Article published In: Developments in Diglossic Settings in the Asian Pacific Region:
Edited by Marinus van den Berg
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 30:1/2] 2020
► pp. 139–171
Special issue articles
Chinese urban language in historical perspective
Guānhuà and dialect in the late Qīng
Published online: 30 June 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00048.sim
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00048.sim
Abstract
Three contemporaneous descriptions of Guānhuà from the beginning of the 19th century collectively provide a rich
and evocative representation that contains a trove of details regarding the nature of that koine and its relationship to Mandarin
and local dialects in the urban linguistic milieu of the late Qīng. The descriptions are those of Gāo Jìngtíng (fl. 1800–1810), Lǐ
Rǔzhēn (c. 1763–1830), and . (1782–1834). (1828). Vocabulary of the Canton Dialect. Macao: East India Company’s Press.. We find that all three note the
existence of two forms of Guānhuà, a northern type, and a southern type. The three authors all present a mix of northern and
southern types in their descriptions, though each also gives greater prominence to the southern type. This southern type has a
close connection to the southern Jiāng-Huái Mandarin dialects, and takes the dialect of Nánjīng as a primary representative. In
overall perspective, these three authors’ descriptions also reveal there was widespread acceptance of, and social accommodation
for, linguistic diversity in Qīng China, within which Guānhuà served as the lingua franca that promoted easy communication across
China’s vast territory.
Keywords: Guānhuà, zhèngyīn, southern Mandarin, northern Mandarin, koine, Nánjīng dialect
Article outline
- I.Introduction
- II.The two types of Mandarin
- III.The essentials of the phonologies of the two types of Mandarin and their difference
- IV.Three views of Mandarin as a koine within the diversity in the 18th–19th c.
- 1.Gāo Jìngtíng, the contemporary witness
- 2.Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s fictional representation of variegated linguistic speech communities
- 3.Robert Morrison, a learner from the West
- V.A note on the vocabulary and grammar of the Mandarin described by Gāo, Lǐ, and Morrison
- VI.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
Primary sources Secondary references
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