Manchu Beijingers, is the modern Beijing accent the China accent of Manchu in Qing Dynasty?

China is a vast country with great differences in dialects. Some dialects even exceed the differences between some European languages (of course, all the dialects mentioned here are Chinese dialects, not minority languages). However, no matter who speaks Mandarin, Wu dialect, Cantonese and Gan dialect, there is no doubt that these words belong to "Chinese", among which Chinese characters are indispensable. No matter how different dialects are, the written language of Chinese is highly unified (of course, there are also words written in Cantonese, Wu and other pronunciations, but this is considered to be very informal, even in extremely special Hong Kong, official documents do not use written Cantonese). In addition to Chinese characters, there is another reason-Chinese has a standard language.

It is a natural and unified country. How can we do without a unified language? What is the language of China now? As we all know, it is Putonghua-a language with Beijing pronunciation as the standard, northern dialect as the basis, and typical modern vernacular as the grammatical norm.

But there has always been a saying on the Internet that the Mandarin accent we speak now actually originated from the nonstandard Chinese spoken by Manchu people in the Qing Dynasty. Is this statement true?

To say this, let's start with the history of Mandarin. First, let's introduce an English (or European language) word-Mandarin.

What does this word mean? It means Mandarin, and now it means Mandarin. This is a Portuguese name for officials of the Ming Dynasty, which was first found in the literature of 65438+the beginning of the 6th century. The Portuguese borrowed the word "menteri" from Malay, which means official, while the word "menteri" in Malay comes from the Sanskrit word "mantrin". English Putonghua and Chinese also refer to Putonghua (imperial bureaucrats).

In other words, westerners' judgment on the standard Chinese language is the language used by court bureaucrats, so this language is also called "Mandarin". Now "Mandarin" is the largest dialect in Chinese, and Putonghua (Beijing dialect) is one of them.

How to judge whether it is Mandarin or not? This is actually relatively simple. Let a person who can only speak Mandarin listen. If he can understand it roughly, it is Mandarin, such as Henan dialect (Central Plains Mandarin) and Sichuan dialect (Southwest Mandarin). If you don't understand it, it's not official, such as Suzhou dialect (Wu dialect), Nanchang dialect (Gan dialect) and Guangzhou dialect (Cantonese) …

The Mandarin we are using now is actually the Beijing Mandarin. Its predecessor was Northern Mandarin in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Let's take a look at its history.

Let's talk about the Ming dynasty first. The Ming Dynasty inherited the Yuan Dynasty, that is, "taking the elegant sounds of the Central Plains as positive", but the foundation of the Ming Dynasty was in the southern part of Jianghuai, so it referred to Jianghuai Mandarin, and finally formed Nanjing Mandarin as the national standard pronunciation (Nanjing was the capital in the early Ming Dynasty, but whether Nanjing Mandarin is the same as Nanjing Mandarin now is still controversial in academic circles).

However, during the Yongle period, the Ming Dynasty moved its capital to Beijing, which had great influence not only politically but also culturally. There are 400,000 people in Beijing who immigrated from Nanjing, which exceeds the population of Beijing. Influenced by Beijing dialect and northern dialect, Nanjing Mandarin gradually produces Mandarin with Beijing accent. As the official pronunciation of the national language, Putonghua is divided into two branches: North and South.

However, the influence of culture is not so fast. At this time, Beijing Mandarin is still immature, and its popularity is mainly among the people in Beijing and surrounding areas, and its status is low. The official pronunciation of Nanjing Mandarin is still the national language.

Note: Through interesting knowledge, it is said that Beijing roast duck is also related to this wave of Nanjing immigrants. People in Nanjing don't like ducks very much, so …

Chinese, which was popular among western missionaries in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, was basically Southern Mandarin based on Nanjing Mandarin, and so were neighboring countries. For example, the China language taught by the Japanese from the Edo period to the Meiji period is Nanjing Mandarin.

Of course, there is no doubt that the Mandarin of the Ming Dynasty has nothing to do with Manchu and Manchu.

Let's talk about the situation in the Qing dynasty first. Although the rulers of the Qing Dynasty attached great importance to Sinicization in order to integrate into the Central Plains Dynasty, they also had the idea of putting nationality first, so they also adopted a policy of cultural protection for the Manchu, and attached great importance to the Manchu. However, this kind of culture has no market in the big environment, so Manchu gradually declined, and it has become a trend for flag bearers to speak Chinese, which may not be standard at first.

So, is Mandarin this kind of lame Chinese?

It is very unlikely to draw a conclusion. This judgment is actually very easy. Although Manchu is endangered, almost no one uses it, but after all, it is not completely extinct, and some people can speak it. From the phonological point of view, Manchu has nothing to do with Chinese. They are completely different languages with no similarities in pronunciation. Many experts have studied this point.

Historically, it is unlikely that Manchu accent will influence Beijing dialect. The number of Manchu people is too small, and they have lived in the city for a long time, and their communication with the Han people is limited (after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, all the Han people ten miles away from the Forbidden City lived in Manchu, forming an inner city and an outer city. Manchu is used in the inner city, and Beijing Mandarin is still used in the outer city in the late Ming Dynasty. Listen to the dialects near Beijing, such as Tianjin dialect. Naturally, these languages should not be greatly influenced by Manchu accent, so let's see if they can be understood without pressure (Tianjin dialect stands for poverty).

Speak the official language of the Qing Dynasty first. The accent of Nanjing Mandarin was still used in the early Qing Dynasty, but the influence of northern accent Mandarin gradually expanded. After the middle of Qing Dynasty, Northern Mandarin gradually replaced Nanjing Mandarin as the mainstream, which was the beginning of Beijing dialect becoming the standard language of Han nationality.

In fact, there have been books on Chinese phonetics in China in the past dynasties. Linguist Lin Tao's article Tracing the Source of Beijing Mandarin points out that the Beijing dialect used in the late Ming Dynasty is not far from today's Beijing dialect. Moreover, in the book "Paulus Johannes and Gong Shengyun's Tone" written by Xu Wen, a Beijinger during the Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, Rusheng was not included, but added, indicating that Rusheng had disappeared, and it had already appeared in Beijing Mandarin at that time. None of this has anything to do with Manchu accent.

Does Manchu have any influence on Chinese? Yes, but very limited, limited to a few words, such as Saqima; Moreover, linguists recognize that Manchu is more influenced by Chinese than by Manchu!