Henan 1

Listen to Henan 1, a 36-year-old man from Fungesi, Xincai County, Henan Province, China. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

Both as a courtesy and to comply with copyright law, please remember to credit IDEA for direct or indirect use of samples.  IDEA is a free resource; please consider supporting us.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 36

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 04/10/1963

PLACE OF BIRTH: Fungesi, Xincai County, Henan Province

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Han Chinese

OCCUPATION: university lecturer

EDUCATION: Subject holds a master’s degree in economics.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

Subject had been living in Suzhou, Jiangsu, for about eight years before the date of the recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject remained in Henan for most of his life and did not move to Jiangsu until his late 20s. There have, therefore, been few influences on his speech, and his accent remains strong. As he explains in his unscripted piece, he has even found it difficult to cope with Mandarin.

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): 21/0/2010

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Xincai County, Henan Province, in the middle of (ah) China. When I was a little boy, I could seldom speak Putonghua (or Mandarin) because even my teachers couldn‘t speak (ah) Putonghua very well, so this kind of (ah) background influenced me in my whole life. Even today, I feel it a little bit hard to speak (ah) Mandarin so, (ah) some of my colleagues (ah, ah) told me my English is even better [laughs] than my Putonghua.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/04/2010

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

The subject now goes on to read the following abstracts from the Analects of Confucius in his own Zhongyuanhua dialect. A reading in Putonghua (Mandarin) can be heard on the China 15 sample.

KEY: A = Mandarin (Simplified); B = Mandarin (Pinyin); C = Dialect (Pinyin); D = English.

孔子: 论语 – Kǒng zǐ : lún yǔ – Kòng zī: lǔn yǔ – Confucius: Lun Yu

學而第一 – xué ér dì yī – xuè èr dǐ yí – Chapter One

A: 1-1:- 子曰: 學而時習之、不亦說乎。

B: yí – yí :- zǐ yuē: xué ér shí xí zhī, bù yì yuè hū.

C: yí -yí :- zī yué、 xuè èr shì xì zī,bù yǐ yǔe hú.

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: yí-ěr:- yōu pèng zǐ yuān fáng laì,bù yǐ yǔe hú.

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: yí-sán: rèn bǔ zhí èr bù yǔn, bù yǐ jún zī hú.

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 – Wèi zhěng dǐ ěr – 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: ěr-ěr:- zī yué: shí sán baī yǐ yàn yī bǐ zhí yué: sí wù xiè

D: 2-2:- The Master said: In the Book of Odes there are three hundred poems, but they may be summarized 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: ěr-qí:- Zī yòu wěn xiǎo. zī yué: jín zhí xiǎo zhí，shǐ wěi nèng yāng. Zhǐ yù quàn mā, jié nèng yòu yāng; bù jǐng, hè yī biè hú.

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: ěr-shì :- zī yué: shǐ qì sùo yī, guán qì suō yòu, chà qì suō án. rèn yán sōu zái? Rèn yán sōu zái?

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 subject was raised in south Henan Province in Central China. Henan means “south of the (Yellow) river,” and its northern border is along the south bank of the river. The province is is often called Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou, literally “central plains” or “midland,” and this name is also broadly applied to the entire North China Plain.

Henan is traditionally regarded as an important cradle of Chinese civilization and, indeed, Northern Henan, along the Yellow River, was the core area of ancient China for at least the first half of Chinese history. The two cities of Luoyang and Kaifeng each served as the capital city of a long list of dynasties.

Archaeological sites reveal that prehistoric cultures such as the Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture were active in what is now northern Henan. Also, shortly after the so-called Erlitou culture, controversially identified with the Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BCE), the first literate dynasty of China, the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) was also centered in Henan. Their last capital, Yin, was located at the modern city of Anyang, Henan.

During the upheavals of the Zhou Dynasties (1046 -221 BCE), the capital was moved to Luoyang in 722 BCE, and Henan was subsequently divided into a variety of small states. Throughout this period, the state of Chu also held much of what is now southern Henan, the birthplace of this subject.

The capital of the Western Han Dynasty was moved to Chang’An (modern Xi’An, Shaanxi) in 206 BCE, but Luoyang again became the capital of unified China during the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25 – 220). However, Chang’An once more became the capital during the Sui (581 – 618) and Tang (618 – 907) dynasties.

Kaifeng became the capital in the Northern Song Dynasty (960 – 1127). Under Song rule,China entered a golden age of culture and prosperity, and Kaifeng was the largest city in the world. In 1142, however, the Song Dynasty was forced to cede all of northern China, including Henan, to the Jurchen (Jin Dynasty) invaders from the north.

By this time, cultural and economic development in the Yangtze River delta Jiangnan region (modern southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang, and Shanghai) had made that area into the new economic and cultural center of China, and Henan forever lost its pre-eminent position.

Most of Henan speaks dialects of the Mandarin group of dialects found in northern and southwestern China. Linguists put these dialects into the category of “Zhongyuan Mandarin.” The northwestern corner of Henan is an exception, where people speak Jin dialects instead. The dialects of Henan are collectively called “the Henan dialect” in popular usage, with easily identifiable stereotypical features. Zhongyuan Mandarin is considered one of the origins of Standard Mandarin.

The old Chu region in the south speaks a variant of Zhongyuan known as Yunanhua, and this is the primary dialect of our subject.

Noticeable characteristics, which can be heard on the recordings, include the problems with [s] and [sh], [z] and [zh] pairs. There are also some examples of the /θ/- /s/ and /ʒ/- /s/ minimal pair transpositions. An interesting characteristic is this subject’s use of the /u:/ and /ʊ/ minimal pair.

COMMENTARY BY: Bill McCann

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 21/04/2010

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.