As was mentioned before, Chinese is not
a monolithic homogenous structure, but rather a motley concoction of at
least 15 major dialects united by one recently adopted spoken standard
and one written
language (Traditional and Simplified scripts are only variations).
There are quite a few terms both in English and Chinese used for Standard
Modern Chinese, both on this site and other language-related sources. For
the sake of terminological clarity, let us review the most common of them.
Putonghua 普通話 (pu3 tong1 hua4) -- "Normal language".
More than half a century ago the conclusion of a long-standing debate
on the standard national language in China was formulated as: "Consisting
of the sounds of the Beijing dialect, based on the lexicon of the Northern
Chinese dialect, and the grammar of the written language (白話 bai2 hua4)
used for communication between the Han people (漢民族 Han4 min2 zu2)."
In English
putonghua is known as Mandarin -- the word is derived
from the name of Chinese emperial government officials who were supposed
to use the standard language.
Beijing hua. 北京話 (bei3 jing1 hua2) -- "Beijing speak" or "Beijing dialect"
First of all, the Beijing dialect is a dialect, though the one whereon putonghua is based. It is the way common Beijingers speak in their daily life -- with all the features typical for vernacular. Its main distinctions are:
- tonal and sound variations, e.g., ”言語一聲兒“ is pronounced (yuan2 yi yi4 shengr1) instead of (yan2 yu3 yi2 shengr1)
- dialectal/slang expressions like:
- 打住 (da3 zhu4) -- meaning 別再說了 (bie2 zai4 shuo1 le)
- 棒棰 (du3 chui2) -- meaning 外行 (wai4 hang2)
- 別價 (bie2 jia4) -- meaning 別這樣 (bie2 zher4)
- 二百五 (er2 bai3 wu3) -- meaning 笨蛋 (ben4 dan4)
- 敢情 (gan3 qing2) -- meaning 當然 (dang1 ran2) or 原來 (yuan2 lai2)
- 罷了 (ba4 le) -- in the sense of "Oh well!"
- 蓋了帽兒了 (gai4 le mar4 le) -- meaning 非常好 (fei1 chang2 hao3)
- and many others
Guoyu 國語 (guo2 yu3)-- National language
The term is used for the variety of Standard Chinese as accepted in Taiwan. For the most of Taiwanese, it is the medium of education rather than their native language. However, through the decades of standardized compulsory education, it has become the core of vernacular speech for the post-war generations. The younger the person is, the more likely their Standard Chinese will be fluent.
Guoyu's standard form is almost identical to Putonghua, but such typical Beijing phenomena as qing-sheng-fication (輕聲化 -- light-tone-ization) and er-fication (兒化) are much less common. Also, some consonants (most notably zh-, ch-, sh-) may be pronounced softer than in Mainland China, while the 3rd tone pronounced in Taiwan as low flat rather than the Mainland way -- sharply falling and then rising back up.
- the Taiwan-style 3rd tone: __
- the Mainland-style 3rd tone: \/
Huayu 華語 (hua2 yu3)
This is the Standard Chinese -- as opposed to Chinese dialects -- used
as (once again) the medium of education by ethnic Chinese in Singapore,
Malaysia and other countries. It is more of a literary tradition, since
the vernacular for the most of the Overseas Chinese community are various
Chinese dialects. Its written form is also known as Bei-hua 白話 (bai2
hua4). Save Singapore, it almost invariably uses the Traditional script
for writing.
TV Standard
In a number of countries, the TV speak is considered to be the standard language. However, Beijing TV anchorpersons are (in)famous for their unnatural forced intonations (claimed to add more pathos and dramatism to their commentaries) that they themselves never use in normal conversation.
As if to make good for heavy usage of vernacular dialect (台語 Tai2 yu3) in Taiwanese daily speech -- or in a bid to out-Mandarin the mainlanders -- the Taiwanese TV folks enunciate in a far more natural fashion their their Beijing colleagues. Nevertheless, they still fall short of what could be called super-correct Chinese -- all because of their Taiwanese consonants and occasional usage of somewhat obsolete forms.
Most probably, the only real speakers of Standard Chinese are professors in major central universities.
