Changsha dialect

Changsha dialect
长沙话 Tsã1333ɣo21
Native to China
Region Changsha, Hunan province
Native speakers
6 million (date missing)
Sino-Tibetan
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Linguist list
hsn-cha
Glottolog None

Changsha dialect (simplified Chinese: 长沙话; traditional Chinese: 長沙話; pinyin: Chángshā-huà; Xiang: Tsã1333 ɣo21) is a dialect of New Xiang Chinese. It is spoken predominantly in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. It is not mutually intelligible with Standard Mandarin, the official language of China.

Classification

Changsha dialect is what Chinese dialectologists would call a New Xiang variety, as opposed to Old Xiang; the distinction is mainly based on the presence of the Middle Chinese voiced plosives and affricates. The Old Xiang varieties, being more conservative, have in general kept them while the New Xiang ones have altogether lost them and changed them to voiceless unaspirated consonants. Although most Chinese dialectologists treat New Xiang as part of the group, Zhou Zhenhe and You Rujie classify it as Southwestern Mandarin.[1]

Geographic distribution

Changsha dialect is spoken in the city of Changsha and its neighbouring suburbs. However, there are some slight differences between the urban and suburban speech. For instance, the retroflex set is only heard in the suburbs, but not in the city and some words have a different final in the two varieties.

Dialects

There are no substantial differences between dialects in the neighbourhood of Changsha; however, age dialects do exist. For example, the distinction between alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants is only made by the elderly while the younger generations do not normally distinguish them. The finals [-oŋ] and [-ioŋ] have become [-ən] and [-in] in the younger speech. Also, the initial consonant [ɲ] in the elderly's and middled-aged's speech is either dropped altogether or changed to [l].

Phonetics and Phonology

The Changsha dialect, together with other New Xiang varieties, has lost the Middle Chinese obstruents, which are changed to voiceless unaspirated consonants. It has also lost all the final plosives found in the tone in Middle Chinese.

Consonants

Consonants of the Changsha dialect
  Labial Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal
Retroflex Velar
Nasal m n ɲ   ŋ
Plosive voiceless unaspirated p t     k
voiceless aspirated    
Affricate voiceless unaspirated   ts  
aspirated   tsʰ tɕʰ tʂʰ  
Fricative voiceless f s ɕ ʂ x
voiced       ʐ  
Lateral approximant   l    

Tones

Changsha has 5 tones, which are neutralized in syllables ending in a stop.

Tone chart of the Changsha dialect
Tone number Tone name Tone contour Description
1 yin ping (陰平) ˧ (3) or ā mid
2 yang ping (陽平) ˩˧ (13) or ǎ rising
3 shang sheng (上聲) ˦˩ (41) or â falling
4 yin qu (陰去) ˥ (5) or á high
5 yang qu (陽去) ˨˩ (21) or à low
6 ru sheng (入聲) ˨˦ʔ (24) or checked

See also

References

  1. Zhou Zhenhe & You Rujie (1986) Fangyan yu Zhongguo wenhua [Dialects and Chinese culture]. Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe

External links


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