The Tianjin dialect () is a

Mandarin dialect Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language o ...

spoken in the city of

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

, China. It is comprehensible to speakers of other Mandarin dialects, though its greatest deviation from the others lies in its individual tones, and the lack 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 h ...

s. The regional characteristics make the dialect an important part of the Tianjin city identity, and sharply contrasts with the dialect of nearby Beijing, despite relatively similar phonology.

Characteristics

The Tianjin dialect is classified under

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 counties ...

, a subdivision of

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...

dialects also spoken in

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

and

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

provinces. Despite Tianjin being a neighbour of

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

, its dialect sounds very different from the

Beijing dialect The Beijing dialect (), also known as Pekingese and Beijingese, is the prestige dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, the official language in the People's Republic of ...

, which is the basis for

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 tones of the Tianjin dialect correspond to those of the Beijing dialect (and hence Standard Chinese) as follows: The differences are minor except for the first tone: Where it is high and level in Beijing, it is low and falling in Tianjin. All words with the first tone, including the name "Tianjin", are affected, giving the Tianjin dialect a downward feel to people from Beijing. The Tianjin dialect also includes four

tone sandhi Tone sandhi is a phonological change occurring in tonal languages, in which the tones assigned to individual words or morphemes change based on the pronunciation of adjacent words or morphemes. It usually simplifies a bidirectional tone into a ...

rules, more than the Beijing dialect. They are, #Tone 1 + Tone 1 → Tone 3-Tone 1: 天津 ''tiān jīn'' is pronounced /tǐanjīn/ (using

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

tone diacritics) #Tone 3 + Tone 3 → Tone 2-Tone 3: 水果 ''shuǐ guǒ'' is pronounced /shuíguǒ/ (as in Standard) #Tone 4 + Tone 4 → Tone 1-Tone 4: 現在 ''xiàn zài'' is pronounced /xiānzài/ #Tone 4 + Tone 1 → Tone 2-Tone 1: 上班 ''shàng bān'' is pronounced /shángbān/ There are some other patterns that differentiate the Tianjin dialect from the Beijing dialect. One is the pronunciation of 饿 (餓) as ''wò'' (臥) instead of ''è''. Lastly, the Tianjin dialect lacks the retroflex consonants () prevalent in Beijing, not unlike

Taiwanese Mandarin Taiwanese Mandarin, ''Guoyu'' ( zh, s=, t=國語, p=Guóyǔ, l=National Language, first=t) or ''Huayu'' ( zh, s=, t=華語, p=Huáyǔ, first=t, l=Mandarin Language, labels=no) refers to Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan. A large majority of the T ...

. Thus, ''zh'' (ㄓ) becomes ''z'' (ㄗ), ''sh'' (ㄕ) becomes ''s'' (ㄙ), ''ch'' (ㄔ) becomes ''c'' (ㄘ), and ''r'' (ㄖ) becomes ''y'' (一) — that is, is pronounced ''yěn'' instead of ''rén'', and is pronounced ''yàng'' (樣) instead of ''ràng''. However, the use of the ''-er'' (儿) diminutive is common in the Tianjin dialect, as it is throughout the north and northeast. (See:

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 () i ...

.) Chinese speakers commonly stereotype the Tianjin dialect as aggressive- or confrontational-sounding, though it is not difficult for speakers of other Mandarin dialects to understand.

Characteristics

See also

References

Further reading