Hebei 5

Listen to Hebei 5, a 20-year-old woman from Hándān, Hebei Province, 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): 23/11/1990

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hándān, Hebei Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

Subject lived for more than one year in neighboring Shanxi Province.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

Since coming to university in Suzhou seven months before the date of the recording, she has had limited exposure to a couple of native English speakers.

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): 06/04/2011

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Ahm, my hometown is located in Hebei Province, ah, and, ah, and she- she’s name is Hándān. Hándān is a very ancient city, maybe, eh, ah, which maybe could dating from the Zhàn Guó [Warring States Period (475-221 BCE)]. Ah, and, ah Hándān is not very, ah, developed district, but, ah, the people in the city was very diligent. Ah, my parents and my grandparents are the, ah, are the re- residents of the district and they, ahm, ah, they lived on farming. Ah, Hándān, ah, is not so beautiful and, ah, it, ah, often suffered from the flooded of water. [The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius. Unfortunately, she felt unable to read it in her own Handanhua dialect. (See the detailed commentary below) She read the Putonghua (Mandarin) version. However, close comparison with the purer Putonghua reading in the Hebei 1 sample points to some small differences in pronunciation.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/07/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY):

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 nice strong accent that has many of the characteristics commonly found in English as spoken by Chinese natives. Listen particularly for the additional /a/ at the end of many words – good examples abound in the unscripted speech such as “developeda districta” and “parentsa and grandparentsa.”

The subject’s dialect, Hándānhua, is a subdialect of the Jin language, which is spoken in parts of five provinces: Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan. There has been some dispute over whether Jin should be classified as a top-level language in its own right, or whether it should be classified as a dialect of the Mandarin group. However, it is now widely accepted that Jin has features that set it apart from Mandarin. These include the retention of the final glottal stop or Ru tone (as in the Wu dialects), which has disappeared in Mandarin. The result is that all Jin dialects have, on average, five tones as opposed to the four in Mandarin. Jin also has a highly complex tone sandhi system based on lexical and semantic features.

The subject’s hometown of Hándān is located in the southwestern part of Hebei Province. It was part of the Cishan Neolithic culture, which flourished between 8,000 and 5,500 BCE and covered an area of 80,000 m² (33,457 ft²). The people of this culture were millet farmers, and their dwellings were semi-subterranean and round. There is evidence of domesticated pigs, dogs, and chicken. The primary source of meat was the pig, but fish also formed an important part of the diet. Archaeologists have discovered more than 500 subterranean storage pits, which were used to store millet. The largest of these were up to 5 metres (16 ft.) deep and capable of storing up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs.) of millet.

Hándān was the capital of the Xhao Kingdom during the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE). The city was conquered by the State of Qin after the virtual annexation of Zhao by Qin. The first emperor of China, Zhao Zheng (251-210 BCE), who reigned as Qin Shi Huang (221-210 BCE), visited the city once and ordered all enemies of his mother to be buried alive. This kind of brutality characterised his reign as he strove to unify the country; however, he was also responsible for the construction of the great Wall and of a vast national road system. His Mausoleum outside Xi’An is guarded by the Terracotta Army, which was discovered in 1974.

During the Western and Eastern Han dynasties (206−220 CE), Hándān was still an important commercial centre, but after the constant war that characterised the last decades of the Eastern Han, it entered a period of gradual decline and was eventually replaced as the capital by Yecheng City. It is now mainly an industrial city with iron, steel, and textile mills, in addition to chemical and cement plants.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/07/2013

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