Sichuanese Mandarin

This article is about the dialect of Mandarin indigenous to Sichuan and Chongqing. For the Sichuanese variant of Standard Mandarin, see Sichuanese Standard Mandarin. For the extinct Sinitic language formerly spoken in what is now Sichuan and Chongqing also known as Old Sichuanese, see Ba-Shu Chinese.

Sichuanese
Szechwanese
四川话
Pronunciation	locally [sɨ˨˩˧tsʰwan˥xwa˨˩˧]
Native to	China
Region	Sichuan, Chongqing and their neighboring provinces
Native speakers	ca. 100 million (date missing)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chinese Mandarin Southwestern Sichuanese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	None
Sichuanese in China

Sichuanese Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 四川官话; traditional Chinese: 四川官話; pinyin: Sìchuān Guānhuà), or Szechwanese Mandarin, commonly known as Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese (simplified Chinese: 四川话; traditional Chinese: 四川話; Sichuanese Pinyin: Si⁴cuan¹hua⁴; pinyin: Sìchuānhuà; Wade–Giles: Szŭ4-ch'uan1-hua4), is a branch of Southwestern Mandarin, spoken mainly in Sichuan and Chongqing, which was part of Sichuan until 1997, and the adjacent regions of their neighboring provinces, such as Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and Shaanxi. In addition, because Sichuanese is the lingua franca in Sichuan, Chongqing and part of Tibet, it is also used by many Tibetan, Yi, Qiang and other groups as a second language.

Although Sichuanese is generally classified as a dialect of Mandarin, it is highly divergent in phonology, vocabulary, and even grammar from the standard language. Minjiang dialect is especially difficult for speakers of other Mandarin dialects to understand. The dialect of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province and an important central city, is the most representative dialect of Southwestern Mandarin and is used widely in Sichuanese opera and other art forms of the province.

Modern Sichuanese evolved rather recently due to a great wave of immigration during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644): many immigrants, mainly from Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Guangdong, flooded into Sichuan bringing their languages with them. Sichuanese, spoken by about 120 million people, would rank 10th among languages by number of speakers (just behind Japanese) if counted as a separate language .

Geographic distribution and dialects

Sichuanese is mainly spoken in and around the Sichuan Basin, which includes almost all of Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality except for some Tibetan and Yi inhabited areas. It is also spoken in the border regions of Sichuan's neighboring provinces: northern Yunnan and Guizhou, southern Shaanxi and western Hubei.

Sichuanese is one of the most uniform dialects in all of Inner China. However, it is possible to divide Sichuanese into four sub-dialects according to the preservation or distribution of the Middle Chinese checked tone: the Minjiang dialect (岷江小片) which preserves the checked tone, the Chengdu-Chongqing dialect (成渝片) in which the checked tone has merged into the light level tone, the Renshou-Fushun dialect (仁富小片) which merges the checked tone into the departing tone, and the Ya'an-Shimian dialect (雅棉小片) in which the checked tone is merged into the dark level tone.

The Minjiang, Ya'an-Shimian and Renshou-Fushun dialects are spoken mainly in South and West Sichuan, regions in which the inhabitants have significantly more indigenous Sichuanese descent than those of North and East Sichuan. Thus, these dialects preserve many characteristics of Bashu, the extinct language formerly spoken by indigenous Sichuanese, and are often referred as Old Sichuanese. The Chengdu-Chongqing dialect, named after the two largest cities in Sichuan, are spoken mainly in North and East Sichuan. It is often referred as New Sichuanese because it exhibits fewer characteristics of the Bashu language.

Name	Characteristics	Spoken areas	Map
Chengdu–Chongqing dialect	entering tone distributed into light level tone	North and East Sichuan, the northeastern part of Chengdu Plain, several cities or counties in southwestern Sichuan (Panzhihua, Dechang, Yanyuan, Huili and Ningnan), Southern Shaanxi and Western Hubei
Minjiang dialect	entering tone preserved	44 cities or counties in Minjiang River valley or along the Yangtze River in South and West Sichuan, Xichang, Xichong, Yanting, Shehong, northern Yunnan and northern Guizhou
Renshou–Fushun dialect	entering tone distributed into departing tone	8 cities or counties in Tuo River valley (Renshou, Jingyan, Weiyuan, Zigong, Rongxian, Fushun, Neijiang and Longchang), Junlian and Mianning
Ya'an–Shimian dialect	entering tone distributed into dark level tone	Ya'an (prefecture-level city) in West Sichuan

History

Like many of the southern provinces in China, Sichuan was fully sinicized by the end of the Tang Dynasty. Sichuan has one of the most uniform dialects in all of Inner China, evidence that the variety of Chinese spoken there formed relatively recently. In the thirteenth century, the population of Sichuan dropped precipitously, suspected to be due in part to a series of plagues and Mongol invasions. The population did not recover until it was replenished by subsequent migrations from Hubei, as well as Xiang-speakers, Gan-speakers and Hakka-speakers in the following centuries. These varieties largely supplanted the earlier varieties of Chinese in Sichuan, known as Ba-Shu Chinese or Old Sichuanese. Like Min Chinese, Ba-Shu Chinese was different from the Middle Chinese of the Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties, but instead a divergent dialect group independently descended from the Old Chinese of the Han Dynasty, which formed a substratum that influenced the formation of the modern dialect group and helps to explain the distinctivity of Modern Sichuanese within the Mandarin dialect continuum.

Phonology

Tones

There are five phonemic tones in Sichuanese: dark level tone, light level tone, rising tone, departing tone and entering tone (or checked tone). In some regions the checked tone of Sichuanese has been merged into another tone, which is very different from standard Mandarin, whose checked tone has been merged irregularly into the other 4 tones. According to Phonology of Sichuan dialect (四川方言音系), among all the 150 Sichuanese-speaking cities and counties, 48 keep the checked tone while the other 102 have only 4 tones. Particularly, in some sub-dialects of Minjiang dialect (such as Yingjing dialect), the departing tone has developed into two different tones: a colloquial tone (which is similar to the 2nd tone as a characteristic of Ba-Shu: 平声似去) and a literary tone (which is the same as Chengdu dialect).

The tone contours of the Sichuanese dialects are highly and quite different from those of Beijing Mandarin. In Sichuanese, the first tone (dark level tone) is a high level tone (like Beijing), the second tone (light level tone) is a low falling tone (the mirror image of Beijing), the third tone (rising tone) is a high falling tone and the fourth tone (departing tone) is a low or mid rising tone (interchanged compared to Beijing) and the fifth tone (entering tone) is mid or high if it's not merged, as shown in the chart below.

Sub-dialects	1st tone	2nd tone	3rd tone	4th tone	5th tone
Chengdu	˥ 55	˨˩ 21	˥˧ 53	˨˩˧ 213	merged into the 2nd ˨˩
Chongqing	˥ 55	˨˩ 21	˦˨ 42	˨˩˦ 214	merged into the 2nd ˨˩
Leshan	˥ 55	˨˩ 21	˥˨ 52	˨˨˦ 224	˧ 3 (checked)
Yingjing	˥ 45	˩˨˩ 121	˥˧ 53	˩ 11 (colloquial) ˨˩˧ 213 (literary)	˧ 33
Luzhou	˥ 55	˨˩ 21	˦˨ 42	˩˧ 13	˧ 33
Ya'an	˥ 55	˨˩ 21	˦˨ 42	˩˦ 14	merged into the 1st ˥
Zigong	˥ 55	˧˩ 31	˥˧ 53	˨˦ 24	merged into the 4th ˨˦

In the areas which keep the entering tone, the five tones of Sichuanese are nearly identical to the values of 5 of the 6 tones of the indigenous Southern Qiang language.

Initials

Initials (or syllable onsets) are initial consonants of possible syllables. There are 21 initials in the Chengdu dialect of Sichuanese (academically referred as Standard Sichuanese). Four Sichuanese initial consonants do not exist in Beijing: [z], [v], [ŋ] and [nʲ]. On the other hand, five initials in Beijing do not exist in Sichuanese: [tʂ], [tʂʰ], [ʂ], [ʐ] and [l].

The following is the initial consonant inventory of Sichuanese, transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and under every IPA symbol in the inventory below there is the standard orthography of that sound in Sichuanese Pinyin and a Chinese character using that initial:

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Coronal	Alveolar	alveopalatal	Velar
Plosive	plain	p b 贝			t d 得		k g 古
	aspirated	pʰ p 配			tʰ t 套		kʰ k 可
Affricate	plain			ts z 早		tɕ j 价
	aspirated			tsʰ c 草		tɕʰ q 巧
Nasal		m m 没		n n 路		nʲ ny 你	ŋ ng 我
Fricative	Voiceless		f f 发	s s 速		ɕ x 小	x h 好
	voiced		v v 五	z r 如
Zero		∅ 儿

Finals

A final, the remainder of syllable after the initial, consists of an optional medial glide, a vowel and an optional final consonants. There are 21 finals in the Chengdu dialect of Sichuanese. Four Sichuanese finals do not exist in Beijing: [ɛ], [iai], [uɛ], and [yo]. On the other hand, three Beijing finals do not exist in Sichuanese: [ɤ], [iŋ], and [əŋ].

The following is the inventory of Sichuanese finals, transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and under every IPA symbol in the inventory below there is the standard orthography of that sound in Sichuanese Pinyin and a Chinese character using that final:

	-Ø					-i or -u				nasal finals
Ø-	ɿ i 日	ɚ er 二	a a 大	o o 我	ɛ e 黑	ai ai 街	ei ei 批	au ao 包	əu ou 走	an an 烦	ən en 樱	aŋ ang 帮	oŋ ong 亩
i-	i i 一		ia ia 牙		iɛ ie 叶	iai iai 介		iau iao 标	iəu iu 九	ian ian 变	in in 兵	iaŋ iang 量
u-	u u 五		ua ua 瓜		uɛ ue 国	uai uai 乖	uei ui 类			uan uan 段	uən un 春	uaŋ uang 光
y-	y ü 鱼			yo üo 药	ye üe 绝					yan üan 鲜	yn ün 泳		yoŋ iong 蓉

Tense vowels for checked tone

There is a discrepancy between Old Sichuanese and New Sichuanese in terms of finals. In the "old" Minjiang dialect, the stop consonants for checked-tone syllables in Middle Chinese have developed into tense vowels to create a phonemical contrast, and in several cities and counties the tense vowels are followed by a glottal stop to emphasize the contrast. Meanwhile, the checked tone has disappeared in other Sichuanese dialects. The following table shows the tense vowels of Minjiang dialect's three sub-dialects, spoken in Luzhou, Qionglai and Leshan, and a comparison with other Sichuanese dialects is also presented.

example	Minjiang			Ya'an-Shimian	Chengdu-Chongqing	Renshou-Fushun
	Luzhou	Qionglai	Leshan	Luding	Chengdu	Zigong
搭	æ	æ	æ	a	a	a
说	ɵ	ʊ	ʊ	o	o	o
黑	e	æ	e	ɛ	ɛ	ɛ
踢	ie	ie	ie	i	iɛ	i
出	ɵ	ʊ	ʊ	u	u	u
欲	yɵ	yʊ	yʊ	y	yo	yi
湿	ə	ə	ə	ɿ	ɿ	ɿ
掐	iæ	iɐ	iæ	ia	ia	ia
刮	uæ	uɐ	uæ	ua	ua	ua
铁	ie	ie	ie	iɛ	iɛ	iɛ
获	ɵ	uæ	æ	uɛ	uɛ	ue
阅	yɵ	ye	yʊ	yɛ	yɛ	yɛ
药	yɵ	yʊ	yʊ	yo	yo	yo

Literary and colloquial readings

The existence of literary and colloquial readings (文白异读), is a notable feature in Sichuanese and some other Sinitic varieties, such as Cantonese or Hokkien. In Sichuanese, colloquial readings tend to resemble Ba-Shu Chinese (Middle Sichuanese) or Southern Old Mandarin, while literary readings tend to resemble modern standard Mandarin. For example, in the Yaoling dialect (摇铃话), the colloquial reading of "物" (means "things") is [væʔ], which is very similar to its pronunciation of Ba-Shu Chinese in the Song dynasty (960-1279). Meanwhile its literary reading, [voʔ], is relatively similar to the standard Mandarin pronunciation [wu]. The table below shows some examples of Chinese characters with both literary and colloquial readings in Sichuanese.

Example	Colloquial Reading	Literary Reading	Meaning	Standard Mandarin Pronunciation
在	tɛ	tsai	at	tsai
提	tia	tʰi	lift	tʰi
去	tɕʰie	tɕʰy	go	tɕʰy
锯	kɛ	tɕy	cut	tɕy
下	xa	ɕia	down	ɕia
横	xuan	xuən	across	xəŋ
严	ŋan	ȵian	strict	ian
鼠	suei	su	rat	ʂu
大	tʰai	ta	big	ta
主	toŋ	tsu	master	tʂu

Vocabulary

Only 47.8% of Sichuanese vocabulary is in common with the Beijing dialect on which Standard Chinese is based; indeed Sichuanese shares more vocabulary with the Xiang and Gan varieties of Chinese, even though Sichuanese is usually classified as a dialect of Mandarin.

The vocabulary of Sichuanese has three main origins: Bashu (or Ancient Sichuanese), Middle Chinese and the languages of the immigrants, including Proto-Mandarin from Hubei, Xiang, Gan and Hakka, which were brought to Sichuan during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Recently, many loanwords have been introduced to Sichuanese from standard Mandarin and English. Meanwhile, new Sichuanese words are developing in large cities, such as Chengdu and Chongqing, which then spread at a dramatic speed through Sichuan. "雄起" (xiong²qi³) (meaning "to cheer someone on") is a typical example of a novel Sichuanese word, equivalent to "加油" (jiāyóu) in standard Mandarin. The table below presents some common words in Sichuanese and their standard equivalents.

Words with the same number of syllables

	Sichuanese	standard	meaning	Sichuanese	standard	meaning	Sichuanese	standard	meaning
entirely different	躂 da2	跌 diē	to fall down	耍 sua3	玩 wán	to play	院 yuan4	绕 rào	to go around
	车 ce1	转 zhuàn	to rotate	膀 pang3	碰 pòng	to touch	膼 zua2	踢 tī	to kick
	煪 qiu1	熏 xūn	to smoke	豁 ho1	骗 piàn	to cheat	挼 rua2	揉 róu	to knead
	破 po4	剖 pōu	to cut open	掌 zang3	扶 fú	to support	挎 kua3	脱 tuō	to get undressed
	晏 ngan4	晚 wǎn	late	拢 nong3	到 dào	to arrive	蹅 ca1	踩 cǎi	to step on
	校 gao4	试 shì	to try	痨 nao4	毒 dú	to poison	滗 bi2	滤 lǜ	to filter
	角孽 go2nie2	吵架 chǎojià	to quarrel	噗鼾 pu2han4	呼噜 hūlu	to snore	活路 ho2nu4	工作 gōngzuò	job
	经佑 jin1you1	照顾 zhàogù	to look after	刹角 sa2go2	结束 jiéshù	to end	横顺 huan2sen1	反正 fǎnzhèng	anyway
	行市 hang2si4	能干 nénggàn	capable	背时 bei4si2	倒霉 dǎoméi	bad luck	伸抖 cen1tou3	整齐 zhěngqí	neat
	往回 wang3hui2	以前 yǐqián	before	二回 er4hui2	下次 xiàcì	next time	颈项 jin3hang2	脖子 bózi	neck
	晓得 xiao3de2	知道 zhīdào	know	造孽 zao4nie2	可怜 kělián	pitiful	安逸 ngan1yi2	舒服 shūfu	comfortable
	踏踏 ta2ta2	地方 dìfāng	place	各人 go2ren2	自己 zìjǐ	self	相应 xiang1yin1	便宜 piányi	cheap
partially different	拉丝 na1si1	拉链 lāliàn	zipper	火炮儿 ho3per4	鞭炮 biānpào	fireworks	转来 zuan3nai2	回来 húilái	to return
	院坝 yuan4ba4	院子 yuànzi	yard	鼻子 bi2zi3	鼻涕 bítì	snot	火闪 ho3san3	闪电 shǎndiàn	lightning
	灰面 hui1mian4	面粉 miànfěn	flour	皮面 pi2mian4	表面 biǎomiàn	surface	缺缺 que2que1	缺口 quēkǒu	gap
	抽抽 cou1cou1	抽屉 chōutì	drawer	别个 bie2go4	别人 biérén	other people	不了 bu2niao3	不止 bùzhǐ	more than
	晌午 sang3vu3	午饭 wǔfàn	lunch	侧边 ze2bian1	旁边 pángbiān	beside	声气 sen1qi4	声音 shēngyīn	sound
different sequence	鸡公 ji1gong1	公鸡 gōngjī	cockerel	鸡母 ji1mu2	母鸡 mǔjī	hen	气力 qi4ni2	力气 lìqì	strength
	闹热 nao4re2	热闹 rènào	noisy	人客 ren2ke2	客人 kèrén	guest	欢喜 huan1xi3	喜欢 xǐhuān	to like

Words with different numbers of syllables

Sichuanese	standard	meaning	Sichuanese	standard	meaning	Sichuanese	standard	meaning
歪 wai1	凶恶 xiōng'è	rude	巴 ba1	粘贴 zhāntiē	to stick	谙 ngan2	以为 yĭwéi	to think
奓 za1	张开 zhāngkāi	to splay	饮 yin4	浇灌 jiāoguàn	to water	抱 bao4	孵化 fūhuà	to incubate
左 zo3	调换 diàohuàn	to switch	马 ma3	欺负 qīfù	to bully	费 fei4	调皮 tiáopí	naughty
撵 nian3	追赶 zhūigǎn	to run after	号 hao4	批阅 pīyuè	to correct	咀 ju2	吮吸 shǔnxī	to suck
搌 zan3	挪动 nuódòng	to move	争 zen1	欠缺 qiànquē	to lack	摸 mo1	磨蹭 mócèng	to dally
湓 men4	溢出 yìchū	to overflow	槽 cao4	翻动 fāndòng	to stir	翕 xie1	裂开 lièkāi	to crack
瓢羹儿 piao2ger1	勺 sháo	spoon	估到 gu3dao3	逼 bī	to force	巴适 ba1si2	好 hǎo	good
嘎嘎 ga3ga3	肉 ròu	meat	啪啦 pa1la1	堆 dūi	pile	几下 ji3ha4	快 kuài	to hurry
巴壁虎 ba1bi2fu3	壁虎 bìhǔ	gecko	檐老鼠 yan2nao3su3	蝙蝠 biǎnfú	bat	扯把子 ce3ba3zi3	撒谎 sāhuǎng	to tell a lie
月母子 yue2mu3zi3	孕妇 yùnfù	pregnant woman	磕膝头 ke2qi1ter2	膝盖 xīgài	knee	丁丁猫儿 din1din1mer1	蜻蜓 qīngtíng	dragonfly
雪弹子 xue2dan4zi3	冰雹 bīngbáo	hail	贼娃子 zui2wa2zi3	小偷 xiǎotōu	thief	冒皮皮 mao4pi2pi2	吹牛 chūiníu	to boast

Relation with other Chinese dialects

If one selects the Chengdu dialect to represent Sichuanese, and compare its lexicon with other varieties of Chinese, we can try to find the relationship between Sichuanese and those dialects. Sichuanese shares the most similar vocabulary with Yunnanese, a dialect of Southwestern Mandarin spoken in the neighboring province. However, the relationship between Sichuanese and Northern Mandarin dialects, including the standard language, is weaker than the relationship between Xiang and Gan.

In terms of vocabulary, Sichuanese has the second closest relationship with Xiang. The two varieties share a large number of exclusively unique words. This is mainly because many Xiang-speaking immigrants from Hunan moved to Sichuan during the great wave of immigration during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, so Xiang does not have such a close relationship with other southwestern varieties of Chinese, such as those spoken in Yunnan, Guangxi or Hubei. For example, in both Sichuanese and Xiang the verb "to squat" is "跍" (gu¹) but "蹲" (dūn) in standard Mandarin, the noun "kitchen" is "灶屋" (zao⁴vu²) but "厨房" (chúfáng) in standard, and the adjective "thick" is "酽" (nyian⁴) but "浓" (nóng) in standard. Furthermore, the Sichuanese vocabulary also contains words from Old Xiang and Middle Xiang, such as "謱謰" (sloppy), "革" (old) and "崽" (son)

Rank of lexical similarity between Sichuanese and other Chinese dialects

Rank	Chinese dialects	Major sub-dialect	Percentage of the same vocabulary with Sichuanese
1	Yunnanese	Kunming	58.3%
2	Xiang	Changsha	54.9%
3	Jianghuai Mandarin	Yangzhou	52.7%
4	Gan	Nanchang	49.4%
5	Northern Mandarin	Beijing	47.8%
6	Wu	Suzhou	36.4%
7	Yue	Guangzhou	27.4%
8	Hakka	Meixian	27.2%
9	Min	Xiamen	20.2%

Crisis

Though Sichuanese is not as endangered as some other languages of China, the prevalence of Sichuanese has dramatically lessened as the popularity of Standard Chinese has risen. Government policy limits the use of Sichuanese in broadcasting, television and many public places. Furthermore, the use of Sichuanese as a teaching medium is not permitted in the curriculum, which has resulted in a reduction of fluency among young people in Sichuanese-speaking areas since the 80s and 90s. The Sichuanese spoken by them is greatly influenced by the national language.