| Changsha dialect | |
| Nativename: | 长沙话 pronounced as /tsã˩˧sɔ˧ɣo˨˩/ |
| States: | China |
| Region: | Changsha, Hunan province |
| Date: | no date |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Sinitic |
| Fam3: | Chinese |
| Fam4: | Xiang |
| Fam5: | New Xiang (Chang-Yi) |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Linglist: | hsn-cha |
| Glotto: | chan1326 |
| Glottorefname: | Changsha |
| Notice: | IPA |
The Changsha dialect is a dialect of New Xiang Chinese. It is spoken predominantly in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, China. It is not mutually intelligible with Standard Mandarin, the official language of China.
The Changsha dialect is what Chinese dialectologists would call a New Xiang variety, as opposed to Old Xiang; the distinction is mainly based on the presence of the Middle Chinese voiced plosives and affricates. The Old Xiang varieties, being more conservative, have in general kept them while the New Xiang ones have altogether lost them and changed them to voiceless unaspirated consonants. Although most Chinese dialectologists treat New Xiang as part of the group, Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie classify it as Southwestern Mandarin.[1]
The Changsha dialect is spoken in the city of Changsha and its neighbouring suburbs. However, there are some slight differences between the urban and suburban speech. For instance, the retroflex set is only heard in the suburbs, but not in the city. Further, some words have a different final in the two varieties.
There are no substantial differences between dialects in the neighbourhoods of Changsha; however, age dialects do exist. For example, the distinction between alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants is only made by the elderly while the younger generations do not normally distinguish them. The finals pronounced as /[-oŋ]/ and pronounced as /[-ioŋ]/ have become pronounced as /[-ən]/ and pronounced as /[-in]/ in the younger speech. Also, the initial consonant pronounced as /[ɲ]/ in the elderly's and middled-aged's speech is either dropped altogether or changed to pronounced as /[l]/.
The Changsha dialect, together with other New Xiang varieties, has lost the Middle Chinese obstruents, which are changed to voiceless unaspirated consonants. It has also lost all the final plosives found in the rù tone in Middle Chinese.
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless unaspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| voiceless aspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless unaspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| aspirated | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| voiced | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Lateral approximant | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| pronounced as /-/∅ | pronounced as /-i/ | pronounced as /-u/ | pronounced as /-a/ | pronounced as /-n/ | Nasal | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ∅- | pronounced as /o/ | pronounced as /ɤ/ | pronounced as /ɪ/ | pronounced as /õ/ | ||||||||||||||
| i- | pronounced as /ei/ | pronounced as /io/ | pronounced as /iɛ/ | pronounced as /i/ | pronounced as /iəu/ | pronounced as /iau/ | pronounced as /ia/ | pronounced as /ian/ | pronounced as /in/ | pronounced as /iɛ̃/ | ||||||||
| u- | pronounced as /uɤ/ | pronounced as /uɑ/ | pronounced as /u/ | pronounced as /uai/ | pronounced as /uei/ | pronounced as /uan/ | pronounced as /uən/ | |||||||||||
| y- | pronounced as /yɛ/ | pronounced as /y/ | pronounced as /yai/ | pronounced as /yei/ | pronounced as /ya/ | pronounced as /yan/ | pronounced as /yn/ | pronounced as /yɛ̃/ | ||||||||||
| ə- | pronounced as /əu/ | pronounced as /ən/ | ||||||||||||||||
| a- | pronounced as /a/ | pronounced as /ai/ | pronounced as /au/ | pronounced as /an/ | ||||||||||||||
| C- | pronounced as /ɤ̃/ | |||||||||||||||||
Changsha has 6 tones, which are neutralized in syllables ending in a stop.
| Tone number | Description | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | yin ping (陰平) | pronounced as /˧/ (3) or pronounced as /ā/ | mid | |
| 2 | yang ping (陽平) | pronounced as /˩˧/ (13) or pronounced as /ǎ/ | rising | |
| 3 | shang sheng (上聲) | pronounced as /˦˩/ (41) or pronounced as /â/ | falling | |
| 4 | yin qu (陰去) | pronounced as /˥/ (5) or pronounced as /á/ | high | |
| 5 | yang qu (陽去) | pronounced as /˨˩/ (21) or pronounced as /à/ | low | |
| 6 | ru sheng (入聲) | pronounced as /˨˦ʔ/ (24) or pronounced as /aʔ/ | checked |