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"Simmons, Richard VanNess"
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The Language of Táng Poetry as Entryway into the Spoken Language of the Táng: A Preliminary Exploration
This study examines features of the living colloquial language of the Táng Dynasty as found to be reflected in Táng poetry. The operating postulate for this study is that Táng poetry and its prosody had a strong orality, and hence also had a connection to the spoken language that went beyond the formulaic and codified system of Middle Chinese phonology. A corollary to this postulate is that across and between regional varieties, or dialects, of the Táng spoken language there also was a prestige koine, that had evolved out of those spoken dialects and that had wide currency in the Táng empire. Within that linguistic environment, colloquial elements are found in Táng poems that fall outside the received phonology or that comprise words not found in Chinese prior to the Táng. These colloquial elements are of particular utility in characterizing the colloquial and regional nature of the Táng language. Such colloquial forms can be uncovered, for example, where a syllable is found in an unexpected tone category in order to fit a poem's expected prosody. This study considers examples of these kinds of unexpected forms that are identified in passages cited by Jiǎng Shàoyú 蒋绍愚 in his 1990 study, Tángshī yǔyán yánjiū 唐诗语言研究. The examination finds that while Táng prosody is more closely reflected in the modern southern dialects, colloquial words and elements that made their way into poetry in Táng times more commonly originated in the regional northern dialects of the period, or in the Táng koine, or in both. Finally, two appendices are included following the main body of this study. The first is a detailed and annotated translation of a short passage discussing tone variants in Táng poety in Jiǎng Shàoyú 1990. The second is a brief outline of Táng poetic prosody that provides some background to the issues of tone that underly the analysis.
Journal Article
Whence Came Mandarin? Qīng Guānhuà, the Běijīng Dialect, and the National Language Standard in Early Republican China
While the language of Běijīng served together with Manchu as the court vernacular in the Qīng dynasty, the city's dialect was not widely accepted in China as the standard for Guānhuà even in the late nineteenth century. The preferred form was a mixed Mandarin koiné with roots going back much earlier, such as that represented in Lǐ Rǔzhēn's mid-Qīng rime compendiumLǐshì yīnjiàn. A similar form of mixed Mandarin served briefly as the National Pronunciation of China in the early twentieth century and came to be calledlán-qīng Guānhuà‘blue-green Mandarin’. This heterogeneous norm incorporated features of a variety of Mandarin dialects and eventually came to be disparaged as an unrefined cousin of the pure Běijīng standard. Yet in origin the old National Pronunciation was designed to encompass a mix of regional forms and intended to contain the most broadly accepted elements of various Mandarin types. The evolution and development of the composite Guānhuà norm reveal much about Chinese linguistic attitudes of the early nineteenth through early twentieth centuries and shed light on various perspectives about what standard Chinese should be and what a Mandarin-based norm should represent. Broad popular acceptance of Běijīng as the governing norm for pronunciation began slowly to take hold only after the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China finally officially promoted Běijīng as the national standard in the 1930s. Yet it then had to compete with a new mixed vernacular orthography calledLatinxua sinwenz. Běijīng was not firmly established as the norm until the People's Republic of China definitively declared the city's dialect as standard in the 1950s.
Journal Article
Contact-Induced Layering and Diffusion in Yuè Chinese Varieties—The -iun/iut and -un/ut Merger Reconsidered
This study re-investigates the merger of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut in 46 Yuè Chinese varieties, which lacks explanatory treatment, from the variant derivative patterns of *-iun/iut > [yn]/[yt] and *-un/ut > [yn]/[yt]. The historical-comparative method was employed as the frame to analyze spatial (geographic) variation obtained from QGIS. The data showed that the merger of the reflexes of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut does not prevail in the majority of Yuè varieties, while mergers of *-iun/iut with *-in/it and *-iun/iut with *-on/ot or *-ion/iot are dominant. The spatial patterns of *-iun/iut and *-un/ut suggest different diffusion patterns and background factors.
Journal Article
History of the Chinese Language. By Hongyuan Dong
A History of the Chinese Language. By Hongyuan Dong. New York: Routledge, 2014. Pp. xiii + 203. $145 (cloth); $54.95 (paper).
Journal Article
Grammar of Mandarin. By Jeroen Wiedenhof
A Grammar of Mandarin. By Jeroen Wiedenhof. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015. Pp. xxiii + 477. $158 (cloth); $54 (paper).
Journal Article
Chinese Dialect Classification
This volume is an investigation and classification of dialects along the Wu and Jiang-Hwai Mandarin border in China's eastern Yangtze Valley. It is the first monograph-length study to critically question the traditional single criterion of initial voicing for the classification of Wu dialects and propose a comprehensive comparative framework as a more successful alternative. Arguing that dialect affiliation is best determined through analysis of dialect correspondence to common phonological systems, the author develops a taxonomic analysis that definitively distinguishes Common Northern Wu and Mandarin dialects. By clarifying dialect affiliation in the Wu and Mandarin border region, this volume makes significant contributions to our understanding of the true nature of the region's dialects and their history.Using primarily data drawn from the author's own fieldwork, the volume contains copious comparative examples and an extensive lexicon of the Old Jintarn dialect.
eBook
Chinese Dialect Classification: A Comparative Approach to Harngjou, Old Jinturn and Common Northern Wu
This volume is an investigation and classification of dialects along the Wu and Jiang-Hwai Mandarin border in China's eastern Yangtze Valley. It is the first monograph-length study to critically question the traditional single criterion of initial voicing for the classification of Wu dialects and propose a comprehensive comparative framework as a more successful alternative. Arguing that dialect affiliation is best determined through analysis of dialect correspondence to common phonological systems, the author develops a taxonomic analysis that definitively distinguishes Common Northern Wu and Mandarin dialects. By clarifying dialect affiliation in the Wu and Mandarin border region, this volume makes significant contributions to our understanding of the true nature of the region's dialects and their history.Using primarily data drawn from the author's own fieldwork, the volume contains copious comparative examples and an extensive lexicon of the Old Jintarn dialect.
eBook
A Second Look at the Tōwa Sanyō: Clues to the Nature of the Guanhuah Studied by Japanese in the Early Eighteenth Century
The vocabulary and usage of the Tōwa sanyō provide a framework for examining the characteristics of eighteenth-century Mandarin. This Edo-period Chinese primer, compiled by Okajima Kanzan, presents a language that is distinctively Mandarin, while also showing evidence of Wu dialect influence. The text contains examples of usage drawn from the literary language as well. Yet this primer has a true colloquial base and likely represents an idealized form of Guanhuah, the Mandarin koine that carried great prestige in the Jiangnan region frequented by Japanese merchants who studied the text. The colloquial of this text shows a striking similarity to the modern Harngjou dialect. But, with slight modifications, Okajima's later texts present a language more similar to the Nanjing dialect. It is thus possible to surmise that Ming-period Guanhuah may have once been strongly reminiscent of the Harngjou dialect in most of its key features.
Journal Article