# Various dialects of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar encountered as one moves from place to place. These regional differences are as pronounced as the regional versions of the English language found in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States. A northeastern dialect speaker and a southwestern dialect speaker can hardly communicate.
# Standard Mandarin has been promoted very actively by the , the , and Singapore as a second language. As a result, native speakers of both Mandarin varieties and non-Mandarin Chinese varieties frequently flavor it with a strong infusion of the speech sounds of their native tongues. , for instance, has become a fairly consistent variant of standard Mandarin as defined by educational authorities. Mandarin is also sometimes imprecisely referred to as Beijingese , or a "Beijing drawl" ''Jīng piànzi'' . Taiwanese sometimes using the term ''Beijing hua'' instead of ''Guoyu'' , especially for those people who advocate that Taiwanese should be one of their official languages.
Dialect division
Generally speaking, the local pronunciations of people from other Mandarin-speaking areas depart more and more from the standard as distance from Beijing increases. Some areas, such as Heilongjiang, have pronunciations that are not significantly different from the standard, though this is the exception rather than the rule. Cities very close to Beijing, such as Tianjin, Baoding, Shenyang, or Dalian, already have pronunciations that are markedly different. In general Mandarin can be divided into the following dialect areas:
* Beijing and environs, such as Chengde, Hebei. The basis of Standard Mandarin. Areas of recent large-scale immigration such as northern Xinjiang speak Standard Mandarin or something very close to it; hence the dialects of those areas are also classified as within the Beijing dialect group.
* , or that spoken in the northeast of China , except the Liaodong Peninsula
* , or that spoken in Hebei and Shandong provinces, except the Jiaodong Peninsula
* , or that spoken in Peninsula and Liaodong Peninsula
* , or that spoken in Henan province, the central parts of Shaanxi in the Yellow River valley, and southern Xinjiang
* , or that spoken in Gansu province and Ningxia autonomous region , as well as northern Xinjiang. The Dungan language, a Chinese-derived language spoken in Kyrgyzstan, also belongs to this category
* Southwestern, or that spoken in the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and the Mandarin-speaking areas of Guangxi
* Jiang-huai , spoken in the parts of Jiangsu and Anhui on the north bank of the , as well as some areas on the south bank, such as Nanjing, Jiangsu; Jiujiang, Jiangxi; etc.
In addition, is sometimes categorized under Mandarin, as the Qin-jin subdivision. However, current practice tends to set it apart as a separate division on equal footing with Mandarin.
See List of Chinese dialects for a comprehensive listing of major Chinese dialects, including Mandarin dialects.
Phonology
Due to differences in pronunciation, not all variations of spoken Mandarin are readily mutually intelligible. Specifically, according to SIL International :
:''Mandarin varieties in the Lower Plateau in Shaanxi are not readily intelligible with Putonghua . Mandarin varieties of Guilin and Kunming are inherently unintelligible to speakers of Putonghua.''
In addition, persons speaking forms of Mandarin which are not completely intelligible with Standard Mandarin will often conceptualize their speech as distinct from Standard Mandarin. Educated speakers of the official language of instruction living in southwestern cities such as Guilin and Kunming will be found to speak quite adequate Standard Mandarin, as well as their own mother tongue. However, they will conceptualize their mother tongue to be different from Standard Mandarin.
In addition, it is not uncommon for two speakers who both think of themselves as speaking Standard Mandarin to find it difficult to understand each other.
Initials
A generalized table for the initials of the Mandarin dialects is as follows. Initials not present in Standard Mandarin are inside parentheses.
* The retroflex initials are missing in many dialects of Manchuria and southern China, where they are replaced by the alveolar sibilants . This is also common in the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. Most other Mandarin-speaking areas do distinguish between the retroflex and alveolar sibilants, but they are often in different distribution than in Standard Mandarin.
* The alveolo-palatal sibilants are the result of merger between the historical palatalized velars and palatalized alveolar sibilants . In about 20% of dialects, the alveolar sibilants failed to palatalize, remaining separate from the alveolo-palatal initials. On the other side, in some dialects of eastern Shandong, the velar initials have failed to palatalize.
* Many southwestern Mandarin dialects mix ''f-'' and ''hu-'' , substituting one for the other in some or all cases. For example, ''fei'' "to fly" and ''hui'' "dust" may be merged in these areas.
* In some dialects, initial and are not distinguished. In Southwestern Mandarin, these sounds usually merge to ; in Jianghuai Mandarin, they usually merge to .
* People in many parts of Mandarin-speaking areas use different initial sounds some or most of the time where standard Mandarin uses initial ''r-'' . Common alternatives include ''y-'', ''l-'', ''n-'', and ''w-'' .
* , and , used as initials in earlier forms of Chinese, have merged with the zero initial in most dialects of Mandarin.
* Many dialects of Northwestern and Central Plains Mandarin have where standard Mandarin has . Thus, "pig" for standard Mandarin , "water" for standard Mandarin , "soft" for standard Mandarin , and so forth.
Finals
* In many widely scattered Mandarin dialects, ''ai ei ao ou'' are pronounced as monophthongs .
* Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin underwent more vowel mergers than many other varieties of Mandarin. For example:
:Standard Mandarin finals such as ''e'', ''o'', ''ai'', ''ei'', ''ao'', ''u'', ''üe'', and ''ie'' often turn up unpredictably as other vowels in other dialects. The rules are complex and are the result of Middle Chinese phonology undergoing divergent development in different Mandarin dialects.
* The medial ''-u-'' , occurring with an alveolar consonant, is often lost in southwestern Mandarin. Hence we get ''dei'' "right" where standard Mandarin has ''dui'' , ''ten'' "swallow" where standard Mandarin has ''tun'' .
* Southwestern Mandarin have ''gai kai hai'' in a few words where standard Mandarin has ''jie qie xie'' . This is a stereotypical feature of southwestern Mandarin, since it is so easily noticeable. E.g. ''hai'' "shoe" for standard ''xie'', ''gai'' "street" for standard ''jie''.
* In some areas final ''-ng'' changes into ''-n'' . This is especially prevalent in the rhyme pairs ''-en/-eng'' and ''-in/-ing'' . As a result, ''jīn'' "gold" and ''jīng'' "capital" merge in those dialects.
* Some dialects of Mandarin have a final glottal stop in certain words. See the second point under "Tones", below.
* , a characteristic feature of Mandarin, works quite differently in the southwest. Whereas standard Mandarin generally tends to remove only final /j/ or /n/ when adding the rhotic final ''-r'' , in the southwest the ''-r'' replaces the nearly the entire rhyme.
Tones
* In general, no two Mandarin-speaking areas have the exact same set of values. On the other hand, most Mandarin-speaking areas have very similar tone ''distribution'' -- for example, the dialects of Jinan, Chengdu, Xi'an etc. all have 4 tones that correspond quite well to the Beijing tones of , , , and . The exception to this rule lies in the distribution of ancient entering tone words, which are treated differently in different dialects of Mandarin.
* The entering tone, a tone of Middle Chinese, is kept in Jianghuai dialects and a minority of Southwestern dialects. It has short duration compared to the other tones, and wherever it occurs, the syllable ends with a glottal stop . This is in common with non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese, such as and . Older dictionaries such as ''Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary'' mark entering tone characters with a superscript 5.
* Standard Mandarin employs many neutral tones for the second syllables of words -- this is also characteristic of northern dialects. However, in many areas, especially in the south, the tones of both syllables are made clear -- this is also characteristic of non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese in the south.
Tone distribution variation:
V- = obstruent unvoiced initial consonant
L = sonorant voiced initial consonant
V+ = obstruent voiced initial consonant
Tone contour variation:
* Dialects in and around the Nantong area typically have many more than 4 tones, due to influence from the neighbouring .
Vocabulary
In general, the greatest variation occurs in slang, in kinship terms, in names for common crops and domesticated beasts, for common verbs and adjectives, and other such everyday terms. The least variation occurs in "formal" vocabulary -- terms dealing with science, law, or government.
Northeastern Mandarin, in particular, has a number of borrowings from Altaic languages not shared by other varieties of Mandarin.
Grammar
Sentence-final particles
Especially prominent in conversational Chinese, sentence-final particles alter the inherent meaning of a sentence by changing its sentence construction. Much like vocabulary , particles can vary a great deal with regards to the locale. For example, the particle 嘛 , which is used in most northern regionalects to denote obviousness or contention, is replaced by 哟 for southern usage. More examples persist in everyday colloquialism.
Reduplication
One feature of southwestern Mandarin is its frequent use of noun reduplication, which is almost not used in standard Mandarin. In Sichuan, one hears ''baobao'' "handbag" whereas Beijing uses ''bao'r''.
Mandarin and the Educational System
In both Mainland China and Taiwan, Mandarin is taught by immersion starting in elementary school. After the second grade, the entire educational system is in Mandarin, except for local language classes that have been taught for a few hours each week in Taiwan starting in the mid-1990s.
Social Implications
In northern China, Sichuan, and other areas where the "Northern" language is spoken, the local variations of Mandarin are the mother tongues of most of the people who live in those regions. The era of mass education in Mandarin has not erased these earlier regional differences. In the south, the interaction between Mandarin and local variations of Chinese has produced local versions of the "Northern" language that are rather different from that official standard Mandarin in both pronunciation and grammar. For example, the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan by students who speak Taiwanese or Hakka as their mother tongue is usually spoken with a grammar and accent that renders it different from the Kuoyu standard, creating a version of Mandarin commonly known as Taiwanese Mandarin. Similarly in Singapore, the multi-cultural populance as well as large representative groups of various southern Chinese dialect groups has resulted in modifications to its of Mandarin.
Although Mandarin is considered the standard dialect, speaking Mandarin without the local accent or speaking Mandarin instead of the local dialect can mark a person as being an outsider or as someone who is not "a regular guy." Thus most Chinese, including Chinese political leaders themselves, do not bother to learn to speak Mandarin with the official standard accent. In some cases, such as with both Mao Zedong, whose native dialect was Xiang and Chiang Kai-Shek, whos native dialect was Wu , this results in the political leaders' speech being largely unintelligible to large numbers of Chinese. One other consequence of this linguistic diversity, is that Chinese politics does not have a strong tradition of -making and a great amount of political discourse occurs in writing.
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