The Fundamental Differences
between
Putonghua and Pekingnese
------A Linguistic Perspective
Ming Chao Gui
The
Abstract
The actual situation in teaching and learning Putonghua to nonnative speakers of the Chinese language (or rather, Mandarin Chinese) has given rise to a very common question: why they cannot understand Pekingneses, a key component in the making and standardization of Putonghua. In fact, it will be the same questions to the majority of Chinese except the Pekingnese speakers themselves. The simply answer is: even though one is based on another, they are actually different. But how different, more importantly, what are the fundamental differences that have become the obstacle in understanding Pekingnese by the learners or speakers of Putonghua? There is not enough study in this area so far. It is intended in this paper to have a systematic discussion, from the linguistic point of view, of the most significant differences between Putonghua and Pekingese in eleven aspects: 1) genetic affiliation: genetic vs. “composed”, 2) nature: natural vs. “standardized”, 3) sound system: connection and difference, 4) lexicon: dialectal vs. general, 5) intelligibility: limitation in understanding, 6) tempo, 7) pitch, 8) syllable-final retroflexion: typical vs. normal, 9) nasalization: unique vs. normal, 10) syllable fusion: uniqueness, and 11) tone: tone shift in connection to syllable fusion. Some in-depth discussion will be conducted on the syllable final retroflexion (traditionally known as “儿化”) as a result of syllable fusion and the subsequent tone shift typically found in Pekingnese. Ample examples from real life conversation will be provided to support the arguments or observations.