Standard Chinese and the Xining dialect: The rise of an interdialectal standard (original) (raw)
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This paper examines factors complicating the definition of Standard Chinese, including register and socio-geographical variation, sound change and folk etymology, foreign loans and contact-induced structural change, and inherent imprecisions in the national spelling system. Also examined are reactions to change in the linguistic and language-teaching communities , how lay and academic attitudes towards impurities and linguistic innovation differ, and how differences between Chinese and western notions of 'language' and 'dialect' serve to further widen the gap between the textbook standard and perceived standardness. Predictions are made regarding the future development of Modern Standard Chinese that take into consideration the popular appeal of the language of westernized Chinese societies (e.g., Hong Kong and Taiwan) and the effect of the growth of native speakers of Mandarin in the Chinese-speaking world. #
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Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica, 2018
This paper aims to investigate lexical borrowings from ethnic languages to standard Mandarin. Data are collected through daily observation after years of living in Xinjiang, China. The data suggest that phonetic loans and hybrid loans are the major approaches in lexical borrowings from Uyghur, Russian, and Persian. Two motivations behind Uyghur borrowings into Mandarin are discussed: cultural borrowings and core borrowings. Cultural borrowings are new objects, concepts of ethnic origins, which are new to Han Chinese communities. Core borrowings are Mandarin words which have been replaced by Uyghur. However, core borrowings are not associated with the prestige of the donor language in this case; instead, frequency, marker, friendliness, and religious consideration are the major reasons. In addition, this paper analyses the strategies of lexical borrowings from ethnic languages in Mandarin. It further discusses the cultural backgrounds behind lexical borrowings. The lexical borrowings...