Anhui 5

Listen to Anhui 5, a 20-year-old woman from Linhuai, Fengyang County, Anhui, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/04/1990

PLACE OF BIRTH: Linhuai, Fengyang County

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

Subject also spent time in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

There have been very few. The subject’s major at university is Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, and she had a very limited exposure to native English speakers in the 18 months prior to the date of the recording.

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 05/04/2011

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Um, I made a report about smoking in my hometown, Anhui Province. It is, mm, well known to us that smoking is harmful to he – health and can cause some other problems too. Some managers now say that no one can smoke in any of their – any of their offices, and some governments have banned smoking in all public places. This is a good idea, I thought. It takes away some of – some of our freedom. Smoking is harmful not only to our health but also to environment. Smoking can lead to many diseases, for example, lung cancer. S – som – smoking affects non-smokers, hmm, more than it does on smokers themselves, so many non-smokers are against smoking, in public places the harm of smoking is greater. [Note that, in China, it is socially unacceptable for women to smoke, either in private or in public.] Therefore the – ha – government bans smoking is very necessary and important. It is a measure to put ou – our health and environment. In my opinion, it would be much better to give up smoking not only in private places but also in the public places, which, I think, will be of beneficial to all of us. [The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Zhongyuan guanhua dialect, which is closely related to standard Mandarin. (See the detailed commentary below.) A reading in pure Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the Hebei 1 sample, and a comparison with that sample will point up the subtle differences between the two.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/07/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

SHORT READINGS FROM THE ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS

KEY: A = Mandarin (Simplified); B = Mandarin (Pingyin); C = Dialect (Pingyin); D = English.

孔子: 论语 – Kǒng zǐ : lún yǔ – Kon zi: len yu – Confucius: Lun Yu

 

學而第一 – xué ér dì yī – Xué ér dì yī – Chapter One

A: 1-1:-       子曰: 學而時習之、不亦說乎。

B: yī-yī :-    zǐ yuē: xué ér shí xí zhī, bù yì yuè hū.

C: yī-yī :-

D: 1-1:-       The Master said: Is it not pleasure to learn, and practice what is learned time and again?

A: 1-2:-       有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎。

B: yī-èr:-     yǒu péng zì yuǎn fāng lái, bù yì lè hū.

C: yī-èr:-

D: 1-2:-       Is it not happiness to have friends coming from distant places?

A: 1-3:-       人不知而不慍、不亦君子乎。

B: yī-sān:    rén bù zhī ér bù yùn, bù yì jūn zi hū.

C: yī-sān:

D: 1-3:-       Is it not virtue for a man to feel no discomposure when others take no note of him?

為政第二 – wéi zhèng dì èr – wéi zhèng dì ér – Chapter two

A: 2-2:-       子曰：「詩三百，一言以蔽之，曰：『思無邪』。

B: èr-èr:-     zǐ yuē: shī sān bǎi, yī yán yǐ bì zhī , yuē: sī wú xié.

C: èr-èr:-

D: 2-2:-       The Master said: In the Book of Odes there are three hundred poems, but they may be summarised in a single sentence: Think no evil.

A: 2-7:-       子游問孝。子曰：今之孝者，是謂能養。至於犬馬，皆能有養；不敬,  何 以別乎。

B: èr-qī:-     zǐ yóu wèn xiào. zǐ yuē: jīn zhī xiào zhě, shì wèi néng yǎng. zhì wū quǎn mǎ, jiē néng yǒu yǎng; bù jìng, hé yǐ bié hū.

C: : èr-qī:-

D: 2-7:-       Zi You asked what filial piety was. The Master said: Nowadays, providing support for one’s parents is considered filial piety. But dogs and horses can also do this. If there is no respect, what is the difference?

A: 2-10:-     子曰：「視其所以，觀其所由，察其所安。人焉叟哉？人焉叟哉？

B: èr-shí :- zǐ yuē: shì qí suǒ yǐ , guān qí suǒ yóu, chá qí suǒ ān. rén yān sǒu zāi? rén yān sǒu zāi?

C: èr-shí :-

D: 2-10:-     The Master said: Watch what a man does. Find out his motives. See how he takes his ease. How then can the man hide his true self? How can the man hide his true self?

COMMENTARY

This is a strong accent with a notably clipped and confident delivery. Many of the features that characterize English as spoken by Chinese natives can be heard here – especially the confusion of the /v/ and /w/ minimal pairs, as in “vet” and “very.” An interesting feature, which has not appeared in any of the previous samples, is a substitution of /N/ for /n/, as in “tune.”

The subject’s dialect is Central Plains Mandarin or Zhōngyuán guānhuà, a dialect mostly spoken in the central part of Shaanxi, Henan, and southern part of Shandong Provinces. However, there are clusters in some of the surrounding provinces, notably in northern Anhui and Jiangsu. In all, it is spoken in about 390 counties and towns. Its roots go back to the Song Dynasty (960-1179 CE) with some influences from the later Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1271-1368). It was part of the group of dialects that formed part of the standard for the official Baihua before and during the Qing dynasty until its replacement by modern Standard Mandarin. The archaic dialect of Peking opera is a form of Zhongyuan Mandarin.

The subject’s hometown is Linhuai town in Fengyang, a county of Anhui Province, under the administration of Chuzhou, a prefecture-level city. During the Xia (2070-1600 BCE), Shang (1600-1046 BCE), and early Zhou (1046-771 BCE) dynasties, the Dongyi peoples inhabited this area. The term means Eastern people, and the Dongyi were one of the four traditional groups of barbarians in Chinese culture – the others being the Northern Di, the Southern Man, and the Western Rong.

Dongyi culture was one of the oldest neolithic cultures in China, and some Chinese scholars suggest that the Dongyi culture used to be one of the leading cultures in neolithic China. The writing system used by the Dongyi is one of the oldest in China, and it is possible to relate the twenty pictograms on a Dongyi tomb in Shangdong to modern Chinese characters. They are also thought to have invented the bow and arrow.

During the late Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BCE) and the early Spring and Autumn Period (722-4765 BCE), the Dongyi became increasingly sinicized and formed their own states and were collectively known as the Huaiyi after the Huai River led by the State of Xu, which was eventually destroyed by its Chu and Wu neighbours. Eventually, the Huaiyi peoples were either pushed south or assimilated. One of the tributary states in the Huaiyi confederation was the small Zhongli State, and tombs from this State have been excavated in Fengyang.

The founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), ZhuYuanzhang, was a native of Fengyang. A peasant who had to resort to begging as a young man, he led the revolt against the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and reigned as the Hongwu Emperor (1368-1398) with his capital at Nanjing. Once emperor, he posthumously raised his father, Zhu Wusi, and mother, Lady Chen, to imperial status and constructed the Ming Huangling (Ming Imperial Mausoleum) to hold their remains. The stone statues from the mausoleum have survived and have been re-erected in their original location.

For a detailed commentary on Anhui Province itself, see the Anhui 2 sample.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 16/07/2013

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