Local readings of Chinese characters

Spoken readings of hieroglyphs usually reflect local phonetics ^[2] , and literary sources come from other Chinese languages ^[3] , they are more prestigious . Local readings are usually older; literary readings are closer to modern phonetics. Many literary readings appeared as a result of the influence of the northern dialects of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Empire .

Literary readings are usually used in formal situations (as prestigious), they were included in the educational process. Although the phonetics of non-North Chinese languages ​​is somewhat different from the local one, literary readings are gradually approaching North Chinese.

The frequency of literary readings reflects the status of the language. For example, before the state began to propagate putonghua , there were almost no literary readings in the dialects of the central part of China, but in the 21st century there were already a lot of them. The prestigious Peking and Cantonese dialects contain relatively few literary readings.

In some Chinese languages, borrowed readings can replace the primordial, which leads to the creation of many pairs of local and literary readings. A new reading can replace the old literary, and the old literary either disappear or become a new local ^[1] .

Sometimes literary and local readings have different meanings.

Yue language

In the prestigious Yue language, local readings are similar to Middle Chinese , and literary - on putonghua . The meaning of the character is often determined by the type of reading used. Between Media literary and local readings there are direct correspondences, for example, local readings with the media [ɛ] correspond to literary readings with [ɪ] and [i] in the medal. Similarly, local medals with [a] correspond to literary [ɐ] , and local [ɐi] correspond to literary [i] .

Hakka

Hakka also has many literary and local readings.

North Chinese

Unlike other Chinese languages, literary readings in North Chinese are more conservative, since they reflect the pronunciation of the time when Beijing was not yet the capital ^[3] , for example, the period of the Ming Dynasty . Most cases of distinguishing between literary and local readings occur in words pronounced in an incoming tone , these are usually readings that were not acquired by the North Chinese to the Yuan Dynasty ^[3] . Local readings of other regions are borrowed in the Beijing dialect, that is, literary readings have actually become popular, local. There are differences between putonghua and the Taiwanese Goyui standard, as different interpretations were chosen as the main ones in their standards.

Examples of literary readings accepted by the Beijing dialect

Examples of local readings perceived by the Beijing dialect

Sichuan

In the local readings are usually similar to or during the Ming Dynasty, and literary readings are taken from modern North Chinese. For example, in the Yaolin dialect, the local reading of the character “ Chinese 物 ” (“thing”) is [ væʔ ] ^[4] , which is very similar to the Old Sychuan reading of the times of the Song empire (960–1279) ^[5] , and literary reading, [ voʔ ], similar to putonghua [ u ]. The table below contains examples of hieroglyphs with local and literary readings ^[6] .

U

In the north of the U-lingual region, the source of literary readings were the Beijing and dialects of the Ming and Qing times, as well as putonghua ^[7] . In the southern y-lingual regions, literary readings often borrowed from . Local readings usually reflect older sound systems ^[8] .

Not in all Russian dialects the situation is the same. In some discrepancies between readings are more common, for example, Chinese. 魏 began in Middle Chinese with ŋ , and in literary readings his initial is zero. Local reading / ŋuɛ / is used in the Songjiang dialect ^[9] . About 100 years ago this character was pronounced / ŋuɛ / both in Suzhou ^[10] and Shanghai , and in the 2000s it was pronounced / uɛ / .

Some pairs of local and literary readings are interchangeable, for example, Chinese 吳淞 and Chinese 松江 , while others are not: Chinese 人民 should be read in literary reading, / zəɲmiɲ / , and Chinese 人命 in local: / ɲiɲmiɲ / . Sometimes different readings are assigned different meanings: Chinese 巴結 “ / pʊtɕɪʔ / ” means “to make great efforts”, and “ / pɑtɕɪʔ / ” means “to get the desired results”. Some local readings are used extremely rarely, for example, ŋ̍ ( Chinese. 吳 ) and / tɕiɑ̃ / ( Chinese. 江 ).

Minsk languages

In the Minsk languages , for example, in Taiwanese South Minh , literary readings ( Chinese. 讀音 tho̍k-im ) also differ from colloquial ( Chinese. 語音 gí-im ) . In dictionaries, usually the difference between readings is indicated by the marks文 ( bûn , literary) and 白 ( pe̍k / pe̍h , colloquial). In addition, some characters also have a “colloquial” (俗) reading or explanation ( Chinese 解說 ) .

For example, in the hieroglyph 肉 (“meat”) in the Quanzhou dialect, they are as follows: literary liák , local hiák and vernacular, the most used bbāh .

The following table in pevedzi reflects differences between readings in the Taiwanese language ^[11] :

Gan

Examples of deviations from normative reading in the Gan language.