Dialectified Written Mandarin

[ParkeNYU]

The following is a list of 'dialectal' characters that I'd use to write the Beijing dialect of Mandarin* were it not already the official dialect of the PRC and ROC:

 

的>啲 de5 (distinct from di2, 'truly', and di4, 'aim')

得>嘚 de5 (distinct from literary reading de2, 'obtain', and colloquial reading dei3, 'must')

地>哋 de5 (distinct from di4, 'ground')

不>吥 bu4 (emphasises colloquial reading over literary reading fu4)
還>咳 hai2 (distinct from huan2, 'to return')
沒>嘸 mei2 (distinct from mo4, 'to drown')

著>啫 zhe5 (distinct from zhu4, zhao1/2, and zhuo2)

這>嗻 zhe(i)4 (distinct from yàn, 'to meet')

了>嘞 le(i)5 (distinct from liao3, 'to understand'; alternatively [口+了])
都>嘟 dou1 (distinct from du1, 'city')
也>吔 ye3 (distinct from classical particle)
是>呩 shi4 (distinct from classical proximal demonstrative; 㖷 as 'to cry')

他>咃 ta1 (distinct from 'other'; 她牠祂 remain)
它>㐌 ta1 (distinct from ancient 'snake'; 咜 as 'to scold')
個>嗰 ge5 (distinct from ge4, 'individual')

和>啝 he2/han4 (distinct from huo2, 'soft', and huo4, 'to mix')

耶>㖿 ye5 (distinct from ye2, classical particle)
甚>啿 she(n)2 (distinct from shen4, 'extremely')

麼>嚒 me5 (distinct from mo2, 'tiny')

兒>唲 -r (distinct from er2, 'son'; 儿 as KangXi radical #10)

 

*Pekingese Mandarin as the foundation of the artificial official dialect(s) of the PRC and ROC, not an equivalent form

[imron]

Beijing dialect of Mandarin were it not already the official dialect of the PRC and ROC

Beijing dialect is not the official dialect of the PRC, and definitely not the official dialect of the ROC.

 

Many people confuse Beijing dialect with Standard Mandarin but as anyone who has lived in Beijing can tell you, they are very different things.

[陳德聰]

I am a bit perplexed at why 嘸 would be "mei"

[ParkeNYU]

I meant to say that the PRC and ROC national languages use Pekingese Mandarin as their foundations, I didn't mean to imply that they were equivalent. Both descend from 老國音 'super Mandarin', but eventually the base was switched to Pekingese (first in 1932, then again more potently under the PRC). When I wrote the post, I was only thinking about the written form, and I should have considered the spoken form as well, which is clearly different.

 

嘸 is a semantic, not phonetic, borrowing in this case.

[Hofmann]

Why?

[ParkeNYU]

This is more representative of an alternate history in which 淺文言 had remained the official standard of written Chinese instead of the Mandarin-based 白話文. In this scenario, Written Mandarin would be considered 'dialectal writing', much as written Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Shanghainese are. New characters would be adopted so as to not overload the existing literary characters with new readings and/or meanings.

[Lu]

I understand your point and find it interesting, but personally I find it a bit of pity aesthetically that you use so many 口字旁. Aren't there more elegant ways to resolve this, with more 'original characters'? Or is it really inevitable?

[Hofmann]

I think he's just doing what is usually done to specific morphemes in nonstandard varieties.

[ParkeNYU]

Actually yes, there is a more aesthetically satisfying means of achieving the same goal: split each character's readings into colloquial (白讀) and literary (文讀) registers. These two registers of pronunciation are respectively analogous to 訓讀 and 音讀 in the Sino-Xenic languages (e.g. Japanese and Korean). Under such a system, which is also employed in 閩南語 (including Taiwanese), 的 would have a 白讀 of [de5] and a 文讀 of [di2] and [di4]; knowing which to use would depend on context. That's pretty much how Standard Written Chinese works now, actually!

[Lu]

個>嗰 ge5 (distinct from ge4, 'individual')

 

Have you considered 个 here? I think Taiwanese also uses it, although in a different meaning, so while on one hand that is not good (multiple uses for the same character), on the other hand it shows it's a legitimate Chinese character that can be used for dialect writing. And it doesn't have a 口字旁.

[ParkeNYU]

That's a fine idea, but I'm trying to avoid using traditional/simplified differences to convey differences in meaning and pronunciation.