Characteristics and differences between Hainanese and Mandarin

Hello poster, the following is a description of the main characteristics of Hainanese. By comparing it, you can see the difference from Mandarin. I hope it can be helpful to you. If you need to add more, please ask. Thank you. ! The pronunciation characteristics of Hainanese - saving energy and energy

Hainanese is all flat-tongued. When speaking, the tongue and other pronunciation organs change less, so it takes less effort to speak than Mandarin and English. When I was young, I had the opportunity to experiment and give a lesson with the same content in Mandarin, Hainanese and English. It was found that the fatigue level of teaching is as follows: Mandarin is the most tiring, followed by English, and Hainanese is the easiest. If you carefully examine these three kinds of dialects, you can understand the reason. In addition to not having a raised tongue sound, Hainanese dialect also has no aspirated sounds. The large number of aspiration sounds in Mandarin and English obviously takes some of the energy out of the speaker. Hainanese only uses flat tongue sounds and unaspirated sounds instead of raised tongue sounds and aspirated sounds, which saves the speaker's effort and energy. Therefore, people who are used to speaking Hainanese may feel that people who speak Mandarin exaggerate when speaking, as if they want to be angry; they also feel that people who speak English do not have generous mouth postures and restrained pronunciation, as if they are hiding some secret.

The Ru tone in Hainanese - inheriting the characteristics of medieval Chinese

The Ru tone usually has a consonant ending and a short pronunciation. There is no Ru tone in Mandarin (see "Ru Ting" in "Modern Chinese Dictionary" "Article), but Hainanese dialect has a sound. Characters such as "十", "chu" and "green" are the entry-tone characters in Hainanese. The entry-tone characters can make the pronunciation more colorful. In Hainanese, the entering tone character "十" is pronounced as "dap". Since there is no entering tone character in Mandarin (so there are many repeated pronunciations, causing many words to be pronounced the same sound; it is really scary), Mandarin speakers learn Hainanese The pronunciation of "十" is often pronounced as "da" (da). This leaves out one of the rhymes in the "p" character without realizing it. In Hainanese, "dap" and "da" have two obviously different pronunciations (meanings).

The main rhymes and endings of Hainanese characters entering the tone are as follows: "t", "k" and "p". These endings do not need to be pronounced, they are just clicked, just like the incomplete plosives in English. Foreigners find this sound difficult to learn, unless they have learned English's incomplete plosives when they were learning English.

The aspirated sound (r) in Hainanese - the iconic feature

In Mandarin, there are aspirated sounds and there are unaspirated sounds, just like in society there are people who give gifts and there are people who don’t. People; Hainanese dialect has unaspirated sounds, but no aspirated sounds; instead of aspirated sounds, there are aspirated sounds. This is also like our compatriots. Some people not only refuse to give gifts, but also want to receive them. The so-called aspirated sound is the pronunciation of a special initial consonant (r) that often appears in Hainanese dialect and is pronounced with a slight inhale instead of exhalation.

Let’s study this apnea. First of all, the familiar Mandarin initial consonant "t" is an aspirated sound, while the pronunciation shape of the Mandarin or Hainanese initial "d" is the same as "t", except that it is not aspirated. The initial consonant "r" in Hainanese is an aspirated sound, and the mouth shape of its pronunciation is the same as that of "d". The special thing is that "r" takes a little breath when pronouncing it. For example, "ra" (step), "ri" (brother), and "ro" (foot). The Hainanese initials of these three examples all have aspirated sounds. If we pronounce them as unaspirated sounds and keep the finals unchanged, we will get another pronunciation and meaning: "da" (miscellaneous) and "di" (yes ), "do" (help).

It can be seen that there is a difference between aspirated sounds and unaspirated sounds, just like there is a difference between unaspirated sounds and aspirated sounds. We can understand it this way: in Mandarin, "t" is an aspirated sound, and the exhalation is obvious when pronounced; "d" is an unaspirated sound, and the exhalation is weak when pronounced; and in Hainanese, "r" is pronounced with an aspirated sound. , almost no exhalation when pronounced, and even a little inhalation. The pronunciation of this aspirated sound is very peculiar and not easy to hear in mainland China. Therefore, people who have been accustomed to Mandarin since childhood will not be able to learn this pronunciation without spending three months. Even if many mainland compatriots have spoken Hainanese in Hainan for more than ten years, they still cannot pronounce the initial "r" consonant correctly and often use "d" instead. As a result, jokes or misunderstandings sometimes occur. For example, "having electricity" (u rin) is replaced by "having faith" (u din), "gain" (rit) is replaced by "losing" (dit), and "having electricity" (u rin) is replaced by "having faith" (u din). Moral education" (rik zok) is said to be "lust" (dik zok), etc.

Expressions in Hainanese - Preserving the legacy of classical Chinese

Expressions in Hainanese often baffle outsiders. Let me give some examples to illustrate. Of course, if you have a higher cultural level, it is not very difficult to understand, and you may even find it interesting.

Hainanese doesn’t talk about eating, but “chime”. According to the "Modern Chinese Dictionary", "mi" is pronounced as mei (the same as "plum"), which refers to millet (also called millet):

1. An annual herb with a shape similar to millet. , but the seeds are not sticky;

2. The seeds of this plant.

Obviously, when Hainanese people eat millet, they eat the seeds (presumably cooked), not the leaves; just like when we say we eat grapes, we must eat the fruits of the grapes. , and never eat uprooted vines. However, when people in Hainan say "food millet", they no longer really eat millet, but eat rice (including fish, meat, vegetables, etc.). They say "chime", probably because their ancestors actually ate millet.