Kunming dialect explained

Kunming dialect
States:China
Region:Yunnan
Speakers:?
Familycolor:Sino-Tibetan
Fam2:Sinitic
Fam3:Chinese
Fam4:Mandarin
Fam5:Southwestern
Isoexception:dialect
Linglist:cmn-kun
Glotto:kunm1234
Glottorefname:Kunming Chinese

The Kunming dialect is a dialect of Southwestern Mandarin Chinese. Luo Changpei describes it as having "simple phonemes, elegant vocabulary, and clear grammar."

Beginnings

The beginnings of the Kunming dialect are closely linked with the migration of the Han Chinese to Yunnan. The differences between "old" Kunming dialect and the "new" dialect began in the 1940s. In the aftermath of the Second Sino-Japanese War, large numbers of refugees from the north of China and the Jiangnan region fled to Kunming, with profound effects for the politics, economy and culture of the city. This large influx of outsiders also had an influence on the local dialect, which slowly developed into the "new" Kunming dialect.

Learning

The tones, pronunciation, and lexicon are distinct between Northern Mandarin and Kunming dialect.[1]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Pragmatics: quarterly publication of the International Pragmatics Association, Volume 12 . 2002 . International Pragmatics Association . The Association . 187 . The differences between Kunming Chinese and the Northern Mandarin (or Mandarin in short, with Beijing dialect as the representative) mainly lie in the tones of words, the tone values of the tones, the lexicon, and the different pronunciations of some words. . 23 September 2011. (the University of Michigan)