Pinghua Explained
| Pinghua |
| Imagecaption: | Pinghua written in Chinese characters |
| Imagescale: | 0.7 |
| States: | China, Vietnam |
| Ethnicity: | Han, Zhuang, San Chay |
| Speakers: | 7+ million |
| Date: | 2016 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Sinitic |
| Fam3: | Chinese |
| Dialect Label: | Varieties |
| Dia1: | Northern Pinghua |
| Dia2: | Southern Pinghua |
| Map: | Idioma ping.png |
| Lc1: | cnp |
| Ld1: | Northern |
| Lc2: | csp |
| Ld2: | Southern |
| Glotto: | ping1245 |
| Glottorefname: | Pinghua |
| Lingua: | 79-AAA-o |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Module: | | Child: | yes | | Headercolor: | | | Pinghua | | T: | 平話 | | S: | 平话 | | T2: | 廣西平話 | | S2: | 广西平话 | | P: | Pínghuà | | Y: | Pìhng Wá | | P2: | Guǎngxī Pínghuà | | Y2: | Gwóngsāi Pìhng Wá | | Showflag: | jyp |
|
Pinghua is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of Guangxi, with some speakers in Hunan. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Guangxi, spoken as a second language by speakers of Zhuang languages. Some speakers are officially classified as Zhuang, and many are genetically distinct from most other Han Chinese.[2] The northern subgroup is centered on Guilin and the southern subgroup around Nanning. The Southern dialect has several notable features such as having four distinct checked tones, and using various loanwords from the Zhuang languages, such as the final particle wei for imperative sentences.
History
Historically, Pinghua is associated with the earliest Han Chinese migrants who entered Guangxi via Hunan in the 1st millennium AD. The name is said to derive from the Pingnan Jun (平南軍, "Pacify the South Army"), a Northern Song-era army led by Di Qing in the 11th century.[3]
Classification
Language surveys in Guangxi during the 1950s recorded varieties of Chinese that had been included in the Yue dialect group but were different from those in Guangdong. Pinghua was designated as a separate dialect group from Yue by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the 1980s[4] and since then has been treated as a separate dialect in textbooks and surveys.[5]
Since designation as a separate dialect group, Pinghua has been the focus of increased research. In 2008 a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences of research into Chinese varieties noted an increase in research papers and surveys of Pinghua, from 7 before the 1987 publication of the Language Atlas of China based on the revised classification, and about 156 between then and 2004.[6]
In the 1980s the number of speakers was listed as over 2 million; and by 2016 as 7 million.[7]
Dialects
Pinghua is generally divided into two mutually unintelligible languages:[8]
- Northern Pinghua (Chinese: 桂北平话) is spoken in northern Guangxi, around the city of Guilin, in close proximity with Southwest Mandarin dialects.
- Southern Pinghua (Chinese: 桂南平话) is spoken in southern Guangxi, around the city of Nanning. These varieties form a dialect continuum with Yue varieties spoken in that part of Guangxi (excluding enclaves of Cantonese, such as in Nanning).[9] Yu Jin subdivides this group into three types:[10]
The Zheyuan people of Funing County, Yunnan speak a form of Pinghua. They are located in Dongbo and Guichao, and they migrated from Nanning.
Phonology
Nanning Pinghua has a voiceless lateral fricative pronounced as /link/ for Middle Chinese pronounced as //s// or pronounced as //z//, for example in the numbers pronounced as //ɬam// "three" and pronounced as //ɬi// "four".[11] [12] This is unlike Standard Cantonese but like some other Yue varieties such as Taishanese.
Tones
Southern Pinghua has six contrasting tones in open syllables, and four in checked syllables,[13] as found in neighbouring Yue varieties such as the Bobai dialect.
Tones of Nanning Pinghua| Tone name | Level
Chinese: 平 | Rising
Chinese: 上 | Departing
Chinese: 去 | Entering
Chinese: 入 |
|---|
Upper
Chinese: 陰 | Chinese: 高 | 52 pronounced as /[˥˨]/ | 33 pronounced as /[˧]/ | 55 pronounced as /[˥]/ | 5 pronounced as /[˥]/ |
|---|
| Chinese: 低 | 3 pronounced as /[˧]/ |
|---|
Lower
Chinese: 陽 | Chinese: 高 | 21 pronounced as /[˨˩]/ | 24 pronounced as /[˨˦]/ | 22 pronounced as /[˨]/ | 23 pronounced as /[˨˧]/ |
|---|
| Chinese: 低 | 2 pronounced as /[˨]/ | |
|---|
The split of the lower entering tone is determined by the initial consonant, with the low rising contour occurring after sonorant initials.[14]
Genetic profile
Genetically, Pinghua speakers have more in common with non-Han ethnic groups in southern China, as opposed to other Han groups.
Further reading
- Xie Jianyou [谢建猷], et al. 2007. Studies on the Han Chinese dialects of Guangxi [广西汉语方言研究]. Nanning: Guangxi People's Publishing House [广西人民出版社].
- 《广西通志·汉语方言志》(续编)课题组 (2013). 广西通志·汉语方言志：续编．第二篇，平话. Nanning: 广西人民出版社.
- 《广西通志·汉语方言志》(续编)课题组 (2013). 广西通志·汉语方言志：续编．第五篇，桂北土话. Nanning: 广西人民出版社.
- Book: Sousa . Hilário de . Pínghuà 平話 Dialects . 2017 . http://hilario.bambooradical.com/downloadables/de-Sousa-2016-Pinghua-of-Guangxi-draft-20120820.pdf . 10.1163/2210-7363_ecll_COM_00000332 . Sybesma . Rint . Behr . Wolfgang . Gu . Yueguo . Handel . Zev . Huang . C.-T. James . Myers . James . Encyclopedia of Chinese language and linguistics . 3 . 425–431 . Leiden . Brill . 978-90-04-18643-9 .
- Book: Sousa . Hilário de . The Far Southern Sinitic languages as part of Mainland Southeast Asia . 2015 . 10.1515/9781501501685-009 . http://hilario.bambooradical.com/downloadables/de-Sousa-2015-Far-Southern-Sinitic-as-MSEA-draft-20140919.pdf . Enfield . N.J. . Comrie . Bernard . Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The state of the art . Pacific Linguistics . 649 . 356–439 . Berlin . De Gruyter Mouton . 978-1-5015-0169-2 .
External links
Notes and References
- Book: Chappell . Hilary . The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language . Li . Lan . 2016 . Routledge . 978-1-317-38249-2 . Chan . Sin-Wai . Oxon . 605–628 . Mandarin and Other Sinitic Languages.
- Gan . Rui-Jing . Pan . Shang-Ling . Mustavich . Laura F. . Qin . Zhen-Dong . Cai . Xiao-Yun . Qian . Ji . Liu . Cheng-Wu . Peng . Jun-Hua . Li . Shi-Lin . Xu . Jie-Shun . Jin . Li . 3 . 2008 . Pinghua Population as an Exception of Han Chinese's Coherent Genetic Structure . Journal of Human Genetics . 53 . 4 . 303–313 . 10.1007/s10038-008-0250-x . 18270655 . free . Hui . Li . The Genographic Consortium.
- de Sousa, Hilário. 2020. On Pinghua, and Yue: Some historical and linguistic perspectives. Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Asian Interactions 19(2). 257–295.
- Book: Hsing, Fu-I 邢福义 . Xiàndài Hànyǔ . 1991 . Gaodeng jiaoyu chubanshe . 7-04-002652-X . Beijing . zh . zh:现代汉语 . Modern Chinese.
- Book: Maria . Kurpaska . Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects" . . 2010 . 978-3-11-021914-2 . 55–56, 76 .
- Web site: [cass report by 王宏宇] ]. zh-Hans. April 2008
- Book: Yu, Jin 余瑾 . Guǎngxī Pínghuà yánjiū . 2016 . Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe . 978-7-5161-8896-5 . Beijing . 24 . zh . zh:广西平话研究.
- Book: Chappell . Hilary . The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language . Li . Lan . 2016 . Routledge . 978-1-317-38249-2 . Chan . Sin-Wai . Oxon . 624 . Mandarin and Other Sinitic Languages.
- Book: Hilário . de Sousa . Language contact in Nanning: Nanning Pinghua and Nanning Cantonese . 157–189 . Diversity in Sinitic Languages . Hilary M. . Chappell . Oxford University Press . 2016 . 978-0-19-872379-0 . p. 162.
- de Sousa (2016), p. 160.
- Book: Yan . Margaret Mian . Introduction to Chinese Dialectology . LINCOM Europa . 2006 . 978-3-89586-629-6 . 204 .
- Web site: Learn a language the most natural way - Glossika. Ai.glossika.com. 16 January 2019.
- Book: Nánníng Pínghuà cídiǎn . zh:南宁平话词典 . Nanning Pinghua Dictionary . Tan . Yuanxiong 覃远雄 . Wei . Shuguan 韦树关 . Bian . Chenglin 卞成林 . Nanning . Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe . 1997 . 978-7-5343-3119-0 . 6 . (part of the Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects, edited by Li Rong)
- Gina . Lee . Comparative, Diachronic and Experimental Perspectives on the Interaction Between Tone and the Vowel in Standard Cantonese . Ph.D. . Ohio State University . 1993 . 75–76 .
