult or impossible to discriminate. These atonal syllables also occur in non-Mandarin dialects, but in many southern dialects the tones of all syllables are made clear.
Vocabulary
There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese except
Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langu ...
. This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than have southern varieties of Chinese, and has needed to deal with many more
homophones. New words have been formed by adding
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They a ...
es such as ''lao-'' (), ''-zi'' (), ''-(e)r'' (/), and ''-tou'' (/), or by compounding, e.g. by combining two words of similar meaning as in ''cōngmáng'' (), made from elements meaning "hurried" and "busy".
A distinctive feature of southwestern Mandarin is its frequent use of noun
reduplication
In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
, which is hardly used in Beijing. In
Sichuan, one hears ''bāobāo'' () "handbag" where Beijing uses ''bāor'' ().
There are also a small number of words that have been polysyllabic since Old Chinese, such as () "butterfly".
The singular
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...
s in Mandarin are () "I", ( or ) "you", () "you (formal)", and (, or /) "he/she/it", with - (/) added for the plural. Further, there is a distinction between the plural first-person pronoun (/), which is inclusive of the listener, and (/), which may be exclusive of the listener. Dialects of Mandarin agree with each other quite consistently on these pronouns. While the first and second person singular pronouns are cognate with forms in other varieties of Chinese, the rest of the pronominal system is a Mandarin innovation (e.g.,
Shanghainese
The Shanghainese language, also known as the Shanghai dialect, or Hu language, is a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in the central districts of the City of Shanghai and its surrounding areas. It is classified as part of the Sino-Tibetan langu ...
has ''non'' / "you" and ''yi'' "he/she").
Because of contact with Mongolian and Manchurian peoples, Mandarin (especially the Northeastern varieties) has some loanwords from these languages not present in other varieties of Chinese, such as () "alley".
Southern Chinese varieties have borrowed from
Tai,
Austroasiatic
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...
,
and
Austronesian languages.
There are also many Chinese words which come from foreign languages such as () from ''golf''; () from ''bikini''; () from ''hamburger''.
In general, the greatest variation occurs in slang, in kinship terms, in names for common crops and domesticated animals, for common verbs and adjectives, and other such everyday terms. The least variation occurs in "formal" vocabulary—terms dealing with science, law, or government.
Grammar
Chinese varieties of all periods are considered prime examples of
analytic language
In linguistic typology, an analytic language is a language that conveys relationships between words in sentences primarily by way of ''helper'' words (particles, prepositions, etc.) and word order, as opposed to using inflections (changing the ...
s, relying on word order and particles instead of
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
or
affix
In linguistics, an affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word or word form. Affixes may be derivational, like English ''-ness'' and ''pre-'', or inflectional, like English plural ''-s'' and past tense ''-ed''. They a ...
es to provide grammatical information such as
person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
,
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
,
tense,
mood, or
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to ...
.
Although modern varieties, including the Mandarin dialects, use a small number of particles in a similar fashion to suffixes, they are still strongly analytic.
The basic word order of
subject–verb–object is common across Chinese dialects, but there are variations in the order of the two objects of
ditransitive sentences.
In northern dialects the indirect object precedes the direct object (as in English), for example in the Standard Chinese sentence:
In southern dialects, as well as many southwestern and Lower Yangtze dialects, the objects occur in the reverse order.
Most varieties of Chinese use post-verbal particles to indicate
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* '' Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Cart ...
, but the particles used vary.
Most Mandarin dialects use the particle ''-le'' (了) to indicate the
perfective aspect
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...
and ''-zhe'' (着/著) for the
progressive aspect
The continuous and progressive aspects (abbreviated and ) are grammatical aspects that express incomplete action ("to do") or state ("to be") in progress at a specific time: they are non-habitual, imperfective aspects.
In the grammars of many ...
.
Other Chinese varieties tend to use different particles, e.g. Cantonese ''zo
2'' 咗 and ''gan
2'' 紧/緊 respectively.
The experiential aspect particle ''-guo'' (过/過) is used more widely, except in Southern Min.
The subordinative particle ''de'' (的) is characteristic of Mandarin dialects.
Some southern dialects, and a few Lower Yangtze dialects, preserve an older pattern of subordination without a marking particle, while in others a
classifier fulfils the role of the Mandarin particle.
Especially in conversational Chinese, sentence-final
particles alter the inherent meaning of a sentence. Like much vocabulary, particles can vary a great deal with regards to the locale. For example, the particle ''ma'' (嘛), which is used in most northern dialects to denote obviousness or contention, is replaced by ''yo'' (哟) in southern usage.
Some characters in Mandarin can be combined with others to indicate a particular meaning just like prefix and suffix in English. For example, the suffix -er which means the person who is doing the action, e.g. teacher, person who teaches. In Mandarin the character 師 has the same function, it is combined with 教, which means teach, to form the word teacher.
List of several common Chinese prefixes and suffixes:
See also
*
Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of ...
*
Transcription into Chinese characters
*
Written Chinese
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally re ...
*
Languages of China
*
List of varieties of Chinese
* ''
Linguistic Atlas of Chinese Dialects''
*
List of languages by number of native speakers
This article ranks human languages by their number of native speakers.
However, all such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect ...
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
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Historical Western language texts
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External links
Tones in Mandarin Dialects :Comprehensive tone comparison charts for 523 Mandarin dialects. (Compiled by James Campbell) – Internet Archive mirror
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Articles containing video clips
Languages of China
Languages of Taiwan
Languages of Singapore
Languages of Malaysia
Chinese languages in Singapore
Subject–verb–object languages
Vertical vowel systems
Varieties of Chinese