Guangxi 11

Listen to Guangxi 11, a 21-year-old woman from Zhaoping, Hezhou, Guangxi, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 21

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/03/1992

PLACE OF BIRTH: Zhaoping, Hezhou, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

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): 21/11/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Hello, everyone. I am from Zhaoping, Hexhou. Ah, my hometown is a very beautiful places – place. We plant – we planted many, ah, tea trees because we depend on it to earn money, and there is a river not very far from my house. I remembered when I was a little girl, ahm, my neighborhoods and I always went there to, to swim and fish. Mmm, my hometown is being developed, and I hope it will better and better.
[The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Xhaopinghua dialect. (See the detailed commentary below.) She has not provided a pinyin transliteration. A reading in Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the Hebei One sample.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/12/2013

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 (Pinyin); C = Dialect (Pinyin); 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

The accent is soft but reasonably strong. Some of the typical characteristics that we find in Chinese speakers of English crop up here, notably the /l/ and /r/ phone difficulty – listen for “rare” and “Harrison” in the scripted reading and especially “river” in the unscripted speech. The Guangxi characteristic of suppressing final plosives, which we have already noted in many of the earlier samples from this region, is not so pronounced here.

The subject’s native dialect, Zhaopinghua, is a variety of the northern Pinghua dialect, which is spoken only in her hometown. The northern variety of Pinghua is spoken in the area around Guilin. Originally classified as a subdivision of Yue (Cantonese) Chinese, it is now treated as a separate dialect and is spoken by more than two-million people. Pinghua has several notable features including six phonemic tones. As with all Chinese dialects, there is considerable regional variation of pitch in these tones. It also has various loan words from the Zhuang dialects.

The subject’s hometown is in Zhaoping County, which lies to the southwest of Hezhou city. Gold-bearing silicified breccia and quartz veins, occupying several sets of faults striking in different directions along an EW-trending anticline of Cambrian sandstones and mudstones, were discovered here in 1986. Originally mined by the privately owned Zhaoping Gold Company and various contractors, it suffered from bad management and was closed by the provincial government in 2003. Since 2004, the property has been in the ownership of the Golden Tiger Mining company.

For more details of the Hezhou dialects and for a historical overview of Guangxi and Hezhou, see the commentary in the Guangxi 1 sample.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 15/12/2013

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