# Pronunciation during late Qing Dynasty



## DernierVirage

I hope that my question is not too esoteric for the forum...

I am studying Putonghua on a part-time basis and also in my spare time like reading about the Qing Dynasty, especially the period running up to its collapse. 

My question concerns the pronunciation used at that time - I imagine that very little or no information is available about how the "common people" spoke (especially as the regional differences must have been huge), even in Beijing, but do we have any idea about the pronunciation used by the "aristocracy" (court, civil service etc.) and to what extent it would differ from, say, standard Putonghua as spoken today. 

Knowing the reluctance of the Qing Dynasty to embrace Western technology, I guess that there are no sound recordings of people speaking dating from even the early 1900s that might give us more information.

Thanks in advance for any help or comments (or suggestions as to where I could go to find out more information).


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## Ghabi

Believe it or not, there were Beijing Opera records dating in as early as 1904.


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## DernierVirage

Do you know if any of this material still exists outside museums, and if anything from this era has been transferred into digital form ? It would be amazing to hear !


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## patrick_socal

DernierVirage said:


> Do you know if any of this material still exists outside museums, and if anything from this era has been transferred into digital form ? It would be amazing to hear !



Here is a place to start

http://www.capsnews.org/apn2009-1.htm

If there are problems with the link it's the website of the
Canadian Antique Phonograph Society.
Article is titled:
 *The Development of Chinese Records from the Qing Dynasty to 1918*  

Should get you started if you are interested.

Patrick.


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## DernierVirage

Patrick - Thanks very much for the link, it is fascinating !


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## palomnik

While I don't know where one might find actual recordings of spoken Chinese, you could do worse than review the sections on pronunciation in the large number of books on the Chinese language at the Internet Archive, almost all of which predate 1910.  The major problem in dealing with these materials is that there was no standard transliteration scheme for Chinese at the time, and every expert developed his own.  Probably the most authoritative, although not the most complete, is T. F. Wade's _Yu Yen Tzu Erh Chi_, which was published in 1903:  

http://www.archive.org/details/yyentzurhchi01wadeuoft

But there is a lot more there, including the predecessor to the Matthews Dictionary, _Baller's Analytical Chinese-English Dictionary_ (1900) which gives variant readings for dialectical pronunciations.

As for the spoken word, there is a good deal less there.  There is one opera recording from 1920:

http://www.archive.org/details/Peony_Su_White_Hibiscus_At_Night

but it is purportedly Cantonese opera.  In any case, how much Chinese opera is a reliable indicator of how people actually spoke is open to doubt.


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## Ghabi

DernierVirage said:


> ... but do we have any idea about the pronunciation used by the "aristocracy" (court, civil service etc.) and to what extent it would differ from, say, standard Putonghua as spoken today ...



A more well-known thing is that the ji-qi-xi series in Mandarin has two different historical sources, namely the k-g-h series and the z-c-s series. 

Many homophones in today's Mandarin were thus pronounced differently during the Qing Dynasty. 

For example, 剑 "sword" and 箭 "arrow" are homophones (jian4) in today's Mandarin, but in the old days the latter was pronounced zian4, and the former jian4 (<--*gim).

In Beijing Opera, these minimal pairs are still maintained (known as 尖音 vs 团音).

Why the two groups of consonants were merged? Well, one theory goes that because the Manchurian aristocracy were unable to differentiate them!


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## DernierVirage

Thanks for the incredibly useful replies !

Palomnik, the link you gave me is amazing, I have just downloaded the 172 pages of the 1903 publication by Wade, which is legally available free. As you say, there is a lot of other information available on the site, I just need to give up my day job to have enough time to read it all....

From what you all say, it seems to be the case that there is little if any surviving recordings of the spoken (as opposed to sung) word from this period, if indeed there was much to start with.

Thanks again to you all.


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## DernierVirage

Ghabi said:


> Why the two groups of consonants were merged? Well, one theory goes that because the Manchurian aristocracy were unable to differentiate them!


 
Thanks very much.

This subject has always interested me, the extent to which spoken Chinese at that time was influenced by Manchu speech. Do you have any sources of information about this ?


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## Ghabi

DernierVirage said:


> This subject has always interested me, the extent to which spoken Chinese at that time was influenced by Manchu speech. Do you have any sources of information about this ?



I did some googling, and found an article called "Altaic influences on Beijing dialect". You may want to take a look at the references cited in it for further sources.


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## DernierVirage

Ghabi said:


> I did some googling, and found an article called "Altaic influences on Beijing dialect". You may want to take a look at the references cited in it for further sources.


 
Thanks for your kind help, I've looked at your references, but they are pushing my knowledge to the limit 

It seems to be a fascinating subject, all the more reason that I wish I could hear a recording of spoken Mandarin from that period.


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## DernierVirage

I have been reading my download of T. F. Wade's _Yu Yen Tzu Erh Chi_ (published in 1903),as suggested by Palomnik above and I found the following interesting definition of the tones (I have taken the exact words from the text):

"In the 1st tone, the *upper-even*...the vowel sound ... proceeds without elevation or depression..."
"In the 2nd tone, *the lower-even*, the voice is jerked, much as when in English we utter words expressive of doubt and astonishment"
"In the 3rd tone, *the ascending*, the sound becomes nearly as abrupt, but more resembling what with us would indicate indignation and denial"
"In the 4th tone, *the receding*, the vowel-sound is prolonged, as it were, regretfully"

With the exception of the first tone, I am having trouble reconciling the others to the tones as we know them today. I am wondering whether there was a difference in the tones at that time, or is it just the way of explaining them that is a bit strange....

All very useful for a relative beginner like me


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## Ghabi

These descriptions sound fine to me, but of course are way too vague to be judged right or wrong. The genesis of the modern four tones in the Northern dialects took place during (or even before) the Yuan Dynasty, and as far as I know (I don't know much of course) there's been no major change after that.


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## DernierVirage

Thanks for your message and interesting information. It was the description of the 2nd and 3rd tones that was worrrying me, especially the descriptions that were used, so I'm reassured to know that the tones were essentially exactly as today.

BTW, even looking at the English in this old book shows how much language can change in a short time !

George


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## palomnik

DernierVirage said:


> I have been reading my download of T. F. Wade's _Yu Yen Tzu Erh Chi_ (published in 1903),as suggested by Palomnik above and I found the following interesting definition of the tones (I have taken the exact words from the text):
> 
> "In the 1st tone, the *upper-even*...the vowel sound ... proceeds without elevation or depression..."
> "In the 2nd tone, *the lower-even*, the voice is jerked, much as when in English we utter words expressive of doubt and astonishment"
> "In the 3rd tone, *the ascending*, the sound becomes nearly as abrupt, but more resembling what with us would indicate indignation and denial"
> "In the 4th tone, *the receding*, the vowel-sound is prolonged, as it were, regretfully"
> 
> With the exception of the first tone, I am having trouble reconciling the others to the tones as we know them today. I am wondering whether there was a difference in the tones at that time, or is it just the way of explaining them that is a bit strange....
> 
> All very useful for a relative beginner like me



I have to admit that they make me scratch my head too.  I thought perhaps that the ordering of the tones is different than is commonly used nowadays - his second tone is what is now considered the third tone, and vice-versa - but when he actually lists characters in each tone a few pages later it's clear that he's using the same order as is normally used.


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