Beijing Mandarin (division of Mandarin)
In Chinese dialectology, Beijing Mandarin () refers to a major branch of Mandarin Chinese recognized by the "Language Atlas of China", encompassing a number of dialects spoken in areas of Beijing, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning and Tianjin, the most important of which is the Beijing dialect, which provides the phonological basis for Standard Chinese. Classification. Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin were proposed by Chinese linguist Li Rong as two separate branches of Mandarin in the 1980s. In Li's 1985 paper, he suggested using tonal reflexes of Middle Chinese checked tone characters as the criterion for  classifying Mandarin dialects. In this paper, he used the term “Beijing Mandarin” () to refer the dialect group in which checked tone characters with a voiceless initial have dark level, light level, rising and departing tone reflexes. He chose the name Beijing Mandarin as this Mandarin group is approximate to the Beijing dialect. He subsequently proposed a split of Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin in 1987, listing the following as reasons: The 2012 edition of "Language Atlas of China" added one more method for distinguishing Beijing Mandarin from Northeastern Mandarin: Meanwhile, there are some scholars who regard Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern  Mandarin as a single division of Mandarin. Lin (1987) noticed the phonological similarity between Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin. Zhang (2010) suggested that the criteria for the division of Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin as top-level Mandarin groups are inconsistent with the criterion for the division of other top-level Mandarin groups. Subdivisions. Beijing Mandarin is classified into the following subdivisions in the 2012 edition of "Language Atlas of China": Per the 2012 edition of "Atlas", these subgroups are distinguished by the following features: Compared with the first edition (1987), the second edition (2012) of the "Atlas" demoted "Jīngshī  and Huái–Chéng" subgroups to clusters of a new "Jīng–Chéng" subgroup. "Shí–Kè" () or "Běijiāng" () subgroup (including the cities of Shihezi and Karamay), listed as a subgroup of Beijing Mandarin in the 1987 edition, is re-allocated to a "Běijiāng" () subgroup of Lanyin Mandarin and a "Nánjiāng" () subgroup of Central Plains Mandarin. The "Cháo–Fēng" subgroup covers a greater area in the 2012 edition. Phonological features. Initials. With regard to initials, the reflexes of "kaikou hu" syllables with any of the 影, 疑, 云 and 以 initials in Middle Chinese differ amongst the subgroups: a null initial is found  in the "Jīngshī" cluster, while or initials are often present in the "Huái–Chéng" cluster and the "Cháo–Fēng" subgroup. Dental and retroflex sibilants are distinct phonemes in Beijing Mandarin. This is contrary to Northeastern Mandarin, in which the two categories are either in free variation or merged into a single type of sibilants. Tones. In both Beijing Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin, the checked tone of Middle Chinese has completely dissolved and is distributed irregularly among the remaining tones. However, Beijing Mandarin has significantly fewer rising-tone characters with a checked-tone origin, compared with Northeastern Mandarin. The "Cháo–Fēng  subgroup generally has a lower tonal value for the dark level tone. Lexical features. The Cháo–Fēng" subgroup has more words in common with that of Northeastern Mandarin. The intensifier is also used in the "Cháo–Fēng" subgroup.