Pinghua
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Pinghua | ||
|---|---|---|
| 廣西平話 | ||
| Spoken in | China | |
| Region | Guangxi | |
| Total speakers | 5,800,000 | |
| Language family | Sino-Tibetan
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1 | zh | |
| ISO 639-2 | chi (B) | zho (T) |
| ISO 639-3 | yue | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Pinghua (traditional Chinese: 平話; simplified Chinese: 平话 Pínghuà, sometimes disambiguated as 廣西平話/广西平话 Guǎngxī Pínghuà) is a variety of Chinese, spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Guangxi, where it is spoken as a second language by native speakers of Zhuang. Some native speakers of Pinghua are officially classified as Zhuang. Northern sub-dialect of Pinghua is centered around Guilin, and southern sub-dialect is centered around Nanning city.
Pinghua has several notable features. It retains the four entering tones of ancient Chinese as closed syllables. Pinghua uses various loan words from Zhuang, such as the final particle "wei" for imperative sentences.
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[edit] History
Pinghua, formerly considered by default as a subdivision of Cantonese, was designated as a separate dialect from Cantonese by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the 1980's [1] and since then has been treated as a separate dialect in textbooks and surveys. However, Pinghua is not at present noted separately in ethnologue.The designation as a separate dialect has led to increased research in Pinghua. In 2008 a report by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences of research into Chinese dialects noted an increase in research papers and surveys of Pinghua, from 7 before the publication of the revised Chinese dialect map in 1987, and about 156 between then and 2004 [2].
In the 1980's the number of speakers listed as over 2 million[3], however according to a 21st century survey it is spoken by 5 million people as either a first or second language.
[edit] Phonology
[edit] Tones
Pinghua has 6 main tones, and 4 entering tones, as with all Chinese dialects there is some variation of pitch of tones. The table below shows the tones for Nanning Pinghua[4].
| 陰平 | 陽平 | 陰上 | 陽上 | 陰去 | 陽去 | 上陰入 | 上陽入 | 下陰入 | 下陽入 |
| 53 | 21 | 33 | 24 | 55 | 22 | 5 | 23 | 3 | 2 |
[edit] Anthropological
Genetically speaking Pinghua speakers have more in common with non-Han ethnic minorities in southern China than with other Han groups, a result underlined by a recent article entitled "Pinghua population as an exception of Han Chinese’s coherent genetic structure".
[edit] References
- ^ 现代汉语 "Modern Chinese" ISBN 7-04-002652-X page 15
- ^ cass report by 王宏宇 in Chinese April 2008 http://sym2005.cass.cn/file/20080415120275.html
- ^ 现代汉语 "Modern Chinese" ISBN 7-04-002652-X page 21
- ^ 南寧平話詞典 Nanning Pinghua Dictionary ISBN 7534331196 page 6
[edit] External links
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