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[Guest post from Sima]In the recent post Does the Beijing-R mean anything? syz gave us an example of 儿化 (érhuà) making the distinction between two words:
The érhuàyīn 儿化音 really does change things. In the first example it’s an actual difference in meaning: tāng 汤 and tāngr 汤儿 simply refer to two different liquids. The former means broth/soup, while the latter is the liquid that comes with your non-soup dishes, something cooked out of the meat or vegetables that you might spoon onto your rice. Sauce / gravy, perhaps, but incidental — not consciously made for the purpose of being sauce by itself.
This produced a merry old discussion about how érhuà 儿化 relates the meaning of different words, but buried in the original post was this:
As a bonus, in one of the examples today, tāngr 汤儿, the Beijing-R fuses with an /ng/, turning it into a truly sublime consonant. Even the spelling /ngr/ doesn’t quite do it justice, because the /r/ is so thoroughly mixed in with the /ng/ that it really becomes it’s own special sound.
Being a bit of a bright spark, I promptly suggested syz record examples of tānr and tāngr so that we could hear the difference. Being a somewhat brighter spark, he suggested I do it myself. So, for what follows, please address your complaints accordingly.
What is the difference between /-nr/ and /-ngr/?
If you’ve bothered to read this far, it’s pretty likely you’re aware that the pīnyīn /a/ represents a number of slightly different sounds. If you say: 摊(tān), 他(tā), 汤(tāng) you should note that the tongue moves from the front to the back of the mouth. So this group of words is not ideal for checking out the difference between the 儿化 forms (tānr, tār, tāngr) — there will always be something else going on to distract us.
In light of this, 梨 (lí), 林 (lín) and 铃 (líng) seem to be much more helpful; the /i/ sound remains pretty much the same. Checking with a couple of native speakers, it appears that these three words can, and frequently do, 儿化 (érhuà), though it might not be easy to find them on their own. Much better to use 白梨 (báilí, white pear), 树林 (shùlín, woods, grove) and 响铃 (xiǎnglíng, jingle bell).
At this point you may be saying, ‘Hold yer horses. I thought this was about the difference between /-nr/ and /-ngr/. Why the three words?’ Well…the 儿 sound seems to replace the final consonant, where there is one, so given that 梨 (lí) can also 儿化, it should give us some kind of reference point.
Now, bear in mind that syz demands authenticity. It’s one thing to grab a recording of something interesting and try to work out what’s going on, but quite another to set out to get ‘in the wild’ recordings of particular words. To this end, and with rather limited imagination, I did a quick image search on the three words and came up with these:
OK. Those really are white pears and not apples. As for the bells, the bells…neither picture is great. Obviously, I should have found a little bell to actually ring in people’s faces. But I figured that one of the pictures may draw the desired response.
Two subjects agreed to be recorded, albeit initially under false pretences. Both 东北人 (dōngběirén), North-easterners – the 儿化 pronunciation here should be pretty similar to Beijing folk, but you’re welcome to grab your own recordings to make the comparison.
Subject 1: sex – male; occupation – sports coach; age – 30
Subject 2: sex – female; occupation – retired music teacher; age – too polite to ask
Each was shown a series of pictures and the question was either, ‘What’s this?’, or ‘Say what you see’ (for all you game show fans).
Pears
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Man:
这是梨啊？
zhè shì lí a?
This is a pear? (OK, I’m not quite sure what’s going on with that ‘a’ 啊.)
Woman:
白梨吧
báilí ba
A white pear, right?
Woods
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Man:
这应该在树林里。
zhè yīnggāi zài shùlín li.
This seems to be in the woods.
Woman:
那就树林呗。
nà jiù shùlín bei.
Well, that’s woods, isn’t it.
Jingle Bells
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Man:
铃铃铃
línglínglíng
ding-a-ling-a-ling
Woman:
那个是闹铃。
nàge shì nàolíng
That’s an alarm bell. (?)
So, there you have it from the sounds ‘in the wild’. Not an /r/ to be heard. In each case, after the recording, the subjects confirmed that each of the words often 儿化. 白梨 may depend on the size of the pear – a small one would definitely receive the /r/. 树林, may again receive an /r/, especially if a relatively small grove or wood, but Subject 1 said that 森林 (sēnlín, forest) would certainly not. Both subjects felt that 响铃 should 儿化, but neither had produced the word anyway, probably because my pictures were not ideal. Oh dear.
You may now be saying, ‘Why the hell didn’t you just leave the recording running?’ Good point. Looks like, as a linguistic field researcher, I have quite a lot to learn.
Prompted sentence
Anyway, I’d prepared a sentence to be read from the page and, whilst this is not quite in the true spirit of BJShengr, it might help us hear what’s going on with that pesky /-ngr/ ending.
在树林儿里，吃着小白梨儿的时候，突然听到了一阵响铃儿。
wǒ zài shùlínr li, chīzhe xiǎo báilír de shíhou, tūrán tīngdàole yīzhèn xiǎnglíngr.
I was sitting in the woods, eating a small white pear, when suddenly I heard a bell jingle.
Man:
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Woman:
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OK. Both pretty clear. Incidentally, I love the music in the background while the old lady is speaking. I guess the TV must have been on, but I confess I didn’t notice at the time. If I were to broadcast this back home I’d be accused of propping up the old stereotype of the mysterious East.
You might note that the second speaker pronounces /shu/ as /su/. This is a pretty common feature of local pronunciation up here in 东北 (dōngběi) but, strangely, her /zhen/ doesn’t become /zen/.
In isolation
Back to matters in hand. I think we need to concentrate on the desired syllables. Here are all of them next to each other, and then isolated down below:
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梨儿 lír, 林儿 línr, 铃儿 língr
Now, I’m in trouble. I’ve led you on this far, in the promise of unlocking the mystery of that wonderful /-ngr/ ending, but must fess up. I’m suddenly not quite sure what’s going on here.
Here’s what I think I hear:
/lir/
- man, then woman:
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- both subjects make it shorter than /linr. Why?
- I think I hear a very light schwa /ə/ (the ‘a’ in about), but…
/linr/
- man, then woman:
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- there’s no /n/ here
- there is a schwa before the /r/ (just audible in the pure /lin/ too)
/lingr/
- man, then woman:
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- the /i/ seems to be nasal
- there is a nasal schwa after the /i/
- the /r/ seems to be almost absent
- there’s something consonant-like in the final position — is it syz’s ’sublime sound’?
- it feels a little as though they quit on this, as the final syllable of the sentence
What I thought I was going to hear…well, I’ll spare you that.
What do you hear?
[Guest post from Sima]
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Comments 8
Hi Sima. This sh -> s phenomenon is pretty widespread. I think I just read about it in DeFrancis’s Chinese language fact and fantasy book but maybe I’m traveling and don’t have the book in front of me to look up the reference. Come to think of it, that’s the observation I was making about the SHE singer’s pronunciation in the most recent BJS post.
My intuition is that zh -> z is less common, but maybe I’m wrong. You don’t hear either from Beijingers, except when they’re trying to be funny, so my exposure is limited. Is zh -> z a phenomenon you often observe in the great northeast, or were you just making it up as analogous to sh-s?
Posted 18 Feb 2008 at 4:07 am ¶syz,”don’t hear either from Beijingers, except when they’re trying to be funny”
Is this funny in a mocking-the-country-bumpkin way?
I’m a little surprised (though I’ve no good reason to be) that real Beijingers don’t do this. From what I can glean talking to outsiders here, it’s much the same in many parts of the country. One friend from well down south proudly told me how well his daughter was doing at primary school and how she knew which words were /sh/ and which were /s/ – he bet I couldn’t do the same and was somewhat crestfallen when clearly could.
I wonder whether this is an aspect of Beijing pronunciation which made the cut, as it were, for putonghua, even though it was absent from many other dialects.
I guess there are plenty of English dialects which make do with a reduced number of phonemes – certainly there are vowels which disappear – but English has so many more possible syllables to play with.
Up here I certainly here plenty of zh->z and ch->c as well as sh->s, and it seems logical that all three would behave in the same way. I guess I’d just assumed that if somebody did it with one, they’d do it with all. But now I think about it, you may be right. sh->s may well be more common than the others. I will have to pay more attention.
What about the ‘lingr’ pronunciation – are you going to tell me how it sounds to your ears? Is it just the nasalised vowel which distinguishes it from ‘linr’ or are you going to patent the ’sublime consonant’ theory?
Posted 18 Feb 2008 at 5:55 am ¶Hi Sima,
1. Beijingers saying s instead of sh as a joke
I’m not sure if this is mocking or not. I tend to think not. The example I most often hear is my six-year-old daughter doing what I would describe as a mock-Shanghai accent. Maybe I’ll try to record it sometime. Her cousin age 8, at least a fifth-generation Beijinger, does the same thing.
2. So is there any difference between -r, -nr and -ngr?
The only one I hear in these examples is that -ngr does sound different to me. I can’t hear anything different between lir and linr out of context though.
Now is -ngr a consonant or vowel? Wow, I’m not sure I know. We need someone with some heavy phonetics background to give advice. I’ll see if I can find someone. As a layman I’m tempted to use Wikipedia’s present definition of a consonant as guidance: “articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract”. I think that would qualify it as a consonant, since -r is a consonant by that standard and so is -ng and -ngr is just somewhere in between, right?
Posted 22 Feb 2008 at 5:59 am ¶Regrettably,after two serious head injuries and some auditory and neurological damage I am unable to comment with any authority on the subtle differences in pronunciation.Since,however,it now appears that these will be be some of the last postings under the clearly and prominently-visible Beijing Sounds Blog Banner I’d like to offer a plea for the energetic continuation of the subject matter.I personally appreciate all the effort which went into it and,in no way,am criticizing the restructuring of the website.I’m only pointing out that the headlineed Beijing Sounds did attract those particularly inclined to talk about the things we did talk about.I hope they still will and that all the collorary efforts in other places will quickly bear fruit.I continue to hope that some of my suggestions in academia will result in more courses in Language and Anthropology/Sociology spheres which addresss indiginous Beijing speech and folk culture! Good luck to all of us in the New Year!
Posted 24 Feb 2008 at 7:11 am ¶Hi Ken,
If I understand you right, you’re worried that the new blog format will no longer address beijing hua?
If that was your concern, never fear! The new blog format is just an effort to make the actual text more readable (and I appreciate those who wrote to me to let me know). I also wanted to overcome some technical difficulties I had when using the old blogging software.
The new format has NOTHING to do with content, which, as ever, is to be focused mostly on Beijing’s culture and particular flavor of Mandarin. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. If you could let me know what led you to make this comment
I’ll try to provide more clarity. Thanks as always for visiting and commenting.
Posted 24 Feb 2008 at 7:34 am ¶Best,
syz
Hi Syz….and thanks again(10,000 times!)for all your continuing efforts in pursuit of goals which we both endorse.
Posted 25 Feb 2008 at 7:50 am ¶My latest remarks were only intended to deal with the fact that the Chinese and English headeline “Beijing Sounds” doesn’t appear to be calling folks from the headline position anymore. I DO understand that language is only one of the interests addressed in your blog,and rightly so,but it is one of particular relevance to me,so I was particularly pleased to see the local language stuff right up where it clearly did attract attention from people who otherwise mignt not have dropped in. I’m not trying to Monday Morning Quarterback the management of your site,and I remain most supportive of the entire effort. I have left short notes on many of the other blogs who have who have chimed in when our discussion of Beijinghua on your site attracted their interest.Best of luck in the new framework,and xiexie for the reassurance. Cordially, Ken
Hey, first let me pay my respects: this blog scratches one of those reflex itches that i’ve been unable to satisfy since i came to China – brilliant, other people care!
I just wanted to perhaps throw a bit of a spanner into that zh->z discussion above: A lady i met last year who’s from dongbei but who’s lived the last few years in Beijing, actually pronounces a lot of “z”s as “zh”s. Now, it’s been a while since i saw this lady, but the clearest example i can remember is 出租车, which she very clearly said as “chuzhuche”. I remember there were numerous other instances where she did the same z->zh thing, which i can’t remember right now, along with occasional instances of zh->z, and possibly a sh->s or two, which i also can’t remember.
I wondered whether perhaps she was just overcompensating as an out-of-towner trying to fit in, or whether it’s something that’s actually been observed…Useless? I’m sorry…i’ve actually only spent a handful of days in BJ myself, ever.
Posted 17 Oct 2008 at 8:13 pm ¶chubb,
pleased you found this old post.
I think overcompensation is certainly a factor – I’ve certainly met waitresses and taxi drivers in Dongbei who’ve seemed to lay on their best pǔtōnghuà for me and thrown in lots of extra ’sh’ sounds where often they’re normally lacking, and often where there should just be a plain ’s’.
If that sounds like I’m mocking ’semi-literate’ service personnel, that is certainly not my intention. With some discussion on the recent Mandarin Study Programs post about the most effective way to learn Mandarin, I perhaps should be careful about admitting that I would never have got anywhere with learning Mandarin if the wasn’t for the patience and encouragement of countless waitresses and taxi drivers.
This means that I, too, frequently say ‘chuzhuche’, but it doesn’t seem that surprising with the ‘zu’ sandwiched between ‘chu’ and ‘che’. I think for many true North-easterners, it’s not a case of substituting one sound for the other, as much as simply only having one sound in that region of the mouth – any sound in that region is perceived by speaker and listener alike as ‘that’ sound, even when others hear significant variation. A parallel might be the difficulty native English speakers have distinguishing the Chinese ‘x’ and ’sh’ and the other similar pairs.
Posted 18 Oct 2008 at 7:48 am ¶Post a Comment