07.07.08
Putonghua up North, Putonghua down South
Before I ever started learning a word of Putonghua (Mandarin), a friend of mine who had been a college Chinese major gave me this advice: Learn from a Northerner, not a Southerner. The reason being that because most Southerners grow up speaking dialects, and then learning Mandarin with the influence of the local tongue. Thus, their Putonghua is less “standard” from those from the North who grow up speaking a variant of Putonghua as their native language. The prevailing generalization, which most Chinese would attest to as well, is that people in the North speak clear, standard Putonghua. Those in the South do not.
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| My posse of rural Hebei kids, posing with their new “maiguo pengyou.” |
This certainly held true in Fujian. In Fuzhou, most of the population still speaks the Fuzhou dialect, which is completely incomprehensible to anyone who grew up more than roughly two hours away from Fuzhou. However, I would estimate that 99% of the Fuzhou population under the age of 65 also speaks Mandarin with native fluency. However, they do so with complete disregard for several of Putonghua’s consonant sounds, namely sh, zh, ch, r, f, and h. Therefore, when a Fuzhou local speaks Mandarin, it is 100% comprehensible to a Chinese from another region, or a laowai studying Chinese for that matter…Albeit, it does sound a little funny.
Since Putonghua is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, the commonly accepted theory is that, the closer to Beijing one grows up, the more standard their Mandarin will be. However, my recent trip through rural Hebei has me thinking this theory may not be so cut and dry.
On my trip back from the Yu Village to Shijiazhuang, I had two hours to kill in a small village called Jin Nan, where the local train to Shijiazhuang passes through once a day. I decided to meander through the tiny village which was more of a stop-off point for dump trucks carrying coal than a town in and of itself. I imagine Jin Nan is not the type of place where 6-foot white guys with Swiss Army backpacks are an every day occurrence, and I was instantly accosted by two eleven-year-old elementary school students.
“Where are you from?” they inquired curiously.
“The United States,” I replied.
“American…he’s American, they giggled.”
Only, rather than mei3 guo2 ren2, their word for ‘American’ sounded more like mai2 guo2 ren2. Both the tone and the vowel sound of the word 美 had been switched. Had I not known the context, I probably would have had no idea what they were saying. The kids continued following me, yelling for their friends along the way, until I had a posse of around 7 or 8 eleven-year-olds following me around yelling out “mai2 guo2 ren2” for all to hear.
I decided to take the opportunity to ask them some questions about their school studies and life in the small village. However, from the minute they began answering my questions I realized that while they could understand everything I said, I was barely catching 50% of what was coming from their mouths.
This was interesting because not only because we were less than 150 miles from Beijing, but also because generally speaking, children’s Putonghua is by far and away the easiest to understand as a Chinese second-language learner. There are two reasons for this. The first is obvious. Children use simpler vocabularies than adults. The second reason, however, is that in China, the younger one is, the more likely they are to speak more standard Putonghua. This has to do with both the government’s emphasis on Putonghua in schools since the early 1950’s, and probably to an even greater extent, the mass exposure to Putonghua TV and movies in the past few decades. This was honestly the first time (since I got comfortable with Chinese) I have ever had difficulty communicating with small children on account of their accents…and it was happening just outside of Beijing!
Why then, would it be so difficult for me to understand the Putonghua of children from Hebei, just outside of Beijing, when I could understand the Putonghua of rural Fujian children without such problem?
The answer lies in the degree of diversion between Putonghua and the “dialects.” Because the dialects in Fujian* are completely unintelligible to outsiders, Fujian people have to consciously switch back and forth between their “dialect” and Putonghua. In the North, the dialects, while quite different from standard Putonghua, are still understandable to Chinese outsiders. I would imagine a native Chinese speaker could have understood about 95% of what those Hebei kids were saying. For comparison sake, it would be like someone from Chicago speaking English with a Jamaican with a thick accent. Though it might require some careful listening, the Chicagoan would probably understand most of what the Jamaican was saying. Yet a Chinese who was studying English as a second language, it would not be so easy.
Because of this, northerners in rural areas can often get away with speaking their dialect rather than standard Putonghua. Thus, communicating in Putonghua in a northern province such as Hebei, can actually be more difficult than using Putonghua in a remote southern location, like Fuzhou.
This idea however, only applies to rural areas. In major urban centers, Putonghua tends to prevail over local dialects. In Northern cities where the local dialects are closer to the Beijing tongue, this translates into standard Mandarin. In the South, which is linguistically distant from Beijing, this translates into Putonghua with a southern accent.
*For the record, I consider the native tongues of Fujian to be separate languages from Mandarin, not dialects.
maxiewawa
said,
July 7, 2008 at 2:08 pm
My mum is from Taiwan so the Putonghua accent from around Fujian sounds much more natural to me. No strange ’sh’ or ‘zh’ sounds. As an Australian, I’m very used to dropping off/slurring syllables where meaning is clear.
By the way, today’s post takes about 30 seconds or so to load here in Shanghai. But even though the page is fully loaded, Firefox is still saying that it is “Transferring data from http://www.benross.net...”
Anonymous
said,
July 7, 2008 at 5:04 pm
just like in germany… where because northern germans spoke hugely non-standard german before standardization (plattdeutsch, etc.) they switched consciously to hochdeutsch… and now everyone makes fun of the southern accents, even though hochdeutsch is from the south
chriswaugh_bj
said,
July 9, 2008 at 10:28 am
Context, Ben. Remember, you were in a small, rural village talking to kids. You were on their patch.
First, remember that in China, like in every other country, all the best teachers and educational resources go to the cities, while the rural areas make do with whatever’s left over. It’s quite possible that those kids’ teachers didn’t necessarily speak the best Putonghua.
My wife is from a rural area even closer to Beijing- Yanqing County, which is Beijing’s northwestern corner. She does a lot of code-switching between standard Putonghua and Yanqinghua- and yes, there is quite a distinct difference. Basically, as soon as we cross Badaling or whenever she’s talking to one of her family members (apart from myself, of course) she switches to Yanqinghua. The rest of the time she speaks Putonghua. I presume that with time the kids you were talking to will learn to do the same.
And remember that poorer areas and poorer people tend to get less education. It’s entirely possible that these kids will never learn proper Putonghua and go through their lives with strong local accents marking them out as poor, rural folk.
And I would be very, very surprised if 99% of Fuzhouren under 65 really could speak Putonghua. Firstly, last I heard only 54% of Chinese people speak Putonghua- and that’s an official government figure from only a couple of years ago. Secondly, my experience suggests that no matter where you are in China- even here in Beijing- ability to speak Putonghua is closely linked with educational levels and social status. More educated people are more likely to speak standard Putonghua, less educated people tend to speak dialect. But again, that’s true of pretty much every country.
Benjamin Ross
said,
July 10, 2008 at 1:08 am
@chriswaugh_bj
This is exactly the point I was trying to reiterate. Putonghua ability is not necessarily a North-South division. There are many more factors at work, namely as you mention, social class. My guess is that these kids probably will not learn to code-switch however, unless they get a job in a city. By the age of 12, the critical period is basically over, and adding another language or dialect is considerably difficult (not necessarily impossible though). Small children in Fujian are usually code-switching by about 4 or 5, thus they grow up speaking both their dialect and Putonghua with native fluency. Granted, learning Putonghua is of much greater importance for the Fujianese, because unlike these kids in Hebei, nobody will understand them if they speak their dialacts away from home.
As for the 99% of Fuzhouren under 65 speaking Putonghua, I am going to stand by my figure. I have heard that 54% Putonghua statistic as well and have always felt it’s baloney. I have several theories as to the origins of this stat. Firstly, I have a feeling that people who only speak dialects such as Sichuan hua or Henan Hua (both generally intelligable to Chinese from other regions) are not considered as “putonghua” speakers While technically, they are not speaking putonghua, including them in this statistic gives the impression that they are unable to communicate with putonghua speakers, which is not the case. Secondly, I believe it is entirely possible that the “study” which arrived at the 54% statistic may have only included those who speak putonghua as a first language. There is a wide misconception (held by many Chinese as well) that people in places such as Fujian do not speak Putonghua. While there are very few places in Fujian where Putonghua is the first language, thesedays almost everybody is completely bilingual. If you were to just pick a random Fujian locale (other than Fuzhou or Xiamen) and stand on a street corner and listen, you’d probably hear about 90% dialect, 10% Putonghua. But if you were a laowai or waidiren and were to walk around talking to locals, you’d find that they can all communicate in Putonghua as well. Generally speaking, the only people in Fujian you will run into with whom you cannot communicate in Putonghua, are those who live high up in mountains (or on islands) and were educated before the establishment of the PRC.
So for Fuzhou city itself, it is almost unheard of for a local (under 65）not to speak Putonghua. If we were going for the entire province, I would give a ballpark figure maybe at very lowest of around 80%, and that’s conservative.
With that high of a percentage of Fujian ren speaking Putonghua, I am highly skeptical of a national average of 54%. But I can certainly see how you could manipulate the data to come up with such a figure.
Even more importantly, in a country like China there is absolutely no way to do a scientifically bound linguistic survey to figure out how many people do in fact speak Putonghua. Even if there was, I don’t buy that 54% figure.
Liuzhou Laowai
said,
July 10, 2008 at 8:00 pm
“I am highly skeptical of a national average of 54%. But I can certainly see how you could manipulate the data to come up with such a figure.”
It’s a figure released by the Chinese Government, specifically the State Working Committee of Chinese Language.
It is their function to promote Putonghua (Mandarin) so they are probably manipulating the figure up, not down.
I certainly know many Chinese who can’t speak it.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
July 12, 2008 at 6:39 pm
What’s really missing from the discussion is a clear definition of “ability to speak Putonghua”. Do we put the whole city of Fuzhou through the shaoshu minzu branch of HSK, and those who score a level 7 (my level on the laowai edition) or above are “Putonghua speakers” while those with 6 or below are “non-Putonghua speakers”?
My experience of Changsha- where I started learning Chinese- is perhaps one very big reason why I doubt your claim, Ben. Many times in markets I would have to ask three times how much something cost before I could get a response I could understand- and that meant them replying three times with three sets of hand-signals. And no, I had no reason to believe they took my repeated questions as an odd, laowai way of bargaining. I had many similar experiences. And then I moved to Taiyuan and had to totally readjust not only my accent but my grammar.
And then one day in Tongzhou in the far southeastern corner of Beijing, my wife and I were on a minibus and this old guy jumped on and he had to repeat the name of his destination at least five times before the ticket seller understood. Trouble is, I understood him first time. Ticket seller asked old guy where he’s from. He said Hunan.
My wife’s Jiuma is from a very remote county of northwestern Hebei right up by the Shanxi border, what should be a Jin-speaking area. Of all my extended in-laws, hers is the accent that gives me the most trouble. But then, just before last Spring Festival, we were up in Ma’s home village in Huailai County visiting Dajiu and Jiuma and I suddenly realised that certain of Jiuma’s sentence patterns, pronunciations and rhythms were oddly familiar, like what I’d heard when I lived in Taiyuan.
There is, apparently some discussion about whether Jin is a branch of Mandarin (like the dialects of Sichuan and Yunnan) or a separate ‘language’, like those of Fujian, Hunan, and Guangdong.
So I would say that many people speak something approaching Putonghua, but with a heavy accent (true of the whole country, sure, but….) and so hugely influenced by the grammar of their local dialect as to make their Putonghua not really Putonghua. I don’t know where you’d draw the line, how you’d sort the Putonghua-speakers from the non-Putonghua-speakers, but this is a very real problem.
mike c
said,
July 14, 2008 at 12:45 am
I used to have a job in Beijing where I had to listen to folks from all over China. People from Shandong were notoriously difficult for me to understand (my problem, not theirs) even though they lived just a province away…
Benjamin Ross
said,
July 14, 2008 at 10:45 am
Chris-
I think you’ve hit the real crux of the matter here. What defines putonghua? Let me give you my definition, and I’m curious what you think. To me “putonghua” simply means that what you are speaking can be understood by the average Beijinger, or any educated Chinese for that matter. It’s a simplistic definition, but it’s functional. The whole point of Putonghua is to be a common language, by which people from different regions can communicate. When you speak English with your Kiwi accent, you probably sound vastly different from someone from rural Alabama speaking English. You also probably use occasional idioms and phrases which might not be understood by the other party. However, the bottom line is that smooth communciation is still feasible.
I know that many people would disagree with this definition (since technically I am calling Sichuanhua Putonghua since it can be mutually understood), but you have to draw the line somewhere. This is also the same paradigm I would use to say that because of mutual intelligibility, Putonghua, Sinchaunhua, Yunnanhua, and many of the Northern dialects are the same language, but different dialects. Whereas the various tongues spoken in Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, and Hunan, I would classify as different languages because they are not mutually intelligible.
The original point of my post however, is that when people in Fuzhou speak Putonghua, they are actually easier to understand than many Northerners, since their dialect cannot be understood by your average Chinese. Whereas, somebody from rural Hebei can get away with speaking their dialect to a Beijinger, and still be understood.
As for Hunan, I do remember in my trip there, that the Hunanese tend to throw dialect words into their Putonghua rather liberally. Interestingly enough, this is almost never done in Fuzhou. (possible linguistics theses for somebody here??) There are many words which come from the dialect, 调羹 instead of 勺子 comes to mind, but these are still always spoken with Putonghua pronunciation, not the way they would be in the dialect.
Furthermore, I think it is difficult to assess the intelligibility of a dialect as a laowai. You can certainly assume a dialect is intelligible, since if we understand it, than the Chinese certainly do, but determining non-intelligibility is a little trickier. While you may have had trouble communicating in Hunan, my guess is that a Chinese (not from Hunan) wouldn’t have had such difficulty, just as I’d imagine a Beijinger could have understood those boys from Hebei. Same thing in English. I know many Chinese people with impeccable English, but sit them down with a Jamaican, and they’re lucky if they can catch 20% of what’s said.
Good discussion.
Benjamin Ross
said,
July 21, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Chris-
Where did you go? We were having such a lovely little linguisitic cat fight. Let’s finish this up over a beer and 烤肉 in Beijing sometime. I should be back in August.