April 2009, a taxi somewhere across central Beijing…
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Sījī (driver): Wǒ shì gǎo tōngxìn gōngchéng, zuò tōngxìn de, diànhuà, diànhuàtíng. Suǒyǐ wǒ shì lǎo jīngcháng chūchāi.
我是搞通信工程，作通信的，电话，电话亭。 所以我是老经常出差。
I was a communications engineer, working on communications, telephones, telephone kiosks. So I always had to travel on business.
SYZ: Nín qùguo wàiguó le ma?
您去过外国了吗？
Have you traveled abroad?SJ: Méiyǒu. Wǒ yàoshi qù wàiguó de huà yě méiyǒu shénme hǎo dìfang. Wǒ zài dānwèi shàngbānr de shíhòu yào chūguó de huà shì qù Āngēlā zhīlèi de.
没有。 我要是去外国的话也没有什么好地方。我在单位上班儿的时候要出国的话是去安哥拉之类的。
I haven’t. If I was going to travel abroad, there’s no good place to go anyway. At my workplace, when I was working, if I wanted to travel out of the country I could go to places like Angola.SYZ: Āngēlà [sic] shì shénme dìfang?
安哥拉是什么地方？
What kind of place is Angola? [mispronouncing and not understanding the name in Mandarin]
SJ: Fēizhōu [pronounced Fēizhou, interestingly enough]
非洲
Africa
SYZ: Duì duì dui. Zài Fēizhōu nèige nánbiān.
对对对。在非洲那个南边。
Oh yeah — in the south part of Africa.
SJ: Suǒyǐ wǒ yě bù xiǎng qù. Nèi dìfāng tīngguo yīgè wénzi dīng yīxiàr hái sǐ rén ne.
所以我也不想去。 那地方听过一个蚊子叮一下儿还死人呢。
That’s why I don’t want to go. I’ve heard that in that place people can die from one mosquito bite.PBS: Háiyǒu dìr shì mìfēng dīng yīxiàr sǐ rén
还有地儿是蜜蜂叮一下儿死人
There are also places where a person can die from one bee sting!SJ: Mìfēng nǐ shuō de nèi mìfēng yīnggāi shì [unclear] nèizhǒng bǐjiào, tā jiào [unclear]?
蜜蜂你说的那蜜蜂应该是【】那种比较，它叫【】？
Bees, the ones that you were talking about should be, that kind of — what’s it called?PBS: Shārénfēng
杀人蜂
Killer bees.SJ: Duì. Shārénfēng
对。 杀人蜂。
Right. Killer bees.SYZ: Duì duì.
对对。
Oh yeah.
PBS: Zài diànshì shàng kàn de.
在电视上看的。
I saw them on TV.
SJ: Nèige yīzhī dīng shang sǐ buliǎo rén.
那个一只叮上死不了人。
A person can’t die from that one bite.
PBS: Děi hǎo duō.
得好多。
It has to be a lot.SJ: Nèige xiàng nǐmen nèige wàiguórén shìbushì dōu xǐhuān lǚyóu a?
那个像你们那个外国人是不是都喜欢旅游啊？
Isn’t it true that these people, like, you foreigners — don’t they all like to travel?SYZ: Dàbùfen xǐhuān
大部分喜欢
Most people like to.PBS: Wǒ yě xǐhuān!
我也喜欢！
I like to too!SYZ: Wǒ bù xǐhuān, shuō shíhuà.
我不喜欢说实话
I don’t like to, to tell the truth.SJ: Nǐ shuō zhèige quán shìjiè dìqiú shàng de dōngxi chúle shān jiùshi shuǐ, jiùshi shù. Dōu shì yīyàng. Wǒ shuō nǐ yǒu shénme kě kànde ne? Suǒyǐ xiàng nín nèiyàngr ne dào Zhōngguó lái ne, zuìhǎo jiùshi shénme ya? Suí Zhōngguórén jiù wán le ā.
你说这个全世界的地球上的东西除了山就是水就是树。都是一样。我说你有什么可看的呢？所以象您那样儿呢到中国来呢最好就是什么呀？随中国人就完了。
You know, out of everything there is in the world, if it’s not mountains then it’s water or trees. Everything’s the same. I say, ‘What do you have to see?’ So for foreigners like you, who come to China, you know what’s best? Behave like the Chinese [i.e., presumably, don't travel or only within China] and that’s enough.
The Beijing Sounds Longtime Beijinger Checklist (BJSLBC™*) is starting to look something like this:
A. Pirateshipfuls of érhuàyīn (儿化音 = rhoticization / Beijing-R)
Hypothesis: some of the rhoticized words above are essentially standard in Beijing dialect and are only non-rhoticized in special cases, e.g.:
- 那样儿 nèiyàngr rather than 那样 nèiyàng (meaning “way / manner”)
- 一下儿 yīxiàr rather than 一下 yīxià (meaning “one time”)
but to develop this more fully, you’d also have to hypothesize certain words that are quite érhuàyīn-optional, such as
- 上班儿 shàngbānr vs. 上班 shàngbān (meaning “work / go to work”)
B. 那 (almost) always nèi (not the “standard” nà) unless it is functioning as a noun
The starting point for this rule was when Randy Alexander quoted the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典, xiàndài hànyǔ cídiǎn) in comment #8 of this post:
现代汉语词典:
“In spoken language, when 这 zhè is used independently or followed directly by a noun, it is pronounced zhè; when 这 is followed by a classifier or a numeral plus a classifier, it is pronounced “zhèi”; in the following examples of 这程子 zhèichéngzi, 这个 zhèige, 这会儿 zhèihuìr， 这些 zhèixiē and 这样 zhèiyàng, it is pronounced zhèi-.”
This rule seems OK as a starting point, and you could tack on that it seems to work exactly the same for 那, substituting nà and nèi for zhè and zhèi, and ignoring the complexity of the nè pronunciation. But doesn’t our anti-travel driver violate this rule in the conversation above, by using nèi with a noun directly after it?
Nèi dìfāng [kinda hard to hear]
nèi mìfēng [but there might be a 'ge‘ after nei]
Hmmm: jury’s still out on that one. But if this is right, the rule would be more like the headline above: that this deictic pair is nearly always zhèi/nèi unless functioning as a noun.
C. Consonants are often elided mid-word at full conversational speed
To be clear, initial consonants are NOT elided, as long as you use an expansive definition of what a “word” is [example in mind is bùzhīdao / 不知道, in which the zh is often elided]. Also see this post.
As with rule A, there seems to be a spectrum of words on which elision is used
In the most audible examples from this clip…
Wǒ yàoshi qù
Dōu shì yīyàng
zuìhǎo jiùshi shénme ya?
… almost all are common words / set phrases that fall towards the “almost all the time” end of that spectrum.
BJSLBC™ continued development
Clearly this list has a way to go in order to differentiate the true local from the general Northerner. For those of you inclined to propose additions to the list and revisions to the proposed rules, please make suggestions by comment or email and be aware that the BJS studios’ in-house counsel has drawn up a very favorable revenue-sharing agreement for the profits traceable to the sale of the checklist. Should an agreement be reached, you too may find yourself enjoying the finer life of leisurely transcription and blog posting around your own charmingly landscaped grounds and lavishly furnished offices.
Best from Shangdi
syz
——–
* Frequent readers are hereby granted license for conditional use of BJSLBC provided use is non-discriminatory towards the many wàidìrén (外地人 = those from outside Beijing or your own big city of reference) we know and love.
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Comments 9
Pure BJshengr gold!
pbs putting a cabbie straight on killer bees – what a gem.
Posted 05 May 2009 at 7:53 pm ¶Glad it delivered for you, Sima. How could anyone resist posting if you get killer bees, malaria, and ’so why leave Beijing anyway’ in a single conversation?
Posted 05 May 2009 at 8:55 pm ¶Rule C appears to be limited to only a few special consonants. If we really wanted to drive away readership, could we expand rule C to be “post alveolar and alveolar fricatives and affricates are eliminated…”? That’s just a fancy (cumbersome) way of saying the letters “sh, x, zh, j.”
The only sounds you’ve crossed out are “zh” and “sh” and “x” but I’ve also heard “j” elided (or at least tweaked somehow to sound like it’s gone) as in “bijiao” becoming “bi’yao” or something like that. The other classic example is “duoshao qian” becoming something like “duo’ao qian.” Seems to be pretty consistently those four pinyin letters (sh, x, zh, j).
I suppose if the position in the mouth is to be the culprit, why couldn’t “ch” and “q” be eliminated sometimes? Is there any evidence of that happening?
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:54 pm ¶Albert, very cool idea to try to find ch and q elision. Nothing comes to mind but I’ll get the staff working on that. Fully agree with the “sh, x, zh, j” revised hypothesis, but I’m afraid your generalization doesn’t make the grade cuz it would include /s/ which is an alveolar fricative that does not get elided as far as I know.
But for the record I don’t think any of the five readers would be offended by such a term. In fact an accurate generalization would probably be cause for general counsel to do a contract revision and offer a (microscopically) higher BJSLBC revenue share.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 12:33 pm ¶Yes, I should have said: postalveolar fricatives and alveolar affricates. But actually, that would include “z” and “c” as well (alveolar affricates), right? As far as I know it’s just “x, sh, j, zh” that get tweaked (I’m still not sure their gone–it may be a case of assimilation of some kind).
Posted 06 May 2009 at 5:29 pm ¶Yeah, a lot of times they aren’t exactly gone. I often hear an /h/ of some sort and HSKNotes has mentioned some interesting rhoticization phenomena. I still feel like their should be a general description of x, sh, j, and zh, but Sima has hinted offline that he thinks it might be more complicated than that too.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 6:12 pm ¶I’m pretty sure there’s a “ge” in “Nèi dìfāng”, it’s sounds more as if he’s saying “Nèi-e dìfāng”, omitting the g.
Posted 21 May 2009 at 11:45 pm ¶By the way, shouldn’t it be 您去过外国吗？, without the 了? I thought Verb+过 and 了 was mutually exclusive most of the time.
Posted 21 May 2009 at 11:48 pm ¶Hi Kaliyanei, to hear or not to hear a “ge” in “Nèi dìfāng”… that’s a tough one — pretty lousy recording at that point. But maybe in any case we should be on the lookout for g-elision too?! That would add a layer of mess to things.
You’re right on about the grammar error in 您去过外国了吗？ One more reason never to use syz as a speech model .
Posted 02 Jun 2009 at 8:11 am ¶Post a Comment