Are regional accents that different in China

[Lu]

Which raises a question I've been mulling for a while, but unable to really find the right place to ask until now: Why is there so much similarity in accent between Taiwan and Southern China? There seems to be a greater variation between North and South on the mainland than between Taiwan and the South Mainland, and the reason isn't immediately obvious to me.

Most Han Taiwanese are originally from Fujian, therefore they speak Minnanese (Taiwanese : Minnanese as Guoyu : Putonghua, roughly) and have the corresponding accent. There's probably as big a difference between Cantonese-accent Mandarin and Xiamen-accent Mandarin as there is between Cantonese-accent Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin.

[Michaelyus]

Warning: personal impressions

 

As a native Londoner, gauging the idiolect of inner East London vs the outer stretches of east London vs North London vs South London (specifically southeast) vs West London (incl. Chelsea etc.) is possible for born-and-bred Londoners, but much less than 100% correct (probably less than half). It's complicated by many factors, and actually I find where people went to secondary (read: high) school appears to have the biggest impact; the ethnic environment in which one grows up also influences the accent.

 

The actual differences are of course miniscule, and can be more closely related to vocabulary differences than actual phonetics. Nonetheless, I find a lot of suprasegmental features figure in my assessment of a person's "accent".

 

Of course, from other British cities the vowels vary so much that it is fairly easy, but I don't have that intimate knowledge of the place to place them to as specific a locality as in London.

 

I would guess that those who would try pinpointing someone to this in-London extent are in the minority. But most British people would certainly be able to guess a general region.

 

 

 

I think with Chinese accents in their native 发言, it is in general easily possible to distinguish. But one must remember the range of the differences in native speech is a lot larger. Hence, the rift between native 方言 (which I would loosely define as the language of the family and of the home) and the public/professional language (as required in school, as used at work) may be a lot greater. So I'd expect the vast majority of Chinese-speaking people to easily distinguish north/south in both 方言 and in 普通话, and most of the ones with a fairly normal level of inter-regional exposure (e.g. through TV, radio, Internet, and from university or the workplace) to be able to distinguish general linguistic areas (to be able to distinguish two or three southern provinces from the speech). With any finer detail, e.g. which of the "southern coastal provinces", I wouldn't expect a majority of Chinese speakers to be able to distinguish, although a sizeable minority (i.e. most or nearly all southerners) should. I would expect that on exposure, distinguishing the accents of 普通话 would be fairly simple though. Like the poster above, Guangdong / Yue-influenced Mandarin is certainly striking and as different, if not more different, from basolectal Taiwanese Mandarin as Xiamen (or other southern Fujian Minnan-influenced) Mandarin is.

 

Moving onto a scale that approximates Britain would be an intra-province assessment. Here's where it gets interesting - generally most people can distinguish specific accents of their own 故乡 from that of neighbouring villages and towns in their 方言 relatively easily and a lot more accurately than Londoners with London English varieties. They are not necessarily able to make such an clear intra-provincial distinction in 普通话, although many may be able to trace their 普通话 accent to a region within the province of their hometown if the accent in their 普通话 is very strong. Generally, with most young people today, that's not particularly noticeable now though.

 

My experience has always been with the 闽东 regions of Fujian, where linguistic divergence runs deep. Most people will say there's differences between the varieties of 闽东话 Mindong spoken across the Greater Fuzhou region, with e.g. those from Fuqing being able to distinguish the rural from urban Fuqing accents, and perhaps some of the villages amongst them. I've not met as many Changle people to confirm where this is as true north of Fuzhou. The Minhou accent is easily identified as being different-yet-related, but curiously difficult to place. But then throw in a 闽南 Minnan or even a 莆田 Putian topolect, and then it becomes a lot more exposure-dependent: those who know will not usually be able to go down to village level, and many will generally trace their ability to identify it from e.g. a person they knew, a movie they saw, a song they know. It seems to me though that they can identify it as 闽南 Minnan or 莆田 Putian; I've never seen any interactions with 闽北 Minbei or non-Fujian/Taiwan 闽南 Minnan-speakers to confirm whether knowledge extends to these further removed branches. For all I know, they might well be mistaken as a form of Hakka or Wu...[!]

[Johnny20270]

interesting, thanks Michaelyus

[Flickserve]

Michaelyus

 

Another Londoner here.

 

I would certainly agree that London does have different accents of english and certainly school does have a big influence. Going to a inner city comprehensive (government school) gives one's accent a different flavour to those which have had private education. I went up to Yorkshire for higher education (and work) - coming back to London to work, everybody spoke with a different accent. Changing back to a London accent wasn't that difficult but my northern friends do say I speak 'posh'.

 

With Beijing (or any other large city of over a few million people), are there accents? There was only one comment earlier where a person was said to speak the old, but perhaps more educated Beijing accent.

[liuzhou]

Listen to Chairman Mao speaking 普通话 . He did so with a strong Hunan accent.

 

Here in Guangxi, I can differentiate people from north Guangxi (say Guilin) and people from south Guangxi (say Beihai). by their accents, both when they speak Chinese or English..

 

Just this week was introduced to a Chinese person and said to him, "You are from Xi'an, aren't you." He was very surprised and asked how I knew. His accent.

[stapler]

I've been trying to watch a bunch of shows to help improve my listening. I always feel like there's a real lack of options when it comes to Chinese television. But that's another problem. My biggest problem is dealing with "accents". All my listening practice has almost entirely been textbook recordings and listening to my Chinese friends speaking (university students). I can get a grasp on these kinds of Mandarin. However whenever I try to find something on TV I feel like I cannot get past the accents at all. The Beijing accents, the Taiwanese accents, and even children show's "child" speak accent all do my head in!

[AdamD]

That kills me too. Right now I'm focusing on shows set in Beijing and populated by mumbly actors, precisely because I have no idea what they're saying. imron mentioned here one of the values of persevering with non-standard speech.

[tysond]

The Beijing accents, the Taiwanese accents, and even children show's "child" speak accent all do my head in!

 

 

 

Listen, pause, read subtitles, rewind, repeat.  

 

That said, I still can't understand Scottish people speaking English and had to watch Trainspotting with English subs. 

[stapler]

I could just handle Trainspotting. Needed subs for The Wire. My Irish neighbour I find largely incomprehensible. I guess English can be pretty difficult too. Luckily the aforementioned accents (I want to even say dialects) are pretty rare. Not quite so for Beijing and Taiwan!

 

Anyway yeah I try to pause and rewind, but sometimes stuff is still a mystery to me and I really wonder if I'm just hearing some kind of topolect rather than Mandarin.

 

For example, the most recent case of Taiwanese, all I hear is "你小zei点“ no matter how many times I relisten!

 

http://youtu.be/NvvGPVmBv_s?t=30m52s

[Demonic_Duck]

Good to hear at least one other native English speaker (I'm assuming, from your location) has trouble with The Wire... I tell Americans I have trouble understanding that show (even when the scene only involves cops talking to each other) and they're always surprised.

[tysond]

Oh yeah I had trouble with The Wire too, especially season 1.  The drug deal guys not only had accents they had their own language going on.

[Johnny20270]

My Irish neighbour I find largely incomprehensible.

 

 

That's because most barely speak any sort of normal English and at twice the speed of everyone else