Mandarin
官話/官话 Guānhuà
Guānhuà (Mandarin) written in Chinese characters
Spoken in	Most of northern and southwestern China (see also Standard Chinese)
Native speakers	845 million  (2000 census)[1] Total: 1,020 million
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Chinese Mandarin
Dialects	Northeastern Beijing Ji-Lu Jiao-Liao Lower Yangtze Central Plains Lan-Yin Southwestern Jin (disputed)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cmn
Linguasphere	79-AAA-b
Mandarin area, with disputed Jin group in light green
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In Chinese linguistics, Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話; pinyin: Guānhuà; literally "speech of officials") refers to a group of related varieties or dialects spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. Because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is also referred to, particularly among Chinese speakers, as the "northern dialect(s)" (simplified Chinese: 北方话; traditional Chinese: 北方 話; pinyin: Běifānghuà). A northeastern-dialect speaker and a southwestern-dialect speaker can hardly communicate except through the standard language, mainly because of the differences in tone. Nonetheless, the variation within Mandarin is less significant than the much greater variation found within several other varieties of Chinese, and this is thought to be due to a relatively recent spread of Mandarin across China, combined with a greater ease of travel and communication compared to the more mountainous south of China.

Mandarin dialects, particularly the Beijing dialect, form the basis of Standard Chinese, which is also referred to "Mandarin" (also referred to as Putonghua (simplified Chinese: 普通话; traditional Chinese: 普通話; pinyin: Pǔtōnghuà; literally "common speech") or Guoyu (Chinese: 國語; pinyin: Guóyǔ; literally "national language")). Standard Chinese or Standard Mandarin is the official language of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China and one of the four official languages of Singapore. When the Mandarin group is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, it has more native speakers (nearly a billion) than does any other language. For most of Chinese history, the capital has been within the Mandarin area, making these dialects very influential. Since the early 20th century, a form of standardized Mandarin (described above) has been the official and de facto national standard language in China and it is today one of the most frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities internationally.

Name[link]

The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay [ˈməntəri] menteri, from Hindi mantri, from Sanskrit mantrin, meaning "minister or counsellor"), originally meant an official of the Chinese empire.^[2][3] As their home dialects were varied and often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a koiné based on various northern dialects. When Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuà (官话/官話), or "language of the officials".^[4]

In everyday English, "Mandarin" refers to Standard Chinese, which is often called simply "Chinese". Standard Chinese is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing, with some lexical and syntactic influence from other Mandarin dialects. It is the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the official language of the Republic of China (R.O.C./Taiwan), and one of the four official languages of the Republic of Singapore. It also functions as the language of instruction in the PRC and in Taiwan. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, under the name "Chinese". Chinese speakers refer to the modern standard language as Pǔtōnghuà 普通话 (on the mainland), Guóyǔ 國語 (in Taiwan) or Huáyǔ 华语 (in Malaysia and Singapore), but not as Guānhuà.^[5]

This article uses the term "Mandarin" in the sense used by linguists, referring to the diverse group of Mandarin dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China, which Chinese linguists call Guānhuà. The alternative term Běifānghuà (simplified Chinese: 北方话; traditional Chinese: 北方話), or "Northern dialect(s)", is used less and less among Chinese linguists. By extension, the term "Old Mandarin" is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty.

Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of "Mandarin" (or so-called "Northern dialects") in a broader sense. Within Chinese social or cultural discourse, there is not a common "Mandarin" identity based on language; rather, there are strong regional identities centred on individual dialects because of the wide geographical distribution and cultural diversity of their speakers. Speakers of forms of Mandarin other than the standard typically refer to the variety they speak by a geographic name—for example Sichuan dialect, Hebei dialect or Northeastern dialect, all being regarded as distinct from the standard language.

As with all other varieties of the Chinese language, there is significant dispute as to whether Mandarin is a language or a dialect. See Varieties of Chinese for more on this issue.

History[link]

The present Chinese language varieties developed out of the different ways in which dialects of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese evolved. Traditionally, seven major groups of dialects have been recognized. Aside from Mandarin, the other six are Wu Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Min Chinese, Xiang Chinese, Yue Chinese and Gan Chinese.^[6] More recently, other more specific groups have been recognized.

Old Mandarin[link]

A page of the Menggu Ziyun, covering the syllables tsim to lim

After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty, and during the reign of the Jin (Jurchen) and Yuan (Mongol) dynasties in northern China, a common speech developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital, a language referred to as Old Mandarin. New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, drama and story forms.^[7]

The rhyming conventions of the new verse were codified in a rhyme dictionary called the Zhongyuan Yinyun (1324). A radical departure from the rhyme table tradition that had evolved over the previous centuries, this dictionary contains a wealth of information on the phonology of Old Mandarin. Further sources are the 'Phags-pa script based on the Tibetan alphabet, which was used to write several of the languages of the Mongol empire, including Chinese, and the Menggu Ziyun, a rhyme dictionary based on 'Phags-pa. The rhyme books differ in some details, but overall show many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects, such as the reduction and disappearance of final plosives and the reorganization of the Middle Chinese tones.^[7]

In Middle Chinese, initial plosives and affricates showed a three-way contrast between tenuis, voiceless aspirated and voiced consonants. There were four tones, with the fourth, or "entering tone", comprising syllables ending in plosives (-p, -t or -k). Syllables with voiced initials tended to be pronounced with a lower pitch, and by the late Tang Dynasty, each of the tones had split into two registers conditioned by the initials. When voicing was lost in all dialects except the Wu group, this distinction became phonemic, and the system of initials and tones was rearranged differently in each of the major groups.^[8]

The Zhongyuan Yinyun shows the typical Mandarin four-tone system resulting from a split of the "even" tone and loss of the entering tone, with its syllables distributed across the other tones (though their different origin is marked in the dictionary). Similarly, voiced plosives and affricates have become voiceless aspirates in the "even" tone and voiceless non-aspirates in others, another distinctive Mandarin development. However, the language still retained a final -m, which has merged with -n in modern dialects, and initial voiced fricatives. It also retained the distinction between velars and alveolar sibilants in palatal environments, which later merged in most Mandarin dialects to yield a palatal series (rendered j-, q- and x- in pinyin).^[7]

The flourishing vernacular literature of the period also shows distinctively Mandarin vocabulary and syntax, though some, such as the third-person pronoun tā (他), can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty.^[9]

Vernacular literature[link]

Until the early 20th century, formal writing and even much poetry and fiction was done in Literary Chinese, which was modelled on the classics of the Warring States period and Han Dynasty. Over time, the various spoken varieties diverged greatly from Literary Chinese, which was learned and composed as a special language. Preserved from the sound changes that affected the various spoken varieties, its economy of expression was greatly valued. For instance, 翼 (yì, wing) is unambiguous in written Chinese, but has over 75 homophones in spoken Mandarin.

The literary language was less appropriate for recording materials that were meant to be reproduced in oral presentations, materials such as plays and grist for the professional story-teller's mill. From at least the Yuan dynasty, plays that recounted the subversive tales of China's Robin Hoods to the Ming dynasty novels such as Water Margin, on down to the Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber and beyond, there developed a literature in written vernacular Chinese (白話/白话; báihuà). In many cases, this written language reflected Mandarin varieties, and since pronunciation differences were not conveyed in this written form, this tradition had a unifying force across all the Mandarin-speaking regions and beyond.^[10]

Hu Shih, a pivotal figure of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote an influential and perceptive study of this literary tradition, entitled Báihuà Wénxuéshǐ (A History of Vernacular Literature).

Koiné of the Late Empire[link]

Zhongguo Guanhua (中國官話), or Medii Regni Communis Loquela ("Middle Kingdom's Common Speech"), used on the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by Étienne Fourmont (with Arcadio Huang) in 1742^[11]

The Chinese have different languages in different provinces, to such an extent that they cannot understand each other.... [They] also have another language which is like a universal and common language; this is the official language of the mandarins and of the court; it is among them like Latin among ourselves.... Two of our fathers [Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci] have been learning this mandarin language...

— Alessandro Valignano, Historia del Principio y Progresso de la Compaia de Jesus en las Indias Orientales (1542–1564)^[12]

Until the mid-20th century, most Chinese people living in many parts of southern China spoke only their local language. As a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties, known as Guānhuà. Knowledge of this language was thus essential for an official career, but it was never formally defined.^[5]

Officials varied widely in their pronunciation; in 1728, the Yongzheng emperor, unable to understand the accents of officials from Guangdong and Fujian, issued a decree requiring the governors of those provinces to provide for the teaching of proper pronunciation. Although the resulting Academies for Correct Pronunciation (正音書院, Zhèngyīn Shūyuàn) were short-lived, the decree did spawn a number of textbooks that give some insight into the ideal pronunciation. Common features included:

• loss of the Middle Chinese voiced initials except for v-
• merger of -m finals with -n
• the characteristic Mandarin four-tone system in open syllables, but retaining a final glottal stop in "entering tone" syllables
• retention of the distinction between palatalized velars and dental affricates, the source of the spellings "Peking" and "Tientsin" for modern "Beijing" and "Tianjin".^[13]

As the last two of these features indicate, this language was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect.^[14] This form remained prestigious long after the capital moved to Beijing in 1421, though the speech of the new capital emerged as a rival standard. As late as 1815, Robert Morrison based the first English-Chinese dictionary on this koiné as the standard of the time, though he conceded that the Beijing dialect was gaining in influence.^[15] By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court.^[16]

Standard Chinese[link]

In the early years of the Republic of China, intellectuals of the New Culture Movement, such as Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu, successfully campaigned for the replacement of Literary Chinese as the written standard by written vernacular Chinese, which was based on northern dialects. A parallel priority was the definition of a standard national language (traditional: 國語; Wade–Giles: Kuo²-yü³; simplified: 国语, pinyin: Guó​yǔ). After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation, the National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard, calling it pǔtōnghuà (simplified: 普通话; traditional: 普通話; literally "common speech").^[17]

The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both the PRC and the R.O.C. (but not in Hong Kong and Macau). This standard can now be spoken intelligibly by most younger people in Mainland China and Taiwan, with various regional accents. In Hong Kong and Macau, because of their colonial and linguistic history, the language of education, the media, formal speech and everyday life remains the local Cantonese, although the standard language is now very influential.^[18] In Mandarin-speaking areas such as Sichuan, the local dialect is the mother tongue of most of the population. The era of mass education in Standard Chinese has not erased these regional differences, and people may be either diglossic or speak the standard language with a notable accent.

From an official point of view, the PRC government and R.O.C. government maintain their own forms of the standard under different names. Technically, both Pǔtōng​huà​ and Guó​yǔ base their phonology on the Beijing accent, though Pǔtōng​huà​ also takes some elements from other sources. Comparison of dictionaries produced in the two areas will show that there are few substantial differences. However, both versions of "school-standard" Chinese are often quite different from the Mandarin dialects that are spoken in accordance with regional habits, and neither is wholly identical to the Beijing dialect. Pǔtōng​huà​ and Guó​yǔ also have some differences from the Beijing dialect in vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics.

The written forms of Standard Chinese are also essentially equivalent, although simplified characters are used in Mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore while people in Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong generally use traditional characters.

Geographic distribution and dialects[link]

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Distribution of the eight subgroups of Mandarin according to the Language Atlas of China (1987), plus Jin Chinese, which many linguists include as part of Mandarin

Most Han Chinese living in northern and south-western China are native speakers of a dialect of Mandarin. The North China Plain provided few barriers to migration, leading to relative linguistic homogeneity over a wide area in northern China. In contrast, the mountains and rivers of southern China have spawned the other six major groups of Chinese dialects, with great internal diversity, particularly in Fujian.^[19][20]

However, the varieties of Mandarin cover a huge area containing nearly a billion people. As a result, there are pronounced regional variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and many Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible.^[21]

Most of northeastern China, except for Liaoning, did not receive significant settlements by Han Chinese until the 18th century,^[22] and as a result the Northeastern Mandarin dialects spoken there differ little from Beijing Mandarin. The Manchu people of the area now speak these dialects exclusively. The frontier areas of Northwest and Southwest China were colonized by speakers of Mandarin dialects at the same time, and the dialects in those areas similarly closely resemble their relatives in the core Mandarin area.^[23] However, long-established cities even very close to Beijing, such as Tianjin, Baoding, Shenyang, and Dalian, have markedly different dialects.

Unlike their compatriots on the south-east coast, few speakers of Mandarin dialects emigrated from China until the late 20th century, but there are now significant communities of them in cities across the world.^[24]

Classification[link]

The classification of Chinese dialects evolved during the 20th century, and many points remain unsettled. Early classifications tended to follow provincial boundaries or major geographical features. In 1936, Wang Li produced the first classification based on phonetic criteria, principally the evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials. His Guānhuà group included dialects of northern and southwestern China, as well as Hunan and northern Jiangxi. Li Fang-Kuei's classification of 1937 distinguished the latter two groups as Xiang and Gan, while splitting the Guānhuà group into Northern, Lower Yangtze and Southwestern Guānhuà groups. The widely accepted seven-group classification of Yuan Jiahua in 1960 retained separate Xiang and Gan groups, beside a single Mandarin group with Northern, Northwestern, Southwestern and Jianghuai (Lower Yangtze) subgroups.^[25]

The linguist Li Rong proposed that the Jin dialects of Shanxi and neighbouring areas constitute a separate group at the same level as Mandarin, and used this classification in the Language Atlas of China (1987). Li distinguishes these dialects based on their retention of the Middle Chinese entering tone (plosive-final) category (also preserved by Jiang-Huai dialects) and other features. Many other linguists continue to treat these dialects as a subgroup of Mandarin.^[26]

The Language Atlas of China divides the remaining Mandarin dialects into eight subgroups, distinguished by their treatment of the Middle Chinese entering tone (see Tones below):^[27]

• Northeastern, or that spoken in the northeast of China (known in the West as Manchuria), except the Liaodong Peninsula: This dialect is closely related to Standard Chinese, with little variation in lexicon; there are very few tonal changes.
• Beijing and environs, such as Chengde, Hebei: The basis of Standard Chinese. Some people in areas of recent large-scale immigration, such as northern Xinjiang, speak the Beijing dialect or something very close to it.
• Ji-Lu, or that spoken in Hebei ("Ji") and Shandong ("Lu") provinces, except the Jiaodong Peninsula, including Tianjin dialect: Tones are markedly different, but vocabulary is generally similar; generally, full intelligibility is not difficult with Beijing Mandarin.
• Jiao-Liao, or that spoken in Shandong (Jiaodong) Peninsula and Liaodong Peninsula: Very noticeable tonal changes, different in "flavour" from Ji-Lu Mandarin, but with more variance; significant, but not full intelligibility with Beijing.
• Zhongyuan (lit. "central plain"), spoken in Henan province, the central parts of Shaanxi in the Yellow River valley, and southern Xinjiang: Significant phonological differences, with partial intelligibility with Beijing. The Dungan language, a Chinese-derived language spoken in Kyrgyzstan, belongs to this group and is generally intelligible with Mandarin.
• Lan-Yin, or that spoken in Gansu province (with capital Lanzhou) and Ningxia autonomous region (with capital Yinchuan), as well as northern Xinjiang.
• Jiang-huai (or Xia-Jiang), spoken in the parts of Jiangsu and Anhui on the north bank of the Yangtze, as well as some areas on the south bank, such as Nanjing in Jiangsu, Jiujiang in Jiangxi, etc.: Significant phonological and lexical changes to varied degrees; intelligibility is limited. Jiang-Huai has been significantly influenced by Wu Chinese.
• Southwestern, or that spoken in the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and the Mandarin-speaking areas of Hunan, Guangxi and southern Shaanxi: Sharp phonological, lexical, and tonal changes are present; intelligibility with Beijing is limited to varied degrees.

Phonology[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Syllables consist maximally of an initial consonant, a glide, a vowel, a final, and tone. Not every syllable that is possible according to this rule actually exists in Mandarin, as there are rules prohibiting certain phonemes from appearing with others, and in practice there are only a few hundred distinct syllables.

Phonological features that are generally shared by the Mandarin dialects include:

• the palatalization of velars and alveolar sibilants when they occur before palatal glides;
• the disappearance of final plosives and /-m/ (although in many Jianghuai Mandarin and Jin dialects, an echo of the final plosives is preserved as a glottal stop);
• the reduction of the six tones inherited from Middle Chinese after the tone split to four tones;
• the presence of retroflex consonants (although these are absent in many dialects of Southwestern and Northeastern Mandarin);
• the historical devoicing of plosives and sibilants (also common to most non-Mandarin varieties).

Initials[link]

A generalized table for the initials of the Mandarin dialects is as follows. Initials not present in the standard language are placed within parentheses.

• The retroflex initials /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ are missing in many dialects of Manchuria and southern China, where they are replaced by the alveolar sibilants /ts tsʰ s/. (zhi becomes zi, chi becomes ci, shi becomes si, and ri /ɻ/ or /ʐ/ may sound like /z/.) This is also common in the Mandarin spoken in Taiwan. Most other Mandarin-speaking areas do distinguish between the retroflex and alveolar sibilants, but they are often in different distribution than in standard Mandarin.

• The alveolo-palatal sibilants /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ are the result of merger between the historical palatalized velars /kj kʰj xj/ and palatalized alveolar sibilants /tsj tsʰj sj/. In about 20% of dialects, the alveolar sibilants failed to palatalize, remaining separate from the alveolo-palatal initials. (The unique pronunciation used in Beijing opera falls into this category.) On the other side, in some dialects of eastern Shandong, the velar initials have failed to palatalize.

• Many southwestern Mandarin dialects mix f- /f/ and hu- /xw/, substituting one for the other in some or all cases. For example, fei /fei/ "to fly" and hui /xwei/ "dust" may be merged in these areas.

• In some dialects, initial /l/ and /n/ are not distinguished. In Southwestern Mandarin, these sounds usually merge to /n/; in Jianghuai Mandarin, they usually merge to /l/.

• People in many Mandarin-speaking areas may use different initial sounds where Beijing uses initial r- /ʐ/. Common variants include y-, l-, n-, and w- /j l n w/.

• /v/, /ŋ/ and /ʔ/, used as initials in earlier forms of Chinese, have merged with the zero initial in most dialects of Mandarin.

• Many dialects of Northwestern and Central Plains Mandarin have /pf/ /pfʰ/ /f/ /v/ where Beijing has /tʂw tʂʰw ʂw ɻw/. Thus, /pfu/ "pig" for Standard /tʂu/, /fei/ "water" for Standard /ʂwei/, /vã/ "soft" for Standard /ɻwæn/, and so forth.

Finals[link]

• In many widely scattered Mandarin dialects, finals ai ei ao ou /ai ei ɑu ɤu/ are pronounced as monophthongs (i.e. with no glide).

• Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin underwent more vowel mergers than many other varieties of Mandarin. For example:

Standard finals such as e, o, ai, ei, ao, u, üe, and ie /ɤ o ai ei ɑu u yɛ iɛ/ often turn up unpredictably as other vowels in other dialects. The rules are complex and are the result of Middle Chinese phonology (especially interactions with final plosives) undergoing divergent development in different Mandarin dialects.

• The medial -u- /w/, occurring with an alveolar consonant, is often lost in southwestern Mandarin. Hence we get dei /tei/ "right" where standard Mandarin has dui /twei/, ten "swallow" /tʰən/ where the standard has tun /tʰwən/.

• Southwestern Mandarin have gai kai hai /kai kʰai xai/ in a few (not all) words where the standard has jie qie xie /tɕiɛ tɕʰiɛ ɕiɛ/. This is a stereotypical feature of southwestern Mandarin, since it is so easily noticeable. E.g. hai "shoe" for standard xie, gai "street" for standard jie.

• In some areas (especially southwestern) final -ng /ŋ/ changes into -n /n/. This is especially prevalent in the rhyme pairs -en/-eng /ən ɤŋ/ and -in/-ing /in iŋ/. As a result, jīn "gold" and jīng "capital" merge in those dialects.

• Some dialects of Mandarin have a final glottal stop in certain words. See the second point under "Tones", below.

• R-coloring, a characteristic feature of Mandarin, works quite differently in the southwest. Whereas Beijing dialect generally removes only a final /j/ or /n/ when adding the rhotic final -r /ɻ/, in the southwest the -r replaces the nearly the entire rhyme.

Tones[link]

• In general, no two Mandarin-speaking areas have exactly the same set of tone values. On the other hand, most Mandarin-speaking areas have very similar tone distribution – for example, the dialects of Jinan, Chengdu, Xi'an etc. all have four tones that correspond quite well to the Beijing tones of [˥] (55), [˧˥] (35), [˨˩˦] (214), and [˥˩] (51). The exception to this rule lies in the distribution of syllables formerly ending in a plosive, which are treated differently in different dialects of Mandarin.

• In most Mandarin dialects, syllables that ended in a plosive in Middle Chinese (i.e. /p/, /t/ or /k/), which formerly had no tone to speak of, have lost that consonant entirely and have been assigned one of the four tones. The way that tones were assigned differs from dialect to dialect and depends on the initial consonant. Note in particular that, in the Beijing dialect that underlies Standard Mandarin, syllables beginning with originally unvoiced consonants were redistributed across the four tones in a completely random pattern. For example, the three characters 积脊迹, all pronounced /tsjek/ in Middle Chinese (William H. Baxter's reconstruction), are now pronounced jī jǐ jì, with tones 1 3 4 respectively. Older dictionaries such as Mathews' Chinese–English Dictionary mark characters whose pronunciation formerly ended with a plosive with a superscript 5; however, this tone number is more commonly used for syllables that always have a neutral tone (see below).

• In Jianghuai dialects, a minority of Southwestern dialects (e.g. Minjiang) and Jin (sometimes considered non-Mandarin), former final plosives were not deleted entirely, but were reduced to a glottal stop /ʔ/. This is in common with the non-Mandarin Wu dialects, and is thought to represent the pronunciation of Old Mandarin.

• Note that traditional Chinese phonology considers syllables ending in a plosive (including a glottal stop) as containing a special tone known as the entering tone, and as a result dialects such as Jianghuai and Minjiang are said to have five tones instead of four. However, modern linguistics considers these syllables as having no phonemic tone at all.

• Standard Mandarin and many northern dialects frequently employ neutral tones in the second syllables of words, creating syllables whose tone contour is so short and light that it is difficult or impossible to discriminate. However in many areas, especially in the south, the tones of all syllables are made clear. This is also characteristic of non-Mandarin dialects.

Tone distribution variation:

V- = obstruent unvoiced initial consonant
L = sonorant voiced initial consonant
V+ = obstruent voiced initial consonant

Tone contour variation:

* Dialects in and around the Nantong area typically have many more than 4 tones, due to influence from the neighbouring Wu dialects.

Grammar[link]

Chinese varieties of all periods have traditionally been considered prime examples of analytic languages, relying on word order and particles instead of inflection or affixes to provide grammatical information such as person, number, tense, mood, or case. Although modern varieties, including the Mandarin dialects, use a small number of particles in a similar fashion to suffixes, they are still strongly analytic.^[28]

The basic word order of subject–verb–object is common across Chinese dialects, but there are variations in the order of the two objects of ditransitive sentences. In northern dialects the indirect object precedes the direct object (as in English), for example in the Standard Chinese sentence

我	给	你	一本	书 。
wǒ	gěi	nǐ	yìběn	shū.
I	give	you	a	book.

In southern dialects, as well as many southwestern and Jiang-Huai dialects, the objects occur in the reverse order.^[29]

Most varieties of Chinese use post-verbal particles to indicate aspect, but the particles used vary. Most Mandarin dialects use the particle -le (了) to indicate the perfective aspect and -zhe (著/着) for the progressive aspect. Other Chinese varieties tend to use different particles, e.g. Cantonese jo² 咗 and gan² 緊/紧 respectively. The experiential aspect particle -guo (過/过) is used more widely, except in Southern Min.^[30]

The subordinative particle de (的) is characteristic of Mandarin dialects.^[31] Some southern dialects, and a few Jiang-Huai dialects, preserve an older pattern of subordination without a marking particle, while in others a classifier fulfils the role of the Mandarin particle.^[32]

Especially in conversational Chinese, sentence-final particles alter the inherent meaning of a sentence. Like much vocabulary, particles can vary a great deal with regards to the locale. For example, the particle ma (嘛), which is used in most northern dialects to denote obviousness or contention, is replaced by yo (哟) in southern usage.

Vocabulary[link]

There are more polysyllabic words in Mandarin than in all other major varieties of Chinese except Shanghainese^{[citation needed]}. This is partly because Mandarin has undergone many more sound changes than have southern varieties of Chinese, and has needed to deal with many more homophones. New words have been formed by adding affixes such as lao- (老), -zi (子), -(e)r (兒/儿), and -tou (頭/头), or by compounding, e.g. by combining two words of similar meaning as in cōngmáng (匆忙), made from elements meaning "hurried" and "busy". A distinctive feature of southwestern Mandarin is its frequent use of noun reduplication, which is hardly used in Beijing. In Sichuan, one hears baobao "handbag" where Beijing uses bao'r. There are also a small number of words that have been polysyllabic since Old Chinese, such as húdié (蝴蝶) "butterfly".

The singular pronouns in Mandarin are wǒ (我) "I", nǐ (你/妳) "you", nín (您) "you (formal)", and tā (他/她/它) "he/she/it", with -men (們/们) added for the plural. Further, there is a distinction between the plural first-person pronoun zánmen (咱們/咱们), which is inclusive of the listener, and wǒmen (我們/我们), which may be exclusive of the listener. Dialects of Mandarin agree with each other quite consistently on these pronouns. While the first and second person singular pronouns are cognate with forms in other varieties of Chinese, the rest of the pronominal system is a Mandarin innovation (e.g., Shanghainese has 侬/儂 non "you" and 伊 yi "he/she").^[33]

Because of contact with Mongolian and Manchurian peoples, Mandarin (especially the Northeastern varieties) has some loanwords from these languages not present in other varieties of Chinese, such as hútòng (胡同) "alley". Southern Chinese varieties have borrowed from Tai,^[34] Austro-Asiatic,^[35] and Austronesian languages.

In general, the greatest variation occurs in slang, in kinship terms, in names for common crops and domesticated animals, for common verbs and adjectives, and other such everyday terms. The least variation occurs in "formal" vocabulary—terms dealing with science, law, or government.

See also[link]

• Chinese dictionary

References[link]

Footnotes

Works cited

• Coblin, W. South (2000). "A brief history of Mandarin". Journal of the American Oriental Society 120 (4): 537–552. DOI:10.2307/606615. 
• Coblin, W. South (2003). "Robert Morrison and the Phonology of Mid-Qīng Mandarin". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 13 (3): 339–355. DOI:10.1017/S1356186303003134. 
• Kurpaska, Maria (2010). Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of "The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects". Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-021914-2. 
• Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3. 
• Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01468-5. 
• Richards, John F. (2003). The unending frontier: an environmental history of the early modern world. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23075-0. 
• Yue, Anne O. (2003). "Chinese dialects: grammar". In Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J. (eds.). The Sino-Tibetan languages. Routledge. pp. 84–125. ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1. 

Further reading[link]

• Chao, Yuen Ren (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00219-9. 
• Wurm, Stephen Adolphe; Li, Rong; Baumann, Theo; Lee, Mei W. (1987). Language Atlas of China. Longman. ISBN 978-962-359-085-3. 
• Novotná, Z., "Contributions to the Study of Loan-Words and Hybrid Words in Modern Chinese", Archiv Orientalni, (Prague), No.35 (1967), (In English: examples of loan words and calques in Chinese)
• Calvin Wilson Mateer (1898). A course of Mandarin lessons, based on idiom, Volume 2 (revised ed.). SHANGHAI: American Presbyterian mission. http://books.google.com/books?id=zictAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 10th of February, 2012. (Princeton University)
• Calvin Wilson Mateer (1906). A course of Mandarin lessons, based on idiom (revised ed.). SHANGHAI: American Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 786. http://books.google.com/books?id=SvRWAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 10th of February, 2012. (the University of Michigan)
• Calvin Wilson Mateer (1892). A course of Mandarin lessons, based on idiom. SHANGHAI: American Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 714. http://books.google.com/books?id=sT8HAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 10th of February, 2012. ()
• Calvin Wilson Mateer (1909). A course in Mandarin lessons: based in idiom. American Presbyterian mission press. pp. 789. http://books.google.com/books?id=wsFBAQAAIAAJ. Retrieved 10th of February, 2012. ()
• Adam Grainger (1900). Western Mandarin: or the spoken language of western China, with syllabic and English indexes. SHANGHAI: American Presbyterian Mission Press. pp. 803. http://books.google.com/books?id=nBUtAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 10th of February, 2012. (Princeton University)

External links[link]

• Tones in Mandarin Dialects : Comprehensive tone comparison charts for 523 Mandarin dialects. (Compiled by James Campbell) – Internet Archive mirror

Céline Dion
Dion during her Taking Chances Tour concert in Bell Centre, Montreal, on August 19, 2008.
Background information
Birth name	Céline Marie Claudette Dion
Born	(1968-03-30) March 30, 1968 (age 44)
Origin	Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada
Genres	Pop, dance, R&B, pop rock, soft rock, adult contemporary
Occupations	Singer,[1] songwriter-composer,[2] actress[3]
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1980–present
Labels	Sony Music Canada, Epic, 550, Columbia
Website	celinedion.com

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, CC OQ, (French pronunciation: [selin djɔ̃] ( listen); born March 30, 1968), is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec,^[4] Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record.^[5] In 1990, she released the English-language album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.^[6]

Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest.^[7][8] Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to CBS Records Canada in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history.^[9][10] However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a hiatus from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer.^[10][11] She returned to the top of pop music in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Paradise, Nevada.^[12][13][14]

Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals.^[15][16][17] Dion is the best-selling Canadian artist of all time,^[18][19] is the second best-selling female artist in the US during the Nielsen SoundScan era,^[20][21] and is the only female artist to have two singles sell more than a million copies in the UK.^[22] In addition, her 1995 album D'eux, is the best-selling French-language album of all time.^[23] In 2004, after surpassing 175 million in album sales worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award at the World Music Awards for becoming the best-selling female artist of all time.^[24][25] According to Sony Music Entertainment, Dion has sold over 200 million albums worldwide.^[26]

Life and career[link]

Childhood and early beginnings[link]

The youngest of 14 children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, both of French-Canadian descent, Celine Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada.^[10][27] Music had always been a part of the family (Dion was named after the song Céline, recorded by French singer Hugues Aufray two years before her birth ^[28]). On the 13th of August 1973, (at the age of five) the young Céline did her first public appearance at her brother Michel's marriage, and performed Christine Charbonneau's song ^[29] Du fil des aiguilles et du coton.^[30] Then after she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril. From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer.^[31] In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."^[32]

At age 12, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream").^[27] Her brother Michel Dondalinger Dion sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album.^[5] Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice, and decided to make her a star.^[27] In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu ("The Voice of the Good God"), which later became a local number-one hit and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You").^[5]

By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year".^[5][33] Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Ne partez pas sans moi (Don't Go Without Me) and won the contest by a close margin in Dublin, Ireland.^[34] However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.^[35] At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson.^[36] Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide.^[27] Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.^[6]

In 1989, during a concert on Incognito Tour, Dion injured her voice. She consulted the otorhinolaryngologist William Gould.^[37][38] He gave her an ultimatum: have surgery on her vocal cords, or not utilize them at all for three weeks.^[37] Dion chose the latter and underwent a vocal formation with William Riley,^[37][38] because, according to Gould and Riley, she "doesn't know singing, she made a bad use of her vocal cords".^[37][38]

Career breakthrough: 1990–1992[link]

	Dion's earlier English releases "Where Does My Heart Beat Now" (1990) noicon "Where Does My Heart Beat Now", Dion's first North American hit, was 1980s soft rock. (Note the prominence of the electric guitar). It contrasts with the style of subsequent efforts.
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Two years after she had learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), the lead single having originally been recorded by Laura Branigan.^[5] She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian producer David Foster.^[39] The album was largely influenced by 1980s soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the adult contemporary radio format. Unison also hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion's vocals were "tastefully unadorned", and that she never attempted to "bring off styles that are beyond her".^[40] Stephen Erlewine of Allmusic declared it as, "a fine, sophisticated American debut."^[41] Singles from the album included "(If There Was) Any Other Way", "The Last to Know", "Unison", and "Where Does My Heart Beat Now", a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which made prominent use of the electric guitar. The latter became her first single to reach the top-ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number-four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across Continental Europe and Asia.

In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in Voices That Care, a tribute to American troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm. Dion's real international breakthrough came when she duetted with Peabo Bryson on the title track to Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991).^[42] The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top-ten single, and won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.^[15] "Beauty and the Beast" was featured on Dion's 1992 self-titled album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and Diane Warren, the album was as well received as Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included "If You Asked Me To" (a cover of Patti LaBelle's song from the 1989 movie Licence to Kill) which peaked at number-four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged "Love Can Move Mountains", and "Nothing Broken But My Heart".

As with Dion's earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love. Also during this time, Dion released the Francophone album Dion chante Plamondon in 1991. The album consisted mostly of covers, but included 4 new songs, which included "Des mots qui sonnent", "Je danse dans ma tête", "Quelqu'un que j'aime, quelqu'un qui m'aime" and "L'amour existe encore". It was originally released in Canada and France during the 1991–1992 period, but then got an international release in 1994, the first French Celine Dion album to do so. "Un garçon pas comme les autres (Ziggy)" became a smash hit in France, reaching number-two and being certified gold. In Quebec, the album was certified Gold the day it was released.

By 1992 Unison, Céline Dion, and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the Anglophone market and achieving fame.^[35] However, while she was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them.^[15][43] She would later regain her fan base at the Félix Award show, where, after winning "English Artist of the Year", she openly refused to accept the award. She asserted that she was—and would always be—a French, not an English, artist.^[6][44] Apart from her commercial success, there were also changes in Dion's personal life, as Angélil, who was twenty-six years her senior, transitioned from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find their relations inappropriate.^[45]

Popularity established: 1993–1995[link]

In 1993, Dion announced her feelings for her manager by declaring him "the colour of [her] love" in the dedication section of her third English-language album The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as Dion had feared, fans embraced the couple.^[46] Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.

As it was dedicated to her manager, the album's motif focused on love and romance.^[47] It became her most successful record up to that point, selling more than six million copies in the U.S., two million in Canada, and peaking at number-one in many countries. The album also spawned Dion's first U.S., Canadian, and Australian number-one single "The Power of Love" (a remake of Jennifer Rush's 1985 hit), which would become her signature hit until she reached new career heights in the late 1990s.^[35] The single "When I Fall in Love", a duet with Clive Griffin, achieved moderate success on the U.S. and Canadian charts, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards, winning one. The Colour of My Love also became Dion's first major hit in Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom. Both the album and the single "Think Twice" simultaneously occupied the top of the British charts for five consecutive weeks. "Think Twice", which remained at number-one for seven weeks, eventually became the fourth single by a female artist to sell in excess of one million copies in the UK,^[48] while the album was eventually certified five-times platinum for two-million copies sold.^[49]

Dion kept to her French roots and continued to release many Francophone recordings between each English record.^[50] Generally, they achieved more credibility than her English-language works.^[43] She released À l'Olympia, a live album that was recorded during one of Dion's concerts at the Paris Olympia in 1994. It had one promotional single, a live version of "Calling You", which peaked at seventy-five on the French Singles Chart. She also recorded a bilingual version of Petit Papa Noël with Alvin and the Chipmunks for the 1994 holiday album A Very Merry Chipmunk. D'eux (also known as The French Album in the United States), was released in 1995, and it would go on to become the best-selling French-language album of all time.^[50] The album was mostly written and produced by Jean-Jacques Goldman, and amassed huge success with the singles "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" and "Je sais pas". "Pour que tu m'aimes encore" reached number 1 in France and stayed at the top position for twelve weeks. It was later certified Platinum in France.^[51] The single also reached the top ten in the UK and Ireland, a rare accomplishment for a French song. The second single off the album, "Je sais pas", reached number-one on the French Singles Chart as well and was certified Silver in France.^[52] These songs would later become "If That's What It Takes" and "I Don't Know" on Dion's next English album, Falling into You.

During the mid-1990s, Dion's albums continued to be constructed on the basis of melodramatic ballads, but also with up-tempo pop and adult contemporary themed music.^[53] She collaborated with talented craftsman such as Jim Steinman and David Foster who helped her devise more adult contemporary songs.^[54][55] While critical reviews fluctuated, Dion's releases performed increasingly well on the international charts, and in 1996 she won the World Music Award for "World’s Best-selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year" for the third time. By the mid-1990s, she had established herself as one of the best-selling artists in the world.^[56]

Worldwide commercial success: 1996–1999[link]

Musical diversity of Falling into You "Falling into You" (1996) noicon The slow-tempo title track was noted for its considerable use of percussion instruments and the saxophone. "Call the Man" (1996) noicon One of the final tracks on the album, "Call the Man", features a choir chanting and humming in an African language. "I Don't Know" (1996) noicon Falling into You contained outlandish musical effects, as epitomized by the single "I Don't Know."

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Falling into You (1996), Dion's fourth English-language album, presented the singer at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music.^[45] In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements, such as complex orchestral sounds, African chanting and elaborate musical effects. Additionally, instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho and saxophone created a new sound.^[57] The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles. The title track "Falling into You" and "River Deep, Mountain High" (a Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of percussion instruments; "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the piano; and the number-one single "Because You Loved Me", which was written by Diane Warren, was a ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film Up Close & Personal.^[56]

Falling into You garnered career-best reviews for Dion. While Dan Leroy wrote that it was not very different from her previous work,^[58] and Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic,^[59][60] other critics, such as Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AMG and Daniel Durchholz, lavished the album as "compelling", "passionate", "stylish", "elegant" and "remarkably well-crafted".^[57][61] Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in many countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.^[62] In the United States, the album reached number-one,^[63] and was later certified 11x Platinum for over 11 million copies shipped.^[64] In Canada, the album was certified diamond for over one million copies shipped.^[65] The IFPI certified Falling into You 9x Platinum, an accolade that has been given to only two other albums in history, with one of the two being Dion's own album, Let's Talk About Love.^[66] The album also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor Album of the Year.^[67] Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.^[68] In March 1996, Dion launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.

Dion followed Falling into You with Let's Talk About Love (1997), which was publicized as its sequel.^[69] The recording process took place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests, such as Barbra Streisand on "Tell Him"; the Bee Gees on "Immortality"; and world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "I Hate You Then I Love You".^[45][70] Other musicians included Carole King, Sir George Martin, Bryan Adams and Jamaican singer Diana King, who added a reggae tinge to "Treat Her Like a Lady".^[71] As with Falling into You, Let's Talk About Love was a major success for Dion, reaching number-one all over the world, attaining platinum status in twenty-four sales territories, and becoming Dion's fastest selling album of her career.^[72] In the United States, the album topped the chart in its seventh week of release,^[73] and was later certified 10x Platinum in the U.S. for over 10 million copies shipped.^[74] In Canada, the album sold 230,212 copies in its first week of release, which became, and still is, a record.^[75] It was eventually certified diamond in Canada for over 1 million copies shipped.^[76][77] The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "My Heart Will Go On", which was written and composed by James Horner and Will Jennings, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff.^[67] Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, the song topped the charts across the world, and became Dion's signature song;^[78] as well as winning the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song.^[79] The song also gave Dion two Grammy Awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and the most coveted "Record of the Year", (the song itself won four awards, but two were presented to the songwriters).^[80] "My Heart Will Go On" and "Think Twice" made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles to sell more than a million copies.^[81] In support of her album, Dion embarked on the Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999.^[82]