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First, if you haven’t already, read “The origins of ràng’s svelte simplification” over at John B.’s Global Maverick.
To re-quote from Jerry Norman’s† book Chinese (Amazon, Google Books):
(transcription blatantly stolen from John’s site)
As I mentioned in the comments over at GM, the last sentence interests me quite a bit. I know in 1956 and again in 1964 lists were released by Beijing giving the simplified form of a number of characters. Then a final collection (called 简化字总表) was released in 1986. What I don’t know is when 让 was introduced. My suspicion is that it was already in wide use in the Delta long before the ‘86 collection, possibly before even the ‘64.
There were of course efforts toward simplification before that. One of the earliest and maybe most relevant to the inclusion of 让 was that of linguist Qián Xuántóng‡ 钱玄同 who published a list of around 2,400 simplified characters in 1935. The same year, the Nanjing government published their own list, though of only about 324 characters. A year before this, 中国图书馆服务社出版杜 published their own list of just over 350.
It may be of some relevance that Qián was from Huzhou, a town in northern Zhejiang where Wu is spoken.
update:
Killing time I thought I’d run through a couple dialects comparing 让 and 上 using the Wu Association online dictionary search, lacking any better resources while I couch-surf Jiangsu. Of course, they were unlikely to match since it’s neither of literary readings nor even 老派. But, at least according to their dictionary, the Hangzhou 杭州 readings do match, both being zan҂, tone and IPA unknown. Not that I really doubted Norman’s claim. See footnote 1.
update 2:
According to an article from the Journal of Huzhou Teacher’s College published 8/99, Huzhou dialect reads 上 as [zɔ̃] or [zaŋ] and 让 as [-ã] or [-aŋ]#. I believe the second of each pair is 老派, but I’m admittedly not at all sure. Unfortunately the chart at which I’m looking doesn’t give the initial for 让, and in fact the only intitial r- word it gives that would be either a [z] or [n]/[ɲ] is 肉 which it gives as [ɲ-], probably [ɲuəʔ]. The sample’s too small to know one way or another.
If it turns out that the second in the pair is either 老派 or the literary reading, and if 让 does in fact take the initial [z], it would support the likelihood of Qián’s influence on 让 from 讓. Of course, if neither of those are true, it wouldn’t really count as a strike against the idea.
update 3: 12/Oct
Last update, seriously. I found a rather cool book at the library today. It’s from 2007, which is æons more recent than anything else I have on 苏州话. It gives the following:
上－sɑ̃
上－sã (literary reading)
The difference between sã and sɑ̃ is minimal, so even if we ignore the literary reading, they’re still damn close.
- – -
† Who could possibly not like someone who writes papers on things like “The Origin of the Proto-Min Softened Stops”?
‡ Of no relevance here but still interesting, Qián also once suggested that Mandarin be replaced by Esperanto.
҂ If you do go wandering through their dictionary search, it may be of some use to know their transcription “ny” corresponds to ɲ/ȵ.
# I’ve run out of daggers. According to another source, 湖州新派 gives 让 the tone curve ˧˥, taking 阴去声.
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There are a few things I find myself asking when I meet people from previously unheard of parts of China; How do you say 你好，谢谢 and 再见? Then I ask for numbers one to ten. I’m sure I’ve annoyed my share of people with these seemingly useless questions, but for me they’ve always given me a good idea of the sound of a dialect. Furher, numbers always seemed important to me as some of the most common and useful words to learn.
The following is a list of numbers from one to ten in the dialects running from Shànghǎi to Nánjīng with the last four columns covering Hángzhōu, Qúzhōu/Jiāngshān, Línhǎi and Chánglè dialects all from Zhèjiāng province. Holes in the table do not represent an absence of that number but rather an absence of data in my possession. Note I’m missing a bit of Suzhou dialect. If anyone is willing to send a clear recording of those numbers by a native speaker, I would be grateful and your name would appear in pixely lights on the site.
| 江苏省 → | 浙江省 → | |||||||||
| 上海 | 苏州 | 无锡 | 武进 | 高淳 | 杭州 | 衢州 | 临海 | 长乐 | ||
| Shànghǎi | Sūzhōu | Wúxī | Wǔjìn | Gāochún | Hángzhōu | Qúzhōu | Línhǎi | Chánglè | ||
| 1 | 一 | ieʔ5 | ieʔ43 | ieʔ5 | ieʔ5 | ieʔ35 | i | iɘʔ | ieʔ5 | ʔiʔ5 |
| 2 | 二 | ɲi13 | _ | _ | ɲi224 | ɲiɯ35 | əz̩24 | _ | ɲiɔ | ɲi35 |
| 2 | 两 | liã13 | liɛʔ14 | liaŋ213 | liaŋ213 | n̩35 | liaŋ53 | liã | liã35 | ʔliaŋ22 |
| 3 | 三 | sɛi52 | se̞ | seɛʔ5 | sæ5 | ɕiɛ5 | sɛ̝435 | sæ434 | sɛ31 | s̃æ311 |
| 4 | 四 | sz̩35 | sz̩523 | sz̩52 | sz̩334 | sz̩34 | sz̩24 | sz̩ | sz̩4 | sz̩44 |
| 5 | 五 | ɦŋ̩23 | ŋ̩231 | ŋ̩14 | ŋ̩224 | ŋ̩5/ʋɯ5† | u53 | ŋ̩ | ŋ̩53 | ŋ̩22 |
| 6 | 六 | lɔʔ12 | lɔʔ23 | lɔʔ14 | lɔʔ24 | lɔ35 | ly | ləʔ12 | loʔ23 | loʔ5 |
| 7 | 七 | ʨʰiɛʔ5 | _ | ʨʰiʔ5 | ʨʰiɛʔ5 | ʨʰiɛʔ3 | ×ʔ5 | ʨʰ×ʔ5 | ʨʰieʔ5 | tsʰiʔ5 |
| 8 | 八 | paʔ55 | boʔ | baʔ5 | baʔ5 | baʔ3 | paʔ5 | paʔ5 | pɜʔ5 | pæʔ5 |
| 9 | 九 | ʨiɤ34 | _ | ʨiɑo324 | ʨiɤɯ51 | ʨy53 | ʨyo435 | ʨiɯ | tsiəu53 | ʨiøy53 |
| 10 | 十 | zəʔ12 | sʌ23 | zʌ14 | sɛʔ24 | sa35 | zz̩ | ʒəʔ12 | ʑieʔ23 | zəʔ2 |
A couple notes: Due to its greater frequency over 二, 两 has been given for most dialects. While 二 is still used frequently, e.g. the “twenty two” in “two hundred and twenty two”‡, it will be replaced in most. So, for example, an apartment numbered 2210 will be read as “两两一零”.
In some cases I have only partial data and no speakers handy of whom I can ask the favour. The number 7 in Hangzhou, for example, I know to be a high tone and terminating with a glottal stop. However the specific text from which I’ve taken that information did not provide information on the vowel and guessing didn’t seem appropriate.
The Wǔjìn set was taken from one of many villages in the Wǔjìn area. It’s a slightly more rural sound than you may get closer to downtown Wujin or Changzhou. The most notable difference between the list for Wujin and urban Changzhou dialect is 三 becomes seiʔ5.
This took quite some time to compile using a number of sources. Most are from recordings I’ve made and transcribed myself. Some are my own transcriptions from outside recordings. Most of the Zhejiang data were compiled from a number of academic papers on Wu, mostly available through the Wu Association page. If you’re curious about specifics let me know and I’ll get the details.
Some of the tone numbers for recorded samples have been taken from various of sources including work by the ubiquitous YR Chao and Glossika’s excellent collection of tone tables. Trusting their research over my own ears I’ve done my best to match the sounds I heard to the tone values given. I reserve the right to have completely missed the mark on the tones and transcription.
This is especially true with the Gaochun tones. Due to the age of my speaker there is a notable discrepancy with what is available elsewhere, mostly because what’s elsewhere is at least a generation older. If you look hard enough you may find the table to the right, scanned from some text of dialect tone tables. I imagine it’s where the Glossika tones came from and unfortunately there’s only the one set. There are some notable and consistent differences between my speaker and the tables, so perhaps we can call the Glossika numbers 高淳老派 and these 高淳新派.
Of less academic value but greater practical value, I offer the following table. A large part of my motivation for compiling this data was to get a better sense of the ἰδέα҂. What follows is my best guess at a collection of what should be universally understood numbers. Superscript corresponds to Mandarin tones, not tone values as in the previous table.
| 一 | 两 | 三 | 四 | 五 | 六 | 七 | 八 | 九 | 十 |
| ieʔ1 | liaŋ2 | sɛ1 | sz̩ | ŋ3 | lɔʔ/loʔ2 | ʨʰiɛʔ1 | baʔ1 | ʨiɯ2 | sa1 |
For what it’s worth I’ve had some success with this in Changzhou and Wujin as well as with one Shanghai transplant and one from Danyang.
- – -
† I’ve given two different pronunciations for 五 in Gaochun dialect. The first (ŋ̩5) is used by the older generations while the second (ʋɯ5) is used by younger speakers. The influence of the neighbouring Mandarin is all too apparent.
‡ What’s more confusing is the number 222 (read [liã35 pɐʔ5 ɲiɪ113 n2] in Linhai dialect) which like most Wu dialects makes good use of 廿 for 20. The northern equivalent (rendered in Pinyin style spelling) would be roughly “liang be nei ni”.
҂ As in Plato.
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A while back I wrote about a book I had recently purchased that relied solely on a system of transcribing tones that admittedly I hadn’t really encountered before then. To save you the trouble of looking back at the old post, the system is as follows:
| 平 | 上 | 去 | 入 | |
| 阴 | ꜀ | ꜂ | ꜄ | ꜆ |
| yin ping | yin shang | yin qu | yin ru | |
| 阳 | ꜁ | ꜃ | ꜅ | ꜇ |
| yang ping | yang shang | yang qu | yang ru |
They’re far from intuitive but I think I’ve developed a new-found respect for them. I just might have to flip-flop on my previous declaration of non-use. I bring them up now because I just saw them again, this time in《杭州方言音系》by 王启龙 at Tsinghua University. I’ve been on this bookish research kick for the last couple of days reading, or rather attempting to read, anything i could get my hands on. In this particular text we’re given this:
꜀k’o 科窠稞 ( 科)
k’o꜅ 颗课
꜂ŋo 我
ŋo꜅ 饿
Earlier in the text those three tones, yin ping yang qu and yin shang are given as 435, 24 and 53 respectively. So, it could be rewritten as this:
kho435 科窠稞 ( 科)
kho24 颗课
ŋo53 我
ŋo24 饿
Which would be very helpful if you only needed a few words at a time. It’s much less useful when you’re writing out thousands of characters at once. Beyond that, it struck me as exceptionally useful when looking at more than one dialect at a time. It seems likely that as words shift to take on other tones you’d be able to follow it though to see where and when certain changes would have taken place. This may be more of a server-side feature than something useful to people just trying to learn a few phrases.
The only real problem I still have with the system is the one mentioned by John in the comments to the earlier post. It’s not at all intuitive. However the other systems such as numerical values or graphical (214 vs ˨˩˦) don’t address the traditional tone system, which I think is definitely worth holding on to in some form or another. So, in the end, it looks like I’ll be keeping both methods handy.
For what it’s worth, I’ll stick to the numbers for the site unless it’s of some specific value to refer to 阴入 by anything other than the name.
