The Zhongyuan Mandarin (simplified Chinese:中原官话;traditional Chinese:中原官話;pinyin:Zhōngyuán Guānhuà), is a Sino-Tibetan language 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, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong.

Zhongyuan is spoken by more than 169 million people. It is the primary language of Shaanxi and Henan provinces. It is most prominent in the cities of Xi'an and Zhengzhou; in both cities, Zhongyuan is the most widely spoken language, significantly outstripping Standard Mandarin.From a linguistic perspective, Zhongyuan functions effectively as a language distinct from Standard Mandarin, as differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and tone render the two mutually unintelligible. However, the Chinese state's official narrative often obscures this reality under the label of "dialects" (*fangyan* in Standard Chinese)—a term that politically unifies the territory but conceals the profound barriers to mutual understanding that exist among them.

Subdialects

The distribution of core Central Plains Mandarin

Phonology

In some varieties of Central Plains Mandarin, some phonological changes have affected certain syllables but not Standard Chinese.

Standard Mandarin's [t͡ʂ], [t͡ʂʰ] and have shifted to [p͜f] before [u]. [ʂ] has shifted to [f] before [u] in some varieties, such as the Yanhe subgroup and the Guanzhong subgroup.

猪初书熟
Middle Chinese Initial[ʈ][t͡ʃʰ][ɕ][ʑ]
Pinyinzhūchūshūshú
Standard Mandarin[ʈʂú][ʈʂʰú][ʂú][ʂǔ]
Guanzhong Mandarin[p͜fu][p͜fʰu][fu][fu]

The phenomenon of [p] and [pʰ] being shifted to [p͜f] before [u] and [o] can be found in Linyou (麟游) and Wugong (武功)

布跛坡朴
Middle Chinese Initial[p][p][pʰ][pʰ]
Pinyinbùbǒpōpǔ
Standard Mandarin[pû][pwò][pʰwó][pʰù]
Certain varieties of Central Plains Mandarin[p͜fu][p͜fo][p͜fʰo][p͜fʰu]

See also

Citations

Sources

  • Chappell, Hilary (2002), "The Universal Syntax of Semantic Primes in Mandarin Chinese", in Goddard, Cliff; Wierzbicka, Anna (eds.), , Studies in Language Companion Series, vol.v. 60, Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, ISBN1-58811-265-9, ISSN, OCLC
  • Gu, Yueguo (2009) [2006], "Chinese", in Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.), (1sted.), Oxford, England: Elsevier, ISBN978-0-08-087774-7, OCLC
  • Chirkova, Ekaterina (2008), (PDF), Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale (37), Paris: Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale: 3–42, ISSN, OCLC