Standard Mandarin

The standard Mandarin , (“common language”, or “language of Hàn”, dominant ethnos group in China), is the Official language in Popular republic of China, with Taiwan and Singapore. For this reason, it was the subject of coding (pronunciation, grammar) and is the generally taught spoken language. It should not be confused with the Mandarin itself (官話/官话 Guānhuà (“language of official”) or 北方话/北方話 Běifānghuà (“spoken about North”)), which is the spoken language in north, the center and the south-east of the continental China.

Standard Mandarin largely was however inspired by the Mandarin spoken in Beijing. All are written in Baihua , the vernacular written Chinese language. They are written by means of the Sinogramme S.

Standard Mandarin is generally transcribed in Pinyin (as in the majority of the articles of Wikipédia), but also in Bopomofo.

Chinese Mandarin (very often named simply Chinese ) is the language most spoken in the world (thanks to the high population of China). However, even if he is taught today with all Chinese, the older Chinese do not speak all Mandarin but about others Chinese Langues, like the Cantonese, or others like the Tibetan. Mandarin, that the Communist leaders indicated like the Common language of their whole nation (from where the term of 普通話 pǔtōnghuà , “common language”), was initially that of Chinese communities of the North of the country. Although also having an old literary history, it does not derive from the traditional language literary and artificial (文言 wényán ), abandoned in 1919 after being used like official language written and arts person during more than two thousand years: indeed, it is of a spoken vernacular Language (白話 '' báihuà '', “simple language”) that Mandarin proceeds. In 1956, it is the alternative of Beijing which is promoted with the row of official language. One often regards it as the standard alternative of this language. Mandarin of Beijing however has specificities (like the frequent use of the vocalic Rétroflexion noted by means of the Suffixe - er) and one often says that the Pekinese one have a “accent”. Mandarin of a Taiwanese will be thus somewhat different from that of such Pekinese.

Apart from the China, important Chinese communities share this language, which is taught in many colleges and universities all over the world.

Like the other Chinese languages, it is a Langue with tons. It uses four high Tonèmes, which changes the direction of the word, and dish, amount, descending then tonic slightly (modulated) and going down.

Let us tons are represented as a Popular republic of China by the accents on the vowels of the syllables of the romanized writing known as Pinyin and, with Taiwan, by the same accents on the Graphème S of the Bopomofo. One uses also the number of the ton at the end of the Syllabe when the technical constraints prevent from entering or to read the accents.

Names

The French term comes from the Portuguese mandarim (of the Malayan mentari or mantari , itself borrowed from the Sanskrit mantrin- , meaning “Ministre”); it is the translation of Chinese 官話/官话 guānhuà , which means “language of the mandarins literally” (magistrates of the Empire). The term guānhuà is often regarded as an antiquated name by the sinophones of today.

In RPC, the language is named 普通話/普通话 pǔtōnghuà , “language common” or guóyǔ 國語/国语, “national language”. With Taiwan, the language is officially named 國語/国语 guóyǔ . In the Chinese communities abroad, particularly in the South-East Asia, the language is known like 華語/华语 huáyǔ , “language Chinese” (華/华 huá is a term indicating mainly the Chinese culture). The term Hanyu 漢語, indicates the whole of the dialects of the Han ethnos group, and not only Mandarin: thus, Cantonese is an alternative of the Hanyu , (“language of the Han”) as well as Mandarin. By their pronunciation (in particular the presence or not of final consonants others that N ), the various dialects can be more or less close to antiquated Chinese. In this respect, hakka and Cantonese are closer to the original language than Mandarin.

The standard form of Mandarin is based on the pronunciation specific to the speakers of Beijing (cf Prononciation of Mandarin ), without certain phonetic characteristics. There exists indeed a great diversity in the regional pronunciations, for two reasons mainly. First is that the geographical surface where this language is the Native tongue of the majority of the speakers is if wide that one meets necessarily variations of pronunciations from one zone to another. These regional differences are of comparable nature that those which one hears in the various French-speaking areas of France, of Belgium, of Switzerland, of Africa, of Quebec, etc the second reason is that many speakers have Mandarin like second language. These speakers the thus frequently contaminate with the phonological system of their maternal own language. Mandarin of Taiwan, for example, became a relatively homogeneous alternative of standard Mandarin as defined by the educational authorities.

Mandarin is sometimes still named in an abstract way Pekinese (北京話/北京话 Beǐjīng huà , 北京方言 Beǐjīng fāngyán , “regional language of Beijing”, or 京片子 Jīng piànzi ). In Taiwan, the partisans of the Indépendance of Taiwan frequently insist so that one uses the term of Beǐjīng huà in the place of 國語/国语 guóyǔ in order to promote the idea that the Taiwanese should be their national language.

History
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The Chinese Langues developed starting from a named common language Chinese antiquated .

The majority of the alive Chinese in China of north, with the Sichuan, and, in fact, in a large arc of active circle of the North-East (Mandchourie) in south-west (Yunnan), use several dialects of Mandarin as native tongue. The prevalence of Mandarin in all China of north is mainly the result of the geography, in particular the plains of the north of China. In comparison, the mountainous areas and river of China of the south knew a greater linguistic diversity. The presence of Mandarin in Sichuan is largely due to an epidemic to XIIe century. This epidemic, perhaps the Black Death, having decimated the population of this area, it allowed later a colonization by the Chinese of the north of China and, indirectly, explains the establishment of a language of North in a southernmost area.

Until the middle of the XXe century, the majority of the alive Chinese in China of the south did not speak Mandarin. However, in spite of social diversity between members of the administration and common peoples speaking various Chinese dialects, Pekinese Mandarin had become the dominant language at least under the Dynastie Qing, whose official language was the Mandchou. Since the XVIIe century, the Empire had created academies of “Orthoépie”, 正音書院/正音书院 zhēngyīn shūyuàn , in an attempt to make the pronunciation in conformity with the standard of Beijing. Their success had proven very limited.

This situation developed with the creation (in RPC and in Taiwan) of a system of education of elementary school reserved for the teaching of Mandarin. Consequently, Mandarin became the language most usually spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of continental China and Taiwan. With HongKong, however, the language of education and formalities remains the Cantonese, although Mandarin is increasingly present.

Mandarin and Pekinese

A common error consists in believing that Mandarin would be the Pekinese dialect . It is true that the standard pronunciation and that the grammar of the taught language is based mainly on the dialect of Beijing, but the concept of standard Mandarin remains a rather vague concept because it rather represents a whole of languages manufactured and imposed on the population, which one asks to forget his usual regional pronunciations. The accent of the inhabitants of Harbin, formerly in Manchu zone, would have remained that nearest to current Mandarin. Vast surface which extends from Mandchourie in the North-East of China until the Yunnan in south-west, the native tongue of the majority of the inhabitants is Mandarin (in its general direction), but these native tongues differ all in the pronunciation, the vocabulary and even sometimes grammar, of the taught language.

Specifically, in accordance with the language of the natives of Beijing, the majority of the speakers conform well to the standard pronunciation of the consonants rétroflexes (noted by zh , CH , HS and laughed in Pinyin), but they often add the '' - final er '' ─ commonly used as Diminutif ─ to words that other speakers would leave such as it is. This dialectal feature is named 兒音/儿音 éryīn , “pronunciation with - er ”. There also exists of many lexical elements largely attested in the Pekinese zone but extremely rare elsewhere. In addition to all these differences, as it is the case for the Western languages, there is more accent clean in Beijing, dependant on the social status, education, etc

These some exceptions put aside, the local pronunciation of the natives of Beijing generally conforms very well to the standard pronunciation. In general, the local pronunciations of the natives of other surfaces of Mandarin are different more especially as they are far away from the capital. The people who live with Tianjin have also a rather standard pronunciation. The people who live in the North-East of China usually transform the syllables starting with what the pinyin note J in syllables starting with G or K (in accordance with the etymology, of the remainder) and have difficulties of pronouncing the sounds starting with R . The people who live in the surfaces more in the south often transform the consonants rétroflexes standard Mandarin: zh becomes Z , CH becomes C , HS becomes S and R decides rather like Z . This remark is also true for Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. In certain areas the speakers do not make the distinction between L and N (mainly when they have Cantonese like native tongue), and in others the velar final ng is changed into N .

Moreover, the taught language employs the many ones tons light (an absence of Tonème which makes the syllable less distinct; cf Pronunciation of Mandarin ) for the second syllables of the made up words (to consult Sinogramme ), whereas in many areas, in particular in the south, the tone of the two syllables is clearly marked.

The dialect of Beijing as bases standard Mandarin

From the official definition of the Popular republic of China, standard Mandarin uses:

the Phonology or the system of pronunciation of the Pekinese . A distinction must be made between the phonology of a dialect or a language, and the current pronunciation of words which are expressed there. the pronunciation chosen for standard Mandarin -- a standardized pronunciation -- does not reproduce necessarily that of the dialect of Beijing. The pronunciation of the standard Mandarin words is a choice of standardization and differences in standardization (except local accents) exist, in particular between the putonghua and the guoyu.

In current speech, a Chinese speaker can easily make the difference between somebody expressing themselves in dialect of Beijing and somebody which is expressed in standard Mandarin. The Pekinese one speak standard Mandarin with elements about their own dialect, as the speakers of other areas do it besides.

the Vocabulary of the dialects mandarins in general. That means that all Argot and any other local element is excluded. Of with dimensions, that means that the vocabulary of the various Chinese dialects (and in particular of Mandarin), in particular in the fields technique, scientist, and official, varies little. A little the instar the place that the vocabulary of the Latin and the old Greek took in the European languages in the etymology of the vocabulary in these fields. That means that great part of the vocabulary of standard Mandarin is shared by the various Chinese languages. Of another with dimensions, much of vocabulary of informal talk or slang of Beijing does not find itself in standard Mandarin (and even less in others), which makes this dialect inintelligible for people of other localization.
the modern Grammar and the use of a Chinese Literature exemplary, such works of Lu Xun, generally considered as a " Chinese vernacular " ( Baihua ). Vernacular Chinese, the current standard written form of the Chinese language, finds his roots in the uses in the grammar and the uses of septentrional Mandarin (prevalent), Southerner, as well as traditional Chinese . That gives to the formal structure of standard Mandarin a structure which can be appreciably different from that of the dialect of Peking.
an example of difference between standard Mandarin and the dialect of Beijing is the " term; porte" ((). " Mén" is the standard Mandarin pronunciation, whereas " is pronounced; Mén' r" in dialect of Beijing.

In theory, the République of China defines standard Mandarin differently (" Guoyu" in Taiwan), although actually these differences are limited and is found especially on the level of tons and some words.

Although the Chinese speakers make a clear distinction between standard Mandarin and the dialect of Beijing, certain typical aspects of the dialect of Beijing tend to pass in standard Mandarin. There exists in particular a distinction on the level of television between the polished form and the abstract version of the " you/tu" who comes from the Pekinese dialect. In addition, there exists a distinction between " zánmen " ( us including that which listens) and " wǒmen " ( us excluding that which listens). In practice, little Chinese makes this distinction.

Grammatical and lexical variations

detailed Article: Dialects mandarins

From an official point of view, there are two mandarins, since the government of Beijing refers to that of the continent as being the 普通話/普通话 pǔtōnghuà , “common language”, whereas the government of Taipei names its official language 國語/国语 kuo-yü (in pinyin: guóyǔ ), “national language”. Officially, the pǔtōnghuà includes the pronunciations of several areas, whereas the kuo-yü is based theoretically on only the Phonème S of Mandarin of Beijing. The comparison between dictionaries of the two zones shows that there are some substantial differences. However, the two versions of school Mandarin are rather often different from Mandarin such as really spoken, which is subject to the influence of regional variations.

Moreover, all the alternatives of Mandarin are not directly mutually understandable. To be more precise, according to SIL ():

“the varieties of Mandarin of the lower plate of the Shaanxi are not directly understandable with the putonghua. The varieties of Mandarin of Guilin and Kunming are basically inintelligibles to the speakers of the putonghua. ”

However, the speakers educated alive in the cities of South-west such as Guilin and Kunming speak a rather correct pǔtōnghuà in addition to their native tongue.

In China of North, with the Sichuan, and in other surfaces where the language of North is spoken, which one would name “local alternatives of Mandarin” is in fact one of the native tongues of speakers of these zones. The period of education of mass of Mandarin did not erase these former regional differences. In the South, the interaction between Mandarin and the other languages Chinese created local versions of the language of North , which are rather different from standard official Mandarin both for the pronunciation grammar. For example, Mandarin spoken in Taiwan by the students who speak Taiwanese (a dialect of min of the south) or hakka as native tongue is generally spoken with a grammar and an accent which makes it different from the kuo-yü standard , giving rise to a commonly named version of Mandarin Mandarin of Taiwan .

Although Mandarin is regarded as the standard dialect, speech Mandarin without local accent or speech Mandarin in the place of the local dialect can make become the speaker for a foreigner or abnormal somebody of . For this reason the majority of the speakers, political directors including, are not forced to speak Mandarin with the official standard accent.

Systems of transcription

Since the first Westerners entered to China and tried to learn Mandarin (or, rather, to translate the Bible in a will of evangelization) appeared the need for a romanisation allowing to note the Chinese characters. Since, many systems of phonetic transcription were proposed. To be accepted the overall first is the system known as Lagging-Gilles, named according to his inventors of the 19th century. This system always is used today, but not in continental China. It meets especially in old editions of Western books, like for a rather great number of Chinese terms lexiconized in the Western languages. The French School of the Far East also used a system named EFEO, now null and void.

At the 20th century, the Chinese linguists proposed many systems of transcription. One of them proposes even new a syllabic Alphabet, it is the 注音符號/注音符号 zhǔyīnfúhào , “symbols phonetic” (or, in a less formal way, bopomofo ). Most profitable of these systems is however the 漢語拼音/汉语拼音 hànyǔ pīnyīn , “method phonetically to spell Mandarin”, more often named pīnyīn , which was accepted like official system of transcription for the Chinese language by the RPC in 1958 and then by the the United Nations like by other international organizations. During the Fifties, one even thought in China, without success, to replace the Chinese characters by the pīnyīn. The thing is indeed not feasible, because of the many cases of Homonymie S in the language, homonymies due to the particular syllabic structure of Mandarin.

One finds this diversity of systems of transcription also in Taiwan. The central government of Taiwan indeed adopted the 通用拼音 tōngyòng pīnyīn in 2002 (alternative of the pīnyīn of RPC) while allowing the local governments not to apply this decision to prefer their own system of romanisation. The zhǔyīn is used for the training of the pronunciation of the characters and grammar in the schools. The efforts aiming at replacing this system in favor of the pīnyīn were blocked because, mainly, of dissensions on the type of pīnyīn to be used in replacement as well as effort very great to provide to correct all the teaching documents existing and to reform the teaching body completely.

Among the other systems of romanisation, one also counts:

the postal pīnyīn (derivative of the Lagging-Gilles);
the romanisation Yale;
the Gwoyeu romatzyh ;
MPS II.

Pronunciation

The role of the standard Mandarin

From an official point of view, standard Mandarin is in theory a Lingua franca - a manner for the Han speaking about the Chinese Langues mutually initelligibles languages, as for the non-Han ethnicities, to communicate together. The name even of " Putonghua" , that is to say " language commune" , this idea reinforces. In practice however, due to the fact that standard Mandarin is a " lingua franca" and a language " publique" , the other languages and dialects, as well Han as non-Han, give signs of loss of popularity vis-a-vis standard Mandarin, with the despair of holding of the regionalistic and local options.

In Taiwan, the Guoyu (" language nationale") continue to be the official term used to indicate standard Mandarin. The term Guoyu from now on is seldom used in continental China, because to declare that the language whose base is the dialect of Beijing is the language of the nation could be badly perceived by the speakers of the other languages spoken. The term Putonghua (spoken common), anything else implies on the contrary only one concept of Lingua franca . However, the term Guoyu persists at many old Chinese of continental China, like in many communities established apart from the territory of China, the term being used in continental China of the time of the République of China, before 1949. To Taiwan, certain promoters of a Taiwanese independence object that the term Guoyu refers to standard Mandarin, and what that has of Chinese, whereas they would even prefer a reference to Taiwan. They qualify it consequently often " dialect of Pékin" or Zhongwen (writing of the Empire of the medium). As for many other aspects of the political life of the Republic of China (Taiwan), same the arguments are sometimes used at different ends according to the protagonists.

In December 2004, the first investigation into the practice of the Chinese language in Popular republic of China revealed that only 53% of its population, are approximately 700 million people, could communicate in standard Mandarin. (China Daily) an investigation carried out in September 2006 gave same the results. ( South Clouded Morning Post )

Adaptation of the foreign words

Chinese, and in particular Mandarin, having few possibilities as for the possible syllables, the speakers of Mandarin have great difficulties in pronounce the words of other languages, all the more when they are rich in continuations of consonants (frequent in the languages of Europe); the syllables which do not conform to the model of Mandarin cannot moreover not being directly written in Chinese characters. There thus exists an official system making it possible to represent the lexical loans by using Chinese characters, which gives however sometimes strange results. It functions according to two extremes: either the word is translated or copied Lexème by lexeme, i.e. semantically, or it is transcribed phonetically by means of characters chosen carefully (from which the direction does not have however to be too far away from the context or whose connotation S are positive when it is about a proper name). There exists also a series of natures stripped of real direction which is used only for the transcription (at the origin, that of terms Sanskrit S clean with Buddhism, frequent in Moyen Chinese). The article Sinogramme details also this question. Moreover, much of words adapted at the origin confined some were then adapted such as they are in Mandarin, by preserving the characters, but while moving away considerably phonetically.

An example: the word telephone was transcribed by delüfeng in the Twenties, but was changed later into a purely Chinese form, 電話/电话 diànhuà , “electric word”. The microphonous word for , however, remained 麥克風/麦克风 màikèfēng which, character with character, does not have any direction (either “corn”, “gram”, “wind”). To note that the picturesque translation 話筒/话筒 huàtǒng , “tube of word”, tends to replace the purely phonetic transcription. Because of the proximity between written Chinese and the Kanji Japanese, Mandarin borrowed many words Japanese drawn from European words adopted at the end of the 19th century and from the beginning of the XXe.

Certain foreign proper names are them directly used as substantives: " MTV" , the American music channel, means " vidéoclip" in the spoken language, just as " mp3" meaning " reader mp3".

This method of incorporation of the foreign words to the Lexicon Chinese not being practical, it is easier for the Chinese to create Néologisme S than to borrow foreign words directly. These neologisms are generally polysyllabic. Often, one of the syllables indicates the general topic made up Mot, proceeded which points out the way in which many Chinese words are themselves made up. For example, the word for “train”, 火車/火车 huǒchē , mean “vehicle literally (functioning with) fire”. The scientific vocabulary, tends to him to inséminer the Greek and Latin morphemes in the Chinese words, which marry - in a certain measurement the Western terminologies. Many very specialized words are used in their original version.

Lexicon

French loans

The French borrowed relatively few words from Mandarin or the other Chinese languages. Let us note however the words Litchi , Ginseng (literally “plant-man”), Mah-jong (“I gain”), and kaolin . This last word comes from two Chinese words meaning “raised hill”, according to the place from where the rock was extracted.

Other words keep a strong resemblance but evolved/moved slightly with the languages of the people which brought them to France, like Badiane ( bajiu , by the Persan), Tofu ( doufu , by the Japanese) or Soja ( shiyu , also via Japanese) or Ketchup ( koechiap , in the dialect of Amoy by the Malayan and the English).

Sinogramme ;
Chinese antiquated;
Chinese traditional;
Chinese spoken;
Pronunciation of Mandarin;
Grammar of Mandarin;
Chinese Languages.
Swadesh List of Mandarin (Chinese characters + pīnyīn)

To learn Mandarin

Free Audio Base of Chinese Words
basic Chinese sentences and the vocabulary used usually. Dictionary French-Mandarin.
Method of Chinese 40 lessons on line and free to learn how to speak, read and write Chinese Mandarin.
To learn and listen to practical Mandarin expressions (with audio and illustrations)
Chinese Forum Translation, interactive assistances, any level.
Re-examined bilingual " Xiao Douzi" , teaching Chinese and French review.
Xinhua Net, lessons of the Chinese news agency

Dictionaries on line

Chinese Dictionary (Mandarin) French Chinese research, pinyin or French.
Dictionary Chinese-French-English
Dictionary Chinese Multilingual Chinese, French, English, Spanish, German,…
chinese-english Dictionary of the University Yale

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