Yanqing dialect on 23 quid — Part 3, IPA as the Pinyin of English

syz — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:22:33 +0000

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Posts in this series:

“Earthy speech“
“A phonetics lesson: tones and erhuayin“
“Scripts: pinyin is just like the IPA” [current]
“Introductory language topics” [coming next week / month / season / singularity]

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Welcome back to you three survivors who’ve stuck with the Beijing Sounds Studios through this never-complete but never-abandoned project. Recall that our cabbie/instructor, a certified Yanqinger, is trying to give a linguistic overview of Yanqing dialect and comparative writing system analysis all within a 23 kuai fare.

Of course you always could have listened to the whole recording without any transcripts…

[Go to website or bottom of this post to listen to audio]

[link to mp3]

…but the fun of doing it section by section is to savor the tonal surprises that feature as prominently in Yanqing as the over-developed Badaling Great Wall itself. Even the name, Yanqing, is not at all a rising-falling “Yánqìng” the way Beijing’s city slickers would say it, but something more like Yānqing:

[Go to website or bottom of this post to listen to audio]

[link to mp3]

In this third section, prepare to be awestruck by tone flattening feats unrivaled by even foreigners, who are more apt to bend tones down or up. If you believe the underpaid transcribers who copped this together, there are no fewer than 6 syllables that have been given tone 1 in place of their original tone. And in most cases, the recording has multiple instances of the flat pronunciation, so it’s not just a fluke. Check out xuē 学, dēi 得, chēng 成, mēi 美, rēn 人, cī 词.

Listen and enjoy. As in previous posts, in the Pinyin column a bracketed pronunciation (e.g. [hán] in line 1) indicates what the taxi driver actually said, as contrasted with the standard Mandarin written there.

[Go to website or bottom of this post to listen to audio]

[link to mp3]

1	SJ	Zhōngguó zhè hàn[hán]zì, tā… … Nán dǒng.	中国这汉字，它……难懂。	These Chinese characters, they… they’re hard to understand.
2	SJ	Shì ba? Bù xiàng zhè Yīngyǔ zhè èr shí liù zìmǔ, Zhōngguó zhège zì, yí [yī] zì duō [duò] yìsi.	是吧？不像这英语这二十六字母，中国这个字，一字多意思。	Right? Not like English and its 26 letters, Chinese characters — one character has lots of meanings.
3	SJ	Shì ba?	是吧？	Y’know?
4	SYZ	Nà nín xiǎode shíhòu yě xuéguò zhèige Pīnyīn ba?	那您小的时候也学过这个拼音吧？	When you were young did you study Pinyin?
5	SJ	Xué [xuē] guò ya! Jiù děi xué [xuē]. Zhèige hàn [hán] zì, nǐ yě jiù děi xué [xuē] pīnyīn.	学过呀！就得学。这个汉字，你也就得学拼音。	Sure, we studied it! You have to study it. For Chinese characters, you had to study Pinyin too.
6	SJ	A, zhèige [zhéige?] zìr. Nǐ bǐrú shuō pīnyīn nèige “a o e, i u ü” a	啊，这个字儿。你比如说拼音那个”a o e, i u ü” 啊	Right, for the characters. Like you have to use the “a o e, i u ü”
7	SJ	Nǐ kàn, yīngyǔ jiùshì “abcd”, a. Nǐ děi [dēi?] xué [xuē] nèige, nǐ bù xué [xuē] nèige bùchéng [chēng?] a.	你看，英语就是”abcd”，啊。你得学那个，你不学那个不成啊。	See, it’s just like English “abcd”. You have to learn that — not going to work if you don’t.
8	SJ	Tā zhèige, hànyǔ——hànzì gēn zhèi yīngwén, yīngwén, nèige dàolǐ shì yíyàng [yìyǎng?] de.	它这个，汉语——汉字跟这英文，英文，那个道理是一样的。	With Mandarin — with Chinese characters and English — the principle’s the same.
9	SJ	Nǐ shuō nèi yīngwén, shuō zhège “a”, “a” yěyǒu pīnyīn bǎ zhèi “a” pīn chūlái.	你说那英文，说这个”a”，“a”也有拼音把这”a”拼出来。	Like if you take English, say, “a”, “a” also has “pinyin” to write it out.
10	SJ	Shì ba?	是吧？	Right?
11	SYZ	Yěyǒu, yǒu, nǐ shuō, bǐrú shuō nèige, jiào shénme, nèige guójì yīnbiāo ba?	也有，有，你说，比如说那个，叫什么，那个国际音标吧？	Yeah, there is, are you saying that — what do you call it — the international phonetic alphabet?
12	SYZ	Kěshì zhèige, shuō shíhuà, nèige měiguó rén yě bùyòng! Tāmen dōu bù zhīdào zhè shì shénme.	可是这个，说实话，那个美国人也不用！他们都不知道这是什么。	But that, to tell the truth, Americans don’t use it! They don’t even know what it is.
13	SJ	Měiguó rén [mēiguo rēn?] a?	美国人啊？	Americans?
14	SYZ	Duì, kěshì wàiguórén xué——bùshì——bùshì měiguó rén, nèige, nèixiē rén xué yīngyǔ de shíhou	对，可是外国人学——不是——不是美国人，那个，哪些人学英语的时候	Right. But foreigners studying — uh — I mean not Americans — people, when they’re studying English
15	SYZ	Yě yòng zhège…guójì…	也用这个……国际……	Also use this … international…
16	SJ	Yòng ya, tā kěndìng yào——tā děi yòng.	用呀，他肯定要——他得用。	Use it, of course they do — they have to.
17	SJ	Měi yīgè dāncí [cī], měi yīgè dāncí [cī] hòubianr, dōu yǒu pīnyīn ná kuòhào kuò de.	每一个单词，每一个单词后边儿，都有拼音拿括号括的。	Every word, behind every word there’s a “pinyin” in parentheses.
18	SJ	Shuō wǒ bù rènde zhège, wǒ bù rènde zhè dāncí [cī], kěyǐ ná [nā] dāncí [cī] hòubianr [hóubiānr] zhège pīnyīn, wǎng chū fāyīn, wǎng chū kàn ne.	说我不认得这个，我不认得这单词，可以拿单词后边儿这个拼音，往出发音，往出看呢。	Say if I don’t recognize this, don’t recognize this word, I can use the “pinyin” in parentheses and make the sound.
19	SYZ	Kěnéng, yàoshi nǐ shuō zhèige nèige shénme nèige xuéxí, xué yīngwén de zhèixiē shū	可能，要是你说这个那个什么那个学习，学英文的这些书	Maybe, if you’re saying those kinds of studying, books for studying English.
20	SYZ	Nà yě yǒu kěnéng yǒu nèige, nèige	那也有可能有那个，那个	Then maybe they have those, those
21	SJ	Duì, nǐ jiù dāncí [cī] yě děi yòng [dēi yóng?], yě děi wǎng chū pīn a, fāyīn.	对，你就单词也得用，也得往出拼啊，发音。	Right, you have to use it for words, to be able to pronounce them.
22	SJ	Bǐrú shuō wǒ bù rènshi zhège zì, dànshì zhè zì shàng yǒu pīnyīn, wǒ kěyǐ wǎng chū pīn tā, zhè zì niàn shénme.	比如说我不认识这个字，但是这字上有拼音，我可以往出拼它，这字念什么。	Like if I don’t recognize this character, but on top of the character there’s pinyin, I can write it out and know how to read it.
23	SJ	Nèige yīngyǔ nèige, gēn zhè dàolǐ, tā yěshì yīyàng. Dāncí [cī], nǐ yàoshi hòubianr, tā dōu yǒu zhè fāyīn nèige yīnfú.	那个英语那个，跟这道理，它也是一样。单词，你要是后边儿，它都有这发音那个音符。	So English has the same principle. Words all have the pronunciation notation behind them.

To conclude that “Yanqingers just use the first tone more”, though, would be a gross oversimplification. There’s a lot more going on. Top dollar paid for all testable hypotheses. Just apply with Lao Liu in accounting, who got his business training in a Dongbei embalming operation.

Earthquake update

syz — Sat, 17 May 2008 19:49:07 +0000

Our thoughts are with those many who have lost loved ones and continue to struggle. Please follow Danwei for ways to help and donate. Much thanks to all of you who have inquired: the extended Beijing Sounds family is fine.

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Yanqing dialect on 23 quid — Part 3, IPA as the Pinyin of English

Earthquake update