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Mandarin Dialects
By James Campbell
This is the main Chinese language, on which the spoken and written standard (普通化 Putonghua) is based. It is called 國語 Guoyu in Taiwan and 华语 Huayu in Southeast Asia. This standard was based on the speech of Beijing, however, today a separate Beijing dialect exists with its own local pronunciations (e.g. much more 捲舌音化 rhotacization, separate vocabulary (chīmuhū), and slang (māor-ní)). Despite all the languages spoken in China, Mandarin remains the lingua franca and is taught in schools to facilitate communications throughout the country. Since the other Sinitic languages listed on this page are not mutually intelligible with Mandarin, many people must learn it as a foreign language. The degree of difficulty and difference is very similar to a Spaniard or Italian learning French. Most of the dialects of these languages, for example the many dialects of Mandarin, are mutually intellible to some degree. I have heard that some foreigners learning Mandarin who have difficulty grasping tones are said to have quite a good Sichuan dialect accent!
This is an index to the information on Mandarin dialects found at this site arranged by Province. Names are listed first in Traditional, then Simplified characters with Pinyin pronunciation. Links to information on this site available on a dialect are provided next to each entry. More data is being added on a weekly basis. Updated December 15, 2003.
Mandarin
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