Pinghua

Pinghua (simplified Chinese: 平话; traditional Chinese: 平話; pinyin: Pínghuà; Yale: Pìhng Wá; sometimes disambiguated as Chinese: 廣西平話/广西平话) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Guangxi, where it is spoken as a second language by speakers of Zhuang languages. Some speakers of Pinghua are officially classified as Zhuang, and many are genetically distinct from most other Han Chinese.[2] The northern subgroup of Pinghua is centered on Guilin and the southern subgroup around Nanning. Southern Pinghua has several notable features such as having four distinct checked tones, and using various loanwords from the Zhuang languages, such as the final particle wei for imperative sentences.

For the type of story, see Pinghua (storytelling).
Pinghua
平話 / 平话
Pinghua written in Chinese characters
Native toChina
RegionGuangxi
Native speakers
7+ million (2016)[1]
Dialects
  • Northern Ping
  • Southern Ping
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
csp – Southern Ping Chinese
cnp – Northern Ping Chinese
Glottologping1245
Linguasphere79-AAA-o
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese平話
Simplified Chinese平话
Cantonese YalePìhng Wá
Hanyu PinyinPíng Huà
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese廣西平話
Simplified Chinese广西平话
Cantonese YaleGwóngsāi Pìhng Wá
Hanyu PinyinGuǎngxī Píng Huà

History and classification

Language surveys in Guangxi during the 1950s recorded varieties of Chinese that had been included in the Yue dialect group but were different from those in Guangdong. Pinghua was designated as a separate dialect group from Yue by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the 1980s[3]:15 and since then has been treated as a separate dialect in textbooks and surveys.[4]

Since designation as a separate dialect group, Pinghua has been the focus of increased research. In 2008 a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences of research into Chinese varieties noted an increase in research papers and surveys of Pinghua, from 7 before the 1987 publication of the Language Atlas of China based on the revised classification, and about 156 between then and 2004.[5]

In the 1980s the number of speakers was listed as over 2 million;[3]:21 and by 2016 as 7 million.[6]

Pinghua is divided into two mutually unintelligible languages:[7]

  • The Northern Pinghua (Guìběi 桂北平话) is spoken in northern Guangxi, around the city of Guilin, in close proximity with Southwest Mandarin dialects.
  • The Southern Pinghua (Guìnán 桂南平话) is spoken in southern Guangxi, around the city of Nanning. These varieties form a dialect continuum with Yue varieties spoken in that part of Guangxi (excluding enclaves of Cantonese, such as in Nanning).[8] Yu Jin subdivides this group into three types:[9]
    • Yongjiang, spoken along the Yong River around Nanning.
    • Guandao (官道 "official road"), spoken to the east of Nanning in Laibin and the counties of Heng and Binyang, around the road to the Southwest Mandarin-speaking city of Liuzhou.
    • Rongjiang, spoken along the Rong River to the north of Liuzhou.

Phonology

Nanning Pinghua has a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ] for Middle Chinese /s/ or /z/, for example in the numbers /ɬam/ "three" and /ɬi/ "four".[10][11] This is unlike Standard Cantonese but like some other Yue varieties such as Taishanese.

Tones

Southern Pinghua has six contrasting tones in open syllables, and four in checked syllables,[12] as found in neighbouring Yue varieties such as the Bobai dialect.

Tones of Nanning Pinghua
Tone name Level
píng 平		 Rising
shàng 上		 Departing
qù 去		 Entering
rù 入
Upper
yīn 陰		 高 52 [˥˨] 33 [˧] 55 [˥] 5 [˥]
低 3 [˧]
Lower
yáng 陽		 高 21 [˨˩] 24 [˨˦] 22 [˨] 23 [˨˧]
低 2 [˨]

The split of the lower entering tone is determined by the initial consonant, with the low rising contour occurring after sonorant initials.[13]

Anthropological

Genetically, Pinghua speakers have more in common with non-Han ethnic minorities in southern China than with other Han groups.[2]

References
  1. Chappell & Lan, "Mandarin and other Sinitic Languages". In Chan, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language
  2. Gan, Rui-Jing; Pan, Shang-Ling; Mustavich, Laura F.; Qin, Zhen-Dong; Cai, Xiao-Yun; Qian, Ji; Liu, Cheng-Wu; Peng, Jun-Hua; Li, Shi-Lin; Xu, Jie-Shun; Jin, Li; Li, Hui; The Genographic Consortium (1 April 2008). "Pinghua population as an exception of Han Chinese's coherent genetic structure". Journal of Human Genetics. 53 (4): 303–313. doi:10.1007/s10038-008-0250-x. PMID 18270655.
  3. 现代汉语 (Xiàndài Hànyǔ) [Modern Chinese]. Hsing, Fu-I., 邢福义 (Xíng Fúyì). (1st ed.). [Peking]: Gao deng jiao yu chu ban she. 1991. ISBN 704002652X. OCLC 32842413.CS1 maint: others (link)
  4. Kurpaska, Maria (2010). Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects". Walter de Gruyter. pp. 55–56, 76. ISBN 978-3-11-021914-2.
  5. cass report by 王宏宇 (in Chinese), April 2008
  6. 广西平话研究 Main Editor 余谨 ISBN 978-7-5161-8896-5 page 24
  7. Chappell, Hilary; Li, Lan (2016). "Mandarin and other Sinitic languages". In Chan, Sin-Wai. The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language. Routledge. pp. 605–628. ISBN 978-1-317-38249-2. p. 624
  8. de Sousa, Hilário (2016). "Language contact in Nanning: Nanning Pinghua and Nanning Cantonese". In Chappell, Hilary M. (ed.). Diversity in Sinitic Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 157–189. ISBN 978-0-19-872379-0. p. 162.
  9. de Sousa (2016), p. 160.
  10. Yan, Margaret Mian (2006). Introduction to Chinese Dialectology. LINCOM Europa. p. 204. ISBN 978-3-89586-629-6.
  11. "Learn a language the most natural way - Glossika". Ai.glossika.com. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
  12. Tan, Yuanxiong 覃远雄; Wei, Shuguan 韦树关; Bian, Chenglin 卞成林 (1997). Nánníng Pínghuà cídiǎn 南宁平话词典 [Nanning Pinghua Dictionary]. Nanning: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe. p. 6. ISBN 978-7-5343-3119-0. (part of the Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects, edited by Li Rong)
  13. Lee, Gina (1993). Comparative, diachronic and experimental perspectives on the interaction between tone and the vowel in Standard Cantonese (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). Ohio State University. pp. 75–76.

Further reading
  • Xie Jianyou [谢建猷], et al. 2007. Studies on the Han Chinese dialects of Guangxi [广西汉语方言研究]. Nanning: Guangxi People's Publishing House [广西人民出版社].
  • 《广西通志·汉语方言志》(续编)课题组 (2013). 广西通志·汉语方言志：续编．第二篇，平话. Nanning: 广西人民出版社.
  • 《广西通志·汉语方言志》(续编)课题组 (2013). 广西通志·汉语方言志：续编．第五篇，桂北土话. Nanning: 广西人民出版社.
  • Sousa, Hilário de (2017). "Pínghuà 平話 Dialects" (PDF). In Sybesma, Rint; Behr, Wolfgang; Gu, Yueguo; Handel, Zev; Huang, C.-T. James; Myers, James (eds.). Encyclopedia of Chinese language and linguistics. 3. Leiden: Brill. pp. 425–431. doi:10.1163/2210-7363_ecll_COM_00000332. ISBN 978-90-04-18643-9.
  • Sousa, Hilário de (2015). "The Far Southern Sinitic languages as part of Mainland Southeast Asia" (PDF). In Enfield, N.J.; Comrie, Bernard (eds.). Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The state of the art. Pacific Linguistics. 649. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 356–439. doi:10.1515/9781501501685-009. ISBN 978-1-5015-0169-2.
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