Hebei 6

Listen to Hebei 6, an 18-year-old woman from Bǎodìng, Hebei Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 18

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 03/06/1992

PLACE OF BIRTH: Bǎodìng, Hebei Province

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: university

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

The subject had been living in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, for seven months prior to the date of the recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject lists her native English teachers at high school as major influences on her spoken English.

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:

My hometown is Bǎodìng in Hebei Province, which is an ancient city with thousand years of history. Bǎodìng was located in central of Hebei Province and situated in the center of Shijiazhang, Beijing, and Tianjin. So Bǎodìng is also called the, ah, the capital southgate. Ah, it’s full of nature’s treasures and outstanding people. In ancient times, there were many great men such as Jing Ke, Luo Bei in Han Dynasty, geogreapher, ah, Li Bao Yuan, mathematician Jun Jie, and so on. [The subject now goes on to read abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in her own Bǎodìnghua dialect. (See the detailed commentary below). She has not provided a pinyin transliteration. This reading should be compared with that on the Hebei 1 sample in order to hear the different accents of these two speakers.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/07/2013

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 (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

This is a strong accent with some of the common characteristics found in Chinese speakers of English. Particularly noticeable are the confusion of the /T/ and /s/ phones and a lingering problem with the /v/, /w/ and /l/, /r/ pairs. The subject’s dialect belongs to what is still referred to colloquially as Beifang Mandarin but is now classified as Ji-Lu Mandarin. This is a primary Mandarin dialect which is spoken in Hebei and Shandong. The name is a combination of the abbreviations for the two provinces Jì (Hebei) and Lǔ (Shangdong). These abbreviations in turn refer to ancient historical provinces.

Ji-Lu has many lexical differences, and a different accent, from the Beijing dialect, which is the basis for Standard Chinese, Putonghua, the official national language, despite their proximity to the capital. There are three dialect groups: Bao-Tang, Shi-Ji, and Cang-Hui. The subject’s local dialect, Baidinghua, belongs to the Bao–Tang group, which shares the same tonal evolution of the inner tone from Middle Chinese as Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin. The Readings from the Analects of Confucius in this sample should be compared with those in the other Hebei samples and also the Heilongjiang samples, which feature the North-eastern Mandarin dialects.

The subject’s hometown, Bǎodìng, is located in central Hebei and 140 ikm (87 miles) southeast of Beijing. The city was founded during the Warring States Period (476-221BCE). By the time of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), it had become one of the largest cities in north China and was then known as Bǎozhou. Destroyed during the invasions of Genghis Khan between 1215 and 1226, it was rebuilt when his successors established the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) when it acquired its present name. The succeeding Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) established Bǎodìng as the capital of the newly created Zhili province, and the city was a major cultural centre during this and the succeeding Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). In 1928, Zhili was abolished and Bǎodìng became the capital of the newly created Hebei Province. It became the headquarters of the Japanese occupation forces during World War II and lost its status as capital city to Tianjin in 1966. It briefly became the capital of Hebei again in 1966 until 1970 when Shijiazhuang became capital instead.

For a detailed commentary on Hebei Province, see the Hebei 1 sample.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/07/2013

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