Whence Came Mandarin

Whence Came Mandarin?
Qīng Guānhuà, the Běijīng Dialect, and the National Language

Standard in Early Republican China
Author(s): Richard Vanness Simmons
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 137, No. 1 (January-March 2017),
pp. 63-88
Published by: American Oriental Society
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Whence Came Mandarin? Qīng Guānhuà, the Běijīng Dialect,
and the National Language Standard in Early Republican China
RICHARD VANNESS SIMMONS
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY
While the language of Běijīng served together with Manchu as the court vernacu-
lar in the Qīng dynasty, the city’s dialect was not widely accepted in China as
the standard for Guānhuà even in the late nineteenth century. The preferred form
was a mixed Mandarin koiné with roots going back much earlier, such as that
represented in Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s mid-Qīng rime compendium Lǐshì yīnjiàn. A similar
form of mixed Mandarin served briefly as the National Pronunciation of China in
the early twentieth century and came to be called lán-qīng Guānhuà ‘blue-green
Mandarin’. This heterogeneous norm incorporated features of a variety of Man-
darin dialects and eventually came to be disparaged as an unrefined cousin of the
pure Běijīng standard. Yet in origin the old National Pronunciation was designed
to encompass a mix of regional forms and intended to contain the most broadly
accepted elements of various Mandarin types. The evolution and development of
the composite Guānhuà norm reveal much about Chinese linguistic attitudes of
the early nineteenth through early twentieth centuries and shed light on various
perspectives about what standard Chinese should be and what a Mandarin-based
norm should represent. Broad popular acceptance of Běijīng as the governing
norm for pronunciation began slowly to take hold only after the Ministry of Edu-
cation of the Republic of China finally officially promoted Běijīng as the national
standard in the 1930s. Yet it then had to compete with a new mixed vernacular
orthography called Latinxua sinwenz. Běijīng was not firmly established as the
norm until the People’s Republic of China definitively declared the city’s dialect
as standard in the 1950s.
INTRODUCTION
Contact with national language standards in Europe and elsewhere produced a strong call
for the development of a national language standard in China at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century. Just one year after the collapse of Imperial China and the establishment of
the Republic of China in 1912, the Ministry of Education convened a committee to study
the issue of a unified standard pronunciation and a set of symbols to represent it. The pro-
nunciation standard the committee came up with was a compromise drawn on the basis of
competing regional linguistic interests. It was a mixed language that came to be known as
lán-qīng Guānhuà 䇉华͜䙭 ‘blue-green Mandarin’ because it included disparate features
from several Mandarin dialects, such as the rù ᕡ ‘entering’ tone and the jiān-tuán Ηᬔ
‘sharp-round’ distinction. 1 This mixed nature meant that it was a language that had no native
An early draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society, Western Branch
Victoria, B.C., October 2013; additional research for this article was completed during the author’s term as The
Starr Foundation East Asian Studies Endowment Fund Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute
for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton in Spring 2015. The author is deeply grateful for their support.
1. The phrase lán-qīng Guānhuà was, and still is, also used to refer more broadly to Mandarin colored by any
sort of dialect or non-standard element(s). Literally meaning ‘blue-green’, lán-qīng 䇉华 alludes to a mixed or
Journal of the American Oriental Society 137.1 (2017) 63
64 Journal of the American Oriental Society 137.1 (2017)
speakers, which thus proved impossible to implement as a national spoken standard for the
modern age.
But the mixed ‘blue-green Mandarin’ type was not without precedent in Chinese history.
It can be seen to have been heir to a practice in traditional times that struck a compromise
between competing forms of prestige Mandarin koinés, including both a southern type and
a northern type. A detailed and comprehensive representation of the traditional heteroge-
neous practice is found in the Lǐshì yīnjiàn ❹ⰺઞ偍 (Mr. Lǐ’s discriminating appraisal
of pronunciations) by the Qīng scholar Lǐ Rǔzhēn ❹Ⲉࡏ (c. 1763–c. 1830). 2 This work
presents a mixed phonology that incorporates the commonly accepted contemporary norms
of both northern and southern forms of Guānhuà, which Lǐ Rǔzhēn refers to as běiyīn ᜓઞ
and nányīn ᝓઞ respectively. This mixed form has led to its critical dismissal by scholars of
Chinese language history, who note that it thus does not purely represent a single historical
dialect. 3 However, the koiné phonology that the Lǐshì yīnjiàn outlines shares a great deal
with the mixed standard for the first version of the National Pronunciation (which came to be
known as Lǎo Guóyīn 㯽ᬇઞ) established in 1913, which was lán-qīng Guānhuà.
Comparing the phonology of the Lǐshì yīnjiàn with the Lǎo Guóyīn standard of 1913, we
can discern a popular preference for a composite standard that allowed for variation as well
as including a set of features thought to be indispensable in the aggregate, but not found
collectively in any single spoken dialect. Qīng (1644–1911) period Guānhuà broadly con-
ceived, including its maligned cousin lán-qīng Guānhuà, thus conforms well in its nature to
a true koiné. 4 Below we undertake detailed examinations of the Lǐshì yīnjiàn and the Guóyīn
standard, taking a particularly close look at the heterogeneous set of features shared between
the two. We find that while the Lǐshì yīnjiàn and Lǎo Guóyīn both represent artificial, highly
idealized phonologies, they provide a decidedly authentic picture of the Guānhuà of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century as conceived by literate Chinese; and we find therein
a view of the koiné that was the native vernacular of no one but that served as the common
supra-regional prestige form of many. Before proceeding we present a brief overview of the
place of the Běijīng dialect as a prestige norm in the history of Mandarin. 5
OVERVIEW OF THE RISE OF BĚIJĪNG AS STANDARD

Although the dialect of Běijīng ᜓƦ is widely (yet erroneously) held to have served as
the spoken language standard for several centuries, its identification and common acceptance
as the official standard language for China actually came very late. It can be said that the
impure quality—something ‘neither purely blue nor purely green’. One of the earliest recorded uses of the term
lán-qīng to describe impure Guānhuà with an admixture of dialect appears in a letter composed by Lǔ Xùn 嚂䯁
(1881–1936) in the mid 1920s during a boat trip. Lǔ Xùn, a Wú dialect speaker who also knew the Guānhuà koiné
and spoke and wrote Mandarin with a dialect accent, wrote: “A person sharing the cabin with me was from Taiwan;
he could speak Xiàmén dialect, which I don’t understand; he could not understand my blue-green Mandarin” ᠈㹕
शጸᐼ♚㷶⾖Ƭౣǀ㳹䚦⃒兼䙭ౣ֦ŋ֓౲֦䚦श䇉华͜䙭ౣǀŋ֓ (1927: 384).
2. A brief biography of Lǐ Rǔzhēn is in Hummel 1943–1944: 472–73.
3. Lǐ Xīnkuí 1983: 391–95.
4. A koiné, Chinese tōngyǔ 䰖䟩, is a socially accepted standard, or common supra-regional, vernacular lan-
guage that forms through contact between two or more varieties or dialects of a language that are related at some
level, or mutually intelligible. The speakers of a koiné do not usually abandon their own native vernaculars or dia-
lects, but rather use the koiné for communication across a broad region. Hence koinés differ from mixed languages
and creoles, which are more geographically confined and come to serve as the speakers’ native tongue. For further
discussion of koinés and creoles, see Kerswill 2004; Leonhardt 2013: 26, 45, 50; McWhorter 1998; Siegel 1985;
Thomason and Kaufman 1988: 147–66; and Trudgill 1986.
5. Our overview is based in part upon Norman 1997 and 2004, Coblin 2000, and Simmons 2017a.
SIMMONS: Whence Came Mandarin? 65
situation was not fully finalized until the 1950s after the founding of the People’s Republic
of China. Both the spoken and written forms of Mandarin had well established de facto
standards much earlier; both of them took recognizable form in the Sòng (960–1279) and by
the Míng (1368–1644) were widely accepted and used. Yet these de facto norms were not
based on the dialect of Běijīng. In the Sòng dynasty, Běijīng had not yet been established as
the capital of all of China, and the language of Kāifēng 冇Ύ and the central plains was the
dominant form of Mandarin, even after the transfer of the capital to Hángzhōu ➘Е in the
Southern Sòng (1127–1279). When the Yuán (1271–1368) established their capital in Dàdū
ʖ䳹 (in the area of modern Běijīng), that city’s language grew in prominence, but likely still
had to compete with a literati preference for the previous Sòng variety of Mandarin, which
had since migrated southward and come to dominate the southern Yangtze watershed region.
After the Yuán, this newly evolved southern, or Jiāngnán Ⲋᝓ, Mandarin was brought to
preeminence when Zhū Yuánzhāng ❜ᔿࢃ (1328–1398) expelled the Mongols and set up
his Míng capital in Nánjīng ᝓƦ in the heart of the Jiāngnán region.
Still, it is generally believed that Běijīng came again to linguistic prominence soon after
the Míng capital was transferred north to the city of Běijīng by the third Míng emperor in
1421. But it did not. Southern norms for Mandarin prevailed all the way through the Qīng
and into the Republican period. It was not until the early 1920s that this southern preference
finally collapsed in the face of practicalities that, it seemed, only the language of Běijīng
could resolve. Thus in 1924 the Ministry of Education officially designated the pronunciation
of Běijīng the national norm. Yet the new standard did not begin to be widely taught until
the 1930s, at which time it was forced to vie with a competing Mandarin model developed
by a group of communist scholars that came into wide use in north China beginning in 1929:
Latinxua sinwenz. But sinwenz was in fact also a mixed system that contained elements from
many dialects and was not based on the speech of any single dialect.
The issue was finally definitively settled following the Chinese communist victory in
1949, when the new People’s Republic of China (PRC) clearly reaffirmed the status of
Běijīng pronunciation as the national language norm. On October 23, 1955, the National
Convention on Script Reform (Quánguó wénzì gǎigé huìyì ᕤᬇ▲̸╤卥✮䝬) made a
resolution calling for the “widespread promotion of Pǔtōnghuà ⚙䰖䙭 that takes Běijīng
pronunciation as standard.” The convention’s resolution was brought forth following the lead
of a speech by the Minister of Education (jiàoyùbùzhǎng ▄㲮䳤关), Zhāng Xīruò ℗ʳ㻡,
titled “Vigorously promote the Common Language that takes Běijīng as its pronunciation
standard.” 6 Three days later on October 26, 1955, the People’s Daily echoed this resolu-
tion in an editorial and expanded upon it: “The common language of the Hàn ⺎ people is
Pǔtōnghuà, which takes northern dialects as its foundation and takes Běijīng pronunciation as
its standard.” 7 Then, early the following year on February 6, 1956, the State Council of the
PRC (Guówùyuàn ᬇᛕ剞) further refined the definition with an indication of the grammar
standard, adding that it “takes model writings in modern vernacular prose as its standard for
grammar.” Explaining the State Council’s directive, Premier Zhōu Ēnlái ᡤԥᏫ summed
up the various components of the full new language standard in one complete statement,
saying that “the foundation for the unification of Chinese already exists; it is Pǔtōnghuà,
which takes Běijīng pronunciation as its phonetic standard, takes northern vernacular as its
6. “ʖᚗ⏓⃦ǊᜓƦ䚚ઞũ⠲⸱ઞश⚙䰖䙭,” reprinted in Yǔwén xuéxí 䚚▲ậ㯎 (Chinese language learn-

ing), December 1955, 1–4. The title of his speech is used in the convention resolution item Number 4, reprinted in
Yǔwén xuéxí, November 1955, 3.
7. “⺎ⰼ◺ᕭ᠈䚚, Ρ♚Ǌᜓ◤䙭ũ᯶㕿◤䗼ႱǊᜓƦ䚚ઞũ⠲⸱ઞश⚙䰖䙭.” The Rénmín rìbào Ƭⰼ☐
ᰭ editorial is reprinted in Yǔwén xuéxí, November 1955, 1–3.
dialect foundation, and takes model writings in modern vernacular prose as its standard for
grammar.” 8
This is at once the final word and the most forcefully promoted designation of the national
language standard now current in China. Two years later the final mature version of Hànyǔ
pīnyīn ⺎䚚‫ء‬ઞ was approved by the People’s Congress on February 11, 1958. 9 The basic
components of the modern Chinese language standard were thus complete and had the full
power of the young PRC government behind them. The Běijīng basis for the standard was
now unequivocal and incontrovertible.
The new PRC government adopted the Běijīng standard with a forthright ease that is in
stark contrast to the more equivocal and tortuous path followed by the new government
of the Republic of China (ROC) half a century earlier. Early ROC efforts had to work first
through all the issues, conventions, conceptions, and preferences that were inherited from
the late Qīng Guānhuà tradition. The first product of that work was the Lǎo Guóyīn standard
that essentially reconceived the Qīng Guānhuà norms in a slightly more modern and updated
form. Only when that refashioned version of the koiné was found to be unworkable did the
ROC language committees slowly come around to the idea of creating a standard based on
a single living dialect, that of Běijīng. In doing so, the ROC Ministry of Education laid the
groundwork that smoothed the way for the PRC’s actions in the 1950s.
Our discussion now turns to examination of the inherited Qīng Guānhuà tradition. Fol-
lowing that, we look at the Lǎo Guóyīn standard and consider how it came to be and how
it compares to the Qīng tradition. We also take a brief look at the ultimate turn to a pure
Běijīng standard, which in its earliest version still contained a nod to the standards of the past
and which had to contend with the revival of a conservative heterogeneity seen in Latinxua
sinwenz. In the process we probe some of the linguistic issues that came to the fore as the
Chinese sought to fix a clear spoken standard for all of China and create a governmentally
defined national language following the 1911 revolution.
THE MÍNG-QĪNG MANDARIN KOINÉ

As noted above, it was long assumed that Běijīng became the prestige dialect in China
when the capital was moved there in 1421 and that any southern influence ended once the
Manchus moved into the capital after the conquest in 1644. 10 Yet South Coblin has shown
that the language of Běijīng, and a běiyīn ‘northern pronunciation’, played second fiddle to
the Mandarin nányīn ‘southern pronunciation’, whose prestige exemplar was Nánjīng, until
the nineteenth century. 11 As Elisabeth Kaske also later noted:
In linguistic practice, the Beijing dialect emerged as a serious competitor to a southern form of
Mandarin not during the Ming dynasty but only since the Qing Qianlong era during the eigh-
teenth century. However, due to diglossic attitudes towards language[,] the Beijing dialect was
not able to acquire prestige. Southern Chinese dialects preserved many phonemic characteristics
that had already been lost in the northern-based Mandarin and could thus challenge the authority
of the Beijing dialect by claiming greater proximity to the classical standard. 12
8. “⺎䚚श㥭ጸ᯶㕿С㦏̹ᬤƋౣ䯕Ρ♚ǊᜓƦ䚚ઞũ⠲ᗂઞႱǊᜓ◤䙭ũ᯶㕿◤䗼ႱǊᕴ㻿श㈤ǈ
ळ䙭▲䁓Ȇũ䚚ⴀ䖋㻿श⚙䰖䙭,” Zhōu Ēnlái 1956: 151.
9. Approval of pīnyīn is recounted in Lín Tāo 2010: 477. Pīnyīn has subsequently been adopted throughout the
world to Romanize Chinese from all historical periods. In the present article, for example, pīnyīn is used throughout
to transcribe Chinese forms (including non-Roman phonetic symbols) unless another Romanization is cited or called
for in order to illustrate an earlier practice.
10. For example, see Elman 2000: 373–74.
11. Coblin 2000.
12. Kaske 2008: 41.
The earlier lower prestige of the Běijīng dialect is reflected, for example, in the development
of a new language layer in the city’s speech based on higher prestige southern pronunciation
and usage that was brought to the dialect following the migration of the capital from Nánjīng,
traces of which are still seen today. For instance this southern layer is manifest in the double
readings for some rù tone syllables, such as the two pronunciations sè and shǎi for 㹮 ‘color’,
in which the former is of southern origin and entered Běijīng usage through the perception
of it as a more literate pronunciation. 13
Influenced by the Chinese literati preference for the southern type of prestige Mandarin,
Westerners in China also followed the southern model in learning what had come to be
known as Guānhuà ‘the language of officials’ until the middle of the 1800s. This is perhaps
most easily seen in the system of tones in the versions of Mandarin that Western scholars
learned and codified in their dictionaries and reference works. A clear and unmistakable
difference that distinguished the Mandarin nányīn from the běiyīn was found in the tone
categories. The northern type of Mandarin had four tones, and the southern prestige type had
five tones. Both types had the four tones traditionally called yīnpíng 剬я, yángpíng 剹я,
shǎng ፁ, and qù ិ, which correspond to the four tones of Běijīng-based modern standard
Chinese—1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tones, respectively. 14 But the southern Mandarin type had
an additional tone, the rù ᕡ tone, which had been lost in the northern type. This system of
five tones closely matches the pattern still found in a broad swath of southern Mandarin dia-
lects in Jiāngsū Ⲋ䈃, including Nánjīng ᝓƦ and Yángzhōu ␅Е and stretching west into
Ānhuī as well. 15 This five-tone variety was the tone system of the prestige form of Mandarin
predominant in the Míng and Qīng Guānhuà koiné language of the officials.
Since the end of the sixteenth century, Western scholars learning Chinese studied a south-
ern Mandarin that had the same five tones as the Jiāngnán varieties of Mandarin. The Jesuits
who strove to learn Chinese in the late years of the Míng were well aware of the prestige and
currency of Guānhuà in the bureaucracy and power circles of China. They also noted that
it was widely spoken in the Jiāngnán region and understood that the language of Nanking
(Nánjīng) was the most important representative model to study in learning Guānhuà. 16 A
lost Portuguese-Chinese dictionary that was compiled by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) together
with Lazzaro Cattaneo (1560–1640) in 1598–1599 may have marked the five tones, though
Ricci’s surviving original version of the Dicionário Português-Chinês, compiled in the 1580s
with Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607), did not mark tones. 17 A revised version of Ricci’s tran-
scription system was developed by Nicolas Trigault (1577–1628) and others and used by
Trigault in his Xīrú ěrmù zī 䕻ᔎ㰯क़䣃 (Aid to the eyes and ears of the Western scholar). 18
The Ricci-Cattaneo system as adopted by Trigault marked the five tones with diacritics: 19
1. qīngpíng ‫ڹ‬я marked with a macron—as in xīm 㱮 ‘tone’
2. zhuópíng ⼆я marked with a circumflex—as in gîn Ƭ ‘person’
3. shǎng ፁ marked with a falling/grave accent—as in xùi ⱟ ‘water’
4. qù ិ marked with a rising/acute accent—as in ván 䀨 ‘ten-thousand’
5. rù ᕡ marked with a háček—as in pě ऴ ‘one-hundred’
13. Gěng Zhènshēng 2003; Wáng Hóngjūn 2006.

14. Yīnpíng was alternately also called shàngpíng ፁя or qīngpíng ‫ڹ‬я, while yángpíng was also called
xiàpíng ፂя or zhuópíng ⼆я.
15. Jiāngsū shěng hé Shànghǎi shì 1960: 2; Simmons 1999: 8; Yang Fu-mien 1989: 218.
16. Brockey 2007: 249, 258.
17. Witek 2001 provides a full color photographic facsimile of Ricci and Ruggieri’s dictionary.
18. Brockey 2007: 249; Klöter 2011: 36, 103; Yang Fu-mien 1989: 208–18.
19. Examples with Trigault’s transcription are from Yang 1989: 218.
The southern Mandarin model and the Ricci-Cattaneo system of five tones and diacritics
was widely adopted in the Romanizations developed by scholars and missionaries from
the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, including Martino Martini (1614–1661), Fran-
cisco Varo (1627–1687), Prospero Intorcetta (1626–1696), Joseph Henri-Marie de Prémare
(1666–1736), Séraphin Couvreur (1835–1919), and Georg von der Gabelentz (1840–1893). 20
In the early nineteenth century Robert Morrison (1782–1834) also made note of the Manda-
rin system of five tones and diacritics in a short grammar of Chinese that he wrote. But he
was quite strongly influenced by the traditional four-tone system (one píng tone with shǎng,
qù, and rù); and in his dictionary he only marked the shǎng, qù, and rù tones with their
respective diacritics and left both píng tones unmarked. 21 Overall, the strong and widespread
preference among Western students of Chinese is a reflection of the fact that the prestige
status of the five-tone southern form of Mandarin held strong from the Míng well into the
Qīng. Although Western interest began to turn to the dialect of Běijīng beginning in the mid-
nineteenth century, the Chinese themselves continued to favor southern Mandarin even after
the end of the Qīng.
The strength of the Chinese preference for five-tone Mandarin is also well demonstrated
in the written record left by Chinese scholars. Zēng Xiǎoyú ✩♾‫ ۄ‬in a survey of eighteen
rime books and rime tables from the Míng found just one example with only the four tones of
Běijīng; all the others maintained a rù tone, including those others that had a split píng tone. 22
Five tones also predominate in Qīng-period Mandarin-based rime tables and rime books,
from the earlier Mandarin rime table in the Kāngxī zìdiǎn ѳޫ̸ᕴ compiled in 1716, to the
later Tóngyīn zìbiàn ᠈ઞ̸䮤 by Liú Wéifāng ᚅ㦩ᭆ from Shāndōng ρ➜. 23
Shortly after the Qiánlóng Ɗ劂 reign (1736–1796), Lǐ Rǔzhēn presented a five-tone
Mandarin phonology in his Lǐshì yīnjiàn, which he completed in 1805. Lǐ Rǔzhēn was actu-
ally a speaker of the four-tone Běijīng type, being a native of Dàxīng ʖ㸄 in Zhílì ड़労
(now encompassed within the territory of modern Běijīng). For this reason, his rime table
is thought by some to be a record of the Běijīng dialect of his time. But in fact Lǐshì yīnjiàn
presents a mixed phonology that incorporates the commonly accepted contemporary norms
of both northern and southern forms of Guānhuà, nányīn and běiyīn. The nányīn elements of
Lǐ’s system may have been based to some extent on the dialect of Bǎnpǔ ➪‫ ٸ‬in Hǎizhōu
‫پ‬Е (in the area of modern Liányúngǎng 䰟勮‫ ۍ‬in Jiāngsū), where Lǐ Rǔzhēn moved when
he was twenty. 24 There he became quite close to a family of intellectuals who were natives
of Bǎnpǔ, the brothers Xǔ Qiáolín 䘭ᦨ⟂ (n.d.) and Xǔ Guìlín 䘭⡭⟂ (1778–1821), mar-
ried their elder sister, and subsequently spent much of his life in the Hǎizhōu region. 25 But
there can be no doubt that the prestige features of nányīn had been familiar to most literati
in the Běijīng region since the early Míng. The nányīn-type Mandarin continued to hold a
respected cachet in the Qīng capital due to the large numbers of civil officials who hailed
from the Jiāngnán region, which was the central hub of academic and intellectual activity in
the dynasty. 26
Lǐ Rǔzhēn was quite explicit about the inclusion of the two types in Lǐshì yīnjiàn, which
also incorporated both the southern five-tone and the northern four-tone systems of Man-
20. Coblin 2006: 26; Klöter 2011:103; Luó Chángpéi 1934, Table 3/n.p.; Yang Fu-mien 1989: 221.
21. Morrison 1815: 20; Morrison 1815–1823, I/I, xvii; Meadows 1847: 61; Wong 2008.
22. Zēng Xiǎoyú 1991: 71–72.
23. Gěng Zhènshēng 2003: 200.
24. Yáng Yìmíng 1992: 6–11.
25. What little is known about Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s life is recounted in Yáng Yìmíng 1992: 6–11; Xú Zǐfāng 2000; and
Hummel 1943–1944: 514–15.
26. Simmons 1999: xii–xiii.
darin. The bulk of his book, five out of six juàn, is introductory material that explains the
overall design of his phonological system, suggests ways to master it, and also contains sec-
tions discussing the contrasts between the northern and southern types. All the south-north
variations that he identifies are incorporated into the Lǐshì yīnjiàn phonology. Lǐ Rǔzhēn
outlines the principal differences in two sections (called “questions” wèn ᥋), respectively
titled “Běiyīn rùshēng lùn” ᜓઞᕡ㱮䛒 (Discourse on the rù tone in běiyīn) (juàn 4, section
25, 1b–17a) and “Nán-běi fāng yīn lùn” ᝓᜓ◤ઞ䛒 (Discourse on pronunciation in the
north and south) (juàn 4, section 26, 17a–18b). They are:
1. Běiyīn pronounces rù-tone syllables in the other three tones.
2. Nányīn does not distinguish between syllables such as jiāng Ⲋ ‘river’ and gāng ᾢ
‘hillock’.
3. Nányīn also does not distinguish the initials in such syllables as the following pairs:
shāng-sāng ᥂⡼, cháng-cáng 关䇋, and zhāng-zāng 㛜㷣.
4. Běiyīn does not distinguish the initials in such syllables as the following pairs: ciāng-
qiāng ⧸㮈, ziāng-jiāng ỷˤ, siāng-xiāng ⃌ଉ. 27
The first of these differences reflects the northern Mandarin merger of the rù-tone syllables
into the other four tones. Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s account of the situation comes as a response to the
question “What does it mean to say that běiyīn has no rù tone?” He answers by noting that
in běiyīn, rù-tone syllables such as qī ጺ and fā ㏊ are pronunced in the yīnpíng-tone; rù-tone
syllables such as ᜽ shí and ◆ hú are pronounced in the yángpíng-tone; rù-tone syllables
such as 倱 tiě and 㝂 bǐ are pronounced in the shǎng tone; and rù-tone syllables such as 㻡
ruò and ❓ mù are pronounced in the qù tone. In his integrated system all these syllables
have a nányīn based rù-tone pronunciation: ጺ /tsʻiʔ/, ㏊ /faʔ/, ᜽ /ʂəʔ/, ◆ /xuʔ/, 倱 /tʻiɛʔ/,
㝂 /piʔ/, 㻡 /z̢uaʔ/, and ❓ /muʔ/. 28
Lǐ Rǔzhēn then provides an extensive listing of rù-tone syllables and provides his own
fǎnqiè ៉ᘃ spelling glosses for the běiyīn pronunciation of each as well as homophonic
characters for those syllables that have an example in the corresponding tone. For example,
he glosses the non-rù běiyīn pronunciation of shū ័ ‘uncle’ as shū, “shuāng-zhū-qiè 匘
䛴ᘃ /ʂuaŋ1+tʂu1=ʂu1/, 29 homophonic with shū ✣,” while it is /ʂuʔ/ (shuǐ-wò-qiè ⱟⲮᘃ
/ʂuei3+uʔ=ʂuʔ/) in his regular system that reflects the nányīn rù tone; and he glosses dá 䱐
‘arrive’, which is /taʔ/ (děng-là-qiè 㝅䮟ᘃ /təŋ3+laʔ=taʔ/) in his regular system, as dá,
“děng-yá-qiè 㝅ߑᘃ /təŋ3+ia2=ta2/,” and notes it is without any non-rù homophones. Quite
pleased with his thorough treatment of the rù tone, Lǐ Rǔzhēn characterizes his list as “rather
more detailed and complete than that of the běiyīn covered by Zhōu Déqīng ᡤӒ‫ڹ‬.” 30
27. For the purposes of illustration, we use a slightly modified form of pīnyīn here (and occasionally elsewhere
below) that allows sibilant initials (z, c, and s) before the vowels i [i] and ü [y]. As i is pronounced like English “ee”
in these cases and is not the apical vowel of regular pīnyīn, zi, ci, and si, we will indicate that with a subscript nota-
tion when the i is the main vowel: ziee, ciee, and siee. The subscript notation is not needed where the i is the medial.
28. Transcriptions of Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s phonology are adapted from Lǐ Xīnkuí 1983: 393–94, with rù-tone renderings
added. We write them between slanted brackets (/x/) to indicate their roughly phonemic status. (More strictly pho-
netic transcriptions are written between square brackets: [x].) Superscript numbers identify the tones of Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s
system as follows: 1 is yīnpíng, 2 yángpíng, 3 shǎng, and 4 qù, while rù is identified by a final glottal stop /ʔ/.
29. We gloss Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s fǎnqiè spellings using transcriptions for the graphs in the following formulation:
/initial of graph #1 + ﬁnal of graph #2 = transcription of glossed syllable/.
30. “䫿ųᡤӒ‫ּڹ‬䛒ᜓઞౣࣁ᚜䙯ᒠ‫ވ‬.” Zhōu Déqīng ᡤӒ‫( ڹ‬1277–1365) is the author of the Zhōngyuán
yīnyùn Ţលઞ叛, the earliest northern Mandarin rime book, completed in 1324. Zhōu Déqīng identifies rù-tone
syllables and lists them under the tones they are pronounced like but provides no fǎnqiè pronunciation glosses.
The comprehensive listing of běiyīn rù syllables in Lǐshì yīnjiàn serves clearly to convey
a notion that even though the northern běiyīn does not pronounce rù as a separate tone, the
tone category itself is nevertheless a real entity in Guānhuà. Lǐ Rǔzhēn clearly considers the
rù tone to be a primary element of his Lǐshì yīnjiàn phonology, and includes it in the book’s
rime table in juàn 6. Lǐ’s “Běiyīn rùshēng lùn” section is merely intended to point out how it
is that “běiyīn has no rù tone” and to illustrate the actual northern pronunciation with fǎnqiè
spellings. These fǎnqiè spellings all fall within his Guānhuà phonology, neatly illustrating
another point about Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s system: the Lǐshì yīnjiàn rime table and syllable spellings
based on it can accurately represent both nányīn and běiyīn. It is a pan-dialectal system that
includes important distinctions in two varieties of Guānhuà. As such, Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s phonolog-
ical system is also remarkably fully formed and well structured. The three other differences
between northern and southern types that Lǐ Rǔzhēn discusses (and that we listed above)
represent additional characteristic features of his pan-dialectal Guānhuà. All of them joined
the rù tone as essential elements of lán-qīng Guānhuà and the Lǎo Guóyīn standard in the
early twentieth century.
In noting how nányīn does not distinguish between syllables such as jiāng Ⲋ ‘river’
and gāng ᾢ ‘hillock’, Lǐ highlights it as a salient běiyīn-based phenomenon that does not
correspond to received phonological tradition. He explains that the běiyīn pronunciation of
jiāng Ⲋ is jī-shuāng-qiè 勚動ᘃ /k>tɕi1+ʂuaŋ1=k>tɕiaŋ1/, 31 while the nányīn pronuncia-
tion is either like gāng ᾢ or like guāng ᕅ. But he points out that the latter corresponds
to the Guǎngyùn ⃦叛 fǎnqiè gloss, gǔ-shuāng-qiè ០動ᘃ, which Lǐ would interpret as
/ku3+ʂuaŋ1=kuaŋ1/. Thus he argues that the southern form is simply a regional pronuncia-
tion and not to be considered wrong (◤ઞ㰈‫ޕ‬博䚠Ƃ). However, the běiyīn pronunciation,
which has a medial /i/ that led to the development of the prepalatal initial j (/tɕ/ derived
from a velar /k/), is the primary pronunciation in his system and is the one listed in the Lǐshì
yīnjiàn rime table. It is also the pronunciation chosen for the Lǎo Guóyīn standard.
The third of the nányīn-běiyīn differences that Lǐ Rǔzhēn highlighted is the běiyīn distinc-
tion between retroflex and dental sibilant initials, between the three pairs zh & z, ch & c,
and sh & s [tʂ & ts, tʂʻ & tsʻ, and ʂ & s] that have each respectively merged in nányīn, which
has only z, c, and s [ts, tsʻ, and s] (and thus lost the distinction). This is a difference that
still exists between Běijīng-based Pǔtōnghuà and southern-accented Mandarin. Indeed, it is
probably the most widely noted variation between regional Mandarin pronunciations in both
China and Taiwan today. The Lǐshì yīnjiàn rime table reflects the běiyīn distinction between
retroflex and dental sibilants, which was also included in the Lǎo Guóyīn standard before
ultimately of course also serving as the hallmark of standard Pǔtōnghuà pronunciation.
In contrast, the fourth of the nányīn-běiyīn differences highlighted by Lǐ Rǔzhēn is a fea-
ture he notes is more widely preserved in nányīn and is less common in běiyīn. The feature
was the nányīn preservation of dental sibilant initials before high-front vowels, which main-
tained a contrast with velar or prepalatal initials that has come to be known as the jiān-tuán
(literally ‘sharp-round’) distinction. We can adopt Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s explanation as follows:
Consider the syllable qīu ੃ ‘autumn’, which in nányīn is ciū (cīee-yōu-qiè ˗Ձᘃ /tsʻi1+iou1=
tsʻiou1/), and the syllable qiān ᜿ ‘thousand’, which in nányīn is ciān (cīn-yān-qiè 䖦‫ݻ‬
ᘃ /tsʻin1+ian1=tsʻian1/); both are pronounced correctly in southern pronunciation, while in
běiyīn the syllable ੃ is pronounced qiū (qī-yōu-qiè ⭥Ձᘃ /kʻ>tɕʻi1+iou1=kʻ>tɕʻiou1/) and ᜿
31. Lǐ Rǔzhēn treats the medial /i/ as an element of the initial which is represented by the initial speller, or the
first character in a fǎnqiè formula. The velar initials /k, kʻ, h/ may or may not have been palatalized as /tɕ, tɕʻ, ɕ/ in
Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s system, a situation we indicate with the superscript+arrow: ‘k>’.
is pronounced qiān (qīn-yān-qiè ⭨‫ݻ‬ᘃ /kʻ>tɕʻin1+ian1=kʻ>tɕʻian1/); thus in the northern pro-

nunciation ੃᜿ ciūciān is pronounced like 䲭ㄞ qiūqiān. There are also the syllables zìee ਫ
‘make an offering’ (ziàn-yì-qiè 㞩䇙ᘃ /tsiɛn4+i4=tsi4/) and ziǔ 䵎 ‘wine’ (zǐee-yǒu-qiè ┋✴ᘃ /
tsi3+iou3=tsiou3/, which are pronounced correctly in southern pronunciation, while in běiyīn the
syllable ਫ is pronounced jì (jiàn-yì-qiè 䖇䇙ᘃ /k>tɕiɛn4+i4=k>tɕi4/) and 䵎 is pronounced jiǔ
(jǐ-yǒu-qiè ₨✴ᘃ /k>tɕi3+iou3=k>tɕiou3/); thus in the north ਫ䵎 zìee-ziǔ is pronounced like 䘄
ƀ jì-jiǔ. Also consider the syllable siāo ‫( ܠ‬sīee-yāo-qiè 䕻ˈᘃ /si1+iau1=siau1/ and siāng ۙ
(sīng-yāng-qiè ♊੍ᘃ /siŋ1+iaŋ1=siaŋ1/), which are pronounced correctly in southern pronunci-
ation, while in běiyīn the syllable ‫ ܠ‬is pronounced xiāo (xī-yāo-qiè Эˈᘃ /h>ɕi1+iau1=h>ɕiau1/)
and ۙ is pronounced xiāng (xīng-yāng-qiè 㸄੍ᘃ /h>ɕiŋ1+iaŋ1=h>ɕiaŋ1/); thus in běiyīn the
syllables ⽘ siāo and ۙ siāng are pronounced like 埪 xiāo ଉ xiāng, respectively. Hence we see
six initials that are distinct in the south but merged into three initials in several counties in the
north (ᝓઞ䮤ų㤬ౣ㰈ᜓ✴▣䳝ౣ֩᠄⿌ፀধ).
The jiān-tuán distinction refers to the contrast between ziee & ji, ciee & qi, and siee & xi (/tsi/
& /tɕi/, /tsʻi/ & /tɕʻi/, and /si/ & /ɕi/) noted in the above paragraph. The first initial in each of
these pairs of contrasts is the jiānyīn Ηઞ ‘sharp sound’ and the second initial in the pairs is
the tuányīn ᬔઞ ‘round sound’. This distinction was still found in many northern Mandarin
dialects in Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s day, though lost in some places (shùjùn ▣䳝 “several counties,” as
Lǐ notes). So Lǐ included it in his Lǐshì yīnjiàn rime table. It was still considered to be an
important distinction in the early twentieth century and was also a part of the Lǎo Guóyīn
standard. It is now lost in most dialects and is not an element of Pǔtōnghuà.
To sum up then, the broad, pan-dialectal version of Guānhuà that is reflected in Lǐshì
yīnjiàn contains the following mix of nányīn and běiyīn features:
1. A rù-tone category within a system of five tones, reflecting the tones of nányīn.
2. Syllables such as jiāng Ⲋ ‘river’ where nányīn has only velar initials and běiyīn has
a medial /i/ and the possibility of prepalatalized initials.
3. The běiyīn distinction between retroflex and dental sibilants that is lost in nányīn.
4. A reflection of the jiān-tuán distinction.
These would be some of the most salient and important features of the Qīng Mandarin koiné
that was inherited from the Míng. Each of them represents a distinction that Lǐ Rǔzhēn con-
sidered important to maintain. He thus rejected mergers and other developments of various
types that led to a loss of distinctions, no matter whether they were of běiyīn or nányīn prov-
enance. 32 Furthermore, in all cases he sought out distinctions that he witnessed and verified
in actual spoken pronunciations, whether northern or southern. His system did not preserve
distinctions that were found only in the textual record. Thus the Lǐshì yīnjiàn phonology is
a reflection of colloquial pronunciation, albeit one that mixes pronunciations of different
regions and dialects. Its composite nature qualifies it as a diasystem as dubbed by Weinreich
1954 and described by Branner as “an artificial composite, created by a linguist through
comparison of different dialects, which it serves to reconcile (wholly or partially) within a
single phonological framework.” 33
32. Not surprisingly Lǐ Rǔzhēn also rejected the lack of distinction between the initials n and l, which he notes
is seen where nányīn does not distinguish between 㹫 /liaŋ2/ and ˸ /niaŋ2/, for example (Lǐshì yīnjiàn “Fánlì” ᗝ
Ȟ, 2a). This merger of n and l is a widespread characteristic of Jiāngnán Mandarin even today, including in Nánjīng
and Bǎnpǔ.
33. Branner 2006b: 210.
There is a further group of features shared by both nányīn and běiyīn types of Mandarin
that contrast with southern Chinese dialects, and set both Mandarin types apart from non-
Mandarin dialects. We can identify them as follows (examples from Lǐshì yīnjiàn):
5. The shǎng tone includes syllables with sonorant initials /m, n, l, z̢ /, such as mǎi 䢳
/mai3/ ‘to buy’, nuǎn ⛁ ‘warm’ /nuon3/, liǎng ᕥ ‘two’ /liaŋ3/, and ruǎn 䫛 ‘soft’
/z̢uon3/.
6. Only the píng tone is split into yīn and yáng, and there is no upper-lower register
distinction in the shǎng, qù, and rù tones.
7. Obstruent initials in syllables with yángpíng tone are aspirated /pʻ, tʻ, kʻ, tʂʻ, tsʻ, tɕʻ/
unless they are běiyīn syllables derived from the rù tone. For example, chóng 䏮
‘bug’ /tʂʻuŋ2/ and tián ࢫ ‘farm-field’ /tʻiɛn2/ are aspirated, but rù tone dá 䱐 ‘arrive’
/taʔ/, which shifted to yángpíng in běiyīn, is unaspirated /ta2/.
8. There are two final nasal consonants, /n/ and /ŋ/ (ng), and no final m.
9. There is a non-nasal, usually retroflex fricative initial /z̢ / in a group of words includ-
ing rén Ƭ ‘person’ /z̢ən2/, rè も ‘hot’ /z̢ɛʔ/, ruǎn 䫛 ‘soft’ /z̢uon3/, and ráng ࢒
‘pulp’ /z̢aŋ2/.
10. There is a non-nasal, usually zero initial in a group of words with medial /u/ where
non-Mandarin dialects have initial [m], including wèn ᥋ ‘ask’ /uən4/, wěi Ω ‘tail’
/uei3/, and wǎn ⚅ ‘evening’ /uan3/.
In the aggregate all of these features characterize the Mandarin of the Qīng period. 34 Man-
darin dialects and both northern and southern versions of the Guānhuà koiné would have
contained all of characteristics 5 through 10 (though allowing for some variation with respect
to no. 6). Additionally, any version of the Guānhuà koiné in Qīng times would have had at
least two or three of characteristics 1 to 4, though probably no single spoken dialect would
have had all four.
Hence the Qīng Guānhuà koiné was characterized by a flexible pan-dialectal heterogene-
ity in which regional variation was tolerated. Yet certain features with more of a southern
currency, numbers 1 and 4 above, were considered essential elements of the prestige ver-
nacular Guānhuà. 35 This is demonstrated, for example, by their inclusion in the Lǐshì yīnjiàn
rime table, even though its author, Lǐ Rǔzhēn, spoke a Běijīng-based dialect in which they
probably did not exist, because Lǐ had witnessed them in the speech of others. As we noted,
a heterogeneous mix of northern and southern features was also included in the Lǎo Guóyīn
standard of the early twentieth century; and so it is to the background, origins, and charac-
teristics of Lǎo Guóyīn that our discussion now turns.
34. They are all variously included in Western descriptions of Mandarin compiled near the end of the Qīng.
Edkins 1864 summarized them in a chapter titled “Systems of Mandarin Pronunciation” (pp. 7–10), wherein he
notes that “in the present work, all these modes of pronunciation, will be illustrated” (pp. 9–10). We find them also
in the sketch of “General Mandarin” worked out by Absalom Sydenstricker, which “combines all that is essential
both for Northern and Southern Mandarin, and leaves out what is unessential” (1888: 366). David Branner notes
that Sydenstricker’s may be the first orthography to represent two Chinese dialects in a single hybrid system (2006b:
216–17).
35. For late-nineteenth-century Western witnesses to the prestige of southern Mandarin, see Edkins, who noted
that Mandarin has “either four or five tones” and considered the five-tone Nánjīng system to be preferable as it was
“more widely understood” (1864: 8–10); and Sydenstricker, whose late Qīng description of southern Mandarin
focused precisely on the presence of the rù tone and the distinction between jiān and tuán initials, though he did not
use those two terms (1887: 154).
THE MIXED NATIONAL PRONUNCIATION OF THE YOUNG REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Exposure to European, Japanese, and other national language standards during the tur-
bulent decades of the nineteenth century led to widespread calls for reform and a search for
ways to improve education and increase literacy throughout China. In the years before and
after the Sino-Japanese war in 1894–1895, many Chinese began to explore paths to over-
come the difficulties of learning the Chinese characters of the traditional writing system.
Reform efforts came to focus on the development of a national language in which speech and
writing were more closely aligned. Inspired by various Western missionary Romanizations
of Chinese as well as by the orthographic advantages of non-Western phonetic writing sys-
tems, especially Japanese kana ɧ᠉, many began to advocate the development of phonetic
orthographies for Chinese as a path to writing reform. These efforts came to be known as the
Qièyīnzì yùndòng ᘃઞ̸䱇ᛑ “phonetic spelling movement,” which resulted in the inven-
tion of a great variety of writing systems for Chinese. 36 Yet, as they were phonetic, each of
these writing systems was designed around a single dialect or a preferred spoken standard.
Ultimately the idea took shape that a national phonetic writing system should not be applied
to the Chinese dialects, but should be used to write a standard national pronunciation that
would serve as the basis of a uniform spoken language for all of China. 37 The establishment
of a national pronunciation thus became one of the first tasks that the new republican govern-
ment undertook after the fall of the Qīng in the Xīnhài 䮗Ơ Revolution.
In what were to be the last months of its rule in 1911, the Qīng government had actually
taken concrete steps toward the unification of the national language and its pronunciation.
Two major educational conferences that were held at the provincial and central-levels in the
spring and summer of that year had tackled the issue and determined that a unified national
pronunciation should be devised on the basis of the Běijīng dialect. 38 Yet, significantly, the
resolution of the central-level committee determined that the rù tone should be included.
Though the fine details were not worked out at the meeting, the resolution clearly indicates
that they were setting up a process to move in the direction of a mixed standard that would
include southern Mandarin features: 39
Following surveys of each province, the most elegant and current vocabulary, grammar, and
phonology should be selected as the standard. . . . In settling on a standard pronunciation,
because of the great divergence of local pronunciations, the pronunciation of Běijīng should be
taken as basis. But the four tones of the Běijīng dialect do not have a clearly discernable rù tone,
which must urgently be corrected. So the rù tone should be preserved. The language should be
situated in refinement and conform with logic, and should have a foundation in the language of
officialdom [Guānhuà].
᠀ॡᘂ✮䚻⠐ӄˈᕲ勁⮎䰖䑈ų䚚䙚䚚ⴀઞ叛ˈᘂᘡ⏌⓲ˈȆ⿌⩄⸱Ụ͞
ઞ㱮䙭ų⩄⸱ˈ᠀◤㏊ઞ㷯⮒ˈ͠ǊƦઞ⿌ŪˈƦ䚚᫗㱮Ţųᕡ㱮ˈ❕㳹☹㔽ˈƛ⊵䗾
⮎ˈ͠Ǌŋ⃥ᕡ㱮⿌Ūˈ䙭叨⮎㌱勁唩ˈ᠄Ŷ᠉ậˈ͠Ǌ͜䙭⿌ŪႲ
36. On the background and history of the Qièyīnzì yùndòng and nature of the various orthographic schemes
it gave rise to, see Luó Chángpéi 1934; DeFrancis 1950; Ní Hǎishǔ 1959; Kaske 2008: 90–159; Lín Tāo 2010:
424–33; Féng Shòuzhōng 2010; Wáng Dōngjié 2010; Huáng Xiǎolěi 2012; and Lǐ Yǔmíng 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006.
37. DeFrancis 1950: 54.
38. These were the Gèshěng jiàoyù zǒnghuì liánhéhuì ᠀ॡ▄㲮㨹✮㱫᠄✮ (General conference of the col-
lective provincial education associations) held in Shànghǎi from April to May, and the Zhōngyāng jiàoyù huìyì Ţ
ʛ▄㲮✮䝬 (Central education conference) held in Běijīng from July to August. See Kaske 2008: 292–93, 406.
39. The resolution was titled “Xuébù zhōngyāng jiàoyù huìyì yìjué tǒngyī guóyǔ bànfǎ àn” ậ䳤Ţʛ▄㲮✮䝬
䝬ⲥ㥭ጸᬇ䚚䮢ⴀ⡳ and is collected in Qīngmò wénzì gǎigé wénjí, 143–44.
Within six months after the collapse of Imperial China, the Ministry of Education of the
young new republic convened a conference to continue the work just begun in the Qīng.
This Provisional Education Conference (Línshí jiàoyù huìyì 㷤♭▄㲮✮䝬), held in July
1912, passed a Resolution for the Adoption of Phonetic Spelling (“Cǎiyòng qièyīn zìmǔ àn”
⏌ࢥᘃઞ̸⯸⡳) which called for the appointment of a Committee for the Unification of
Reading Pronunciation (Dúyīn tǒngyī huì 䝼ઞ㥭ጸ✮) that was charged with working out
a national standard. This committee began its work on February 15, 1913, at which time a
gathering of representatives from each province elected Wú Jìnghéng ᠯ▗↯ (zì Zhìhuī ੟
⚴, 1865–1953) as chairman and Wáng Zhào ࠹‫( ޞ‬1859–1933) as vice-chairman.
The work of the committee began with the selection of a basic inventory of 6,500 of the
most frequently used characters representing all the rimes in Lǐ Guāngdì’s ❹ᕅᬬ (1642–
1718) rime compendium Yīnyùn chǎnwéi ઞ叛凝Ӑ (Explication of distinctions in pronun-
ciation and rime) (published in 1728), 40 plus 600 other popular and academic graphs of later
origin that were not in Yīnyùn chǎnwéi. 41 These were organized by homophone sets on an
yīndān ઞᦪ ‘sound inventory list’, which representatives used to note their own preliminary
preferred reading pronunciations. They indicated the pronunciation using a fǎnqiè-derived
phonetic notation developed by Zhāng Bǐnglín 㛜‫ݫ‬௻ (alt. Tàiyán ʘ‫ݝ‬, 1869–1936) called
jìyīn zìmǔ 䘔ઞ̸⯸, which thus came to be a preliminary draft version of the zhùyīn zìmǔ
ⴓઞ̸⯸ (eventually to be renamed zhùyīn fúhào ⴓઞ㜢䉛). To overcome an imbalance in
the number of representatives from each province (those from Jiāngsū, Zhèjiāng, and Zhílì
were predominant), each province was allowed one vote. Each province then designated
a shěnyīn dàibiaˇo Ụઞǈ䑤 ‘pronunciation review representative’, who was appointed to
hand in the yīndān. A jìyīnyuán 䘔ઞᣝ ‘pronunciation notation clerk’ publicly collated,
compared, and tallied the pronunciations indicated on the yīndān and the majority pronuncia-
tion for each homophone set was selected as the standard reading for each. This procedure
was carried out homophone set by homophone set. The process took over a month, and fixed
the National Standard Pronunciation (Guóyīn ᬇઞ) for the approved set of characters. The
resulting democratically determined list became the blueprint for the Guóyīn zìdiǎn ᬇઞ̸
ᕴ (Dictionary of national pronunciation) that would be published in 1918. 42
Following the fixing of the National Pronunciation, the committee went through a some-
what contentious process to determine the final form of the zhùyīn zìmǔ. Ultimately they
agreed to use a modified version of Zhāng Bǐnglín’s system, which used many early single-
component graphs (dútǐ gǔzì ㆷ嘆០̸) and had a resemblance to the traditional seal script
(zhuànwén 㟂▲). They adopted fifteen of his original symbols and revised or added another
twenty-three to come up with a total of thirty-eight graphs for the first iteration of the zhùyīn
zìmǔ system. 43 In the process, they also came to a consensus regarding three orthographic
40. The Yīnyùn chǎnwéi had been Imperially Commissioned (qīndìng ⭨͞) and was the phonological authority
favored by the Qīng Ministry of Education (Xuébù ậ䳤). See “Xuébù zī Wàiwùbù wén” ậ䳤ᢤʏᛕ䳤▲ (Memo
of advice from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in Qīngmò wénzì gǎigé wénjí, 69.
41. Lín Tāo 2010: 434.
42. Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 50–57; De Francis 1950: 55–59; Kaske 2008: 405–16; Lín Tāo 2010: 433–40. Lí Jǐnxī described
the process as follows (1934: 53): “⯺ॡ⿌ጸ䑤ⲥ⬵ౣ⏓ጸỤઞǈ䑤ƟᗶСⴓųઞᦪౣࢬ䘔ઞᣝ䰌ઞᕨ䫿ᕲʑ
΂ౣ㰈Ǌ✫ʑ▣⿌✮ŢỤ͞ų䝼ઞR⮏ʑ▣ਪⲥų䝼ઞౣᝯӄᏫᕨЩႺᬇઞ̸ᕴႻų䇉❗ƂႲooo㦏䱊✳
咽ౣỤઞИȆ͗Ƌౣᕭ䘄Ụ͞ᕩ᜿Ɩऴ咽̸शᬇઞႲ”
43. Written in their modern form and with glosses in pīnyīn, the original set of thirty-eight zhùyīn zìmǔ included
(Lín Tāo 2010: 434–35): ᆌ b, ᆍ p, ᆎ m, ᆏ f, ጁv, ᆐ d, ᆑ t, ᆒ n, ᆓ l, ᆔ g, ᆕ k, ጂng, ᆖ h, ᆗ j, ᆘ q, ጃgn,
ᆙ x, ī zhi, ᆚ chi, ᆛ shi, ᆜ ri, ᆝ zi, ᆞ ci, ᆟ si, ᆭ yi, ᆮ wu, ᆯ yu, ᆠ a, ᆡ o /e, ᆣ ie, ᆤ ai, ᆥ ei, ᆦ ao, ᆧ
ou, ᆨ an, ᆩ en, ᆪ ang, ᆫ eng. The syllabic ᆬ er was added later, as was ᆢ e. Ultimately ጁv, ጂng, and ጃgn
were dropped. For further details about later developments, see the following discussion and Wippermann 2015.
issues not easily managed in a traditional fǎnqiè notation: the explicit identification of tones,
of medials, and of voicing in obstruent initials. 44 Their solutions to these issues also serve
to highlight the Mandarin nature of the Guóyīn spelled with the zhùyīn zìmǔ, as well as its
mixed northern and southern character.
The Dúyīn tǒngyī huì decided to mark tone using a modification of the traditional four-
corner method, sìshēng diǎnfǎ ᫗㱮奒ⴀ ‘four tone dot system’, in which píng tone is
marked by a dot at the lower left corner of a Chinese character, shǎng marked by a dot at the
upper left, qù in the upper right, and rù in the lower right. In the Guóyīn system, yīnpíng was
indicated by the absence of a dot, while yángpíng was marked by the dot in the lower left
corner. All other tones followed the traditional system with no change. Thus we can see that
the National Pronunciation was meant to have the five tones of southern Mandarin.
Zhāng Bǐnglín’s original phonetic notation provided one graph for each of the traditional
thirty-six initials of the Qièyùn system. This includes a number of initials that are not found
in Mandarin, the most notable of which are a set of initials that reflect Middle Chinese voiced
obstruents. The ratified version of the zhùyīn zìmǔ eliminated all initials not found in Manda-
rin dialects. But, probably to satisfy the large contingent of representatives from Jiāngsū and
Zhèjiāng, where many dialects preserve voiced obstruents, a provision was passed that voic-
ing could be marked with two dot-like strokes in the upper right of the initial speller (later
changed to a single apostrophe). This helped to reduce the final set of initials to twenty-four
from thirty-six in Zhāng’s original set. But in actual practice, because the National Pronun-
ciation was strictly a Guānhuà-based phonology, the voicing mark was not needed and was
not used to gloss the approved pronunciations.
The traditional fǎnqiè formula, which Zhāng Bǐnglín’s system was modeled on, did not
neatly indicate the medial of a syllable. The medial is a vowel that comes between the initial
and main vowel of a syllable, such as seen with the vowels i, u, and ü in pīnyīn. Normally
the medial was indicated by the second character in a fǎnqiè formula, the one that indicates
the rime (fǎnqiè xiàzì ៉ᘃፂ̸ ‘final speller’). But later innovative fǎnqiè systems would
include it in the first character of the formula, the one that indicates the initial (fǎnqiè shàngzì
៉ᘃፁ̸ ‘initial speller’), and sometimes it would be indicated by a combination of the
two. In Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s system, for instance, the medial i was included in the initial speller,
the medial u was indicated by the final speller, and the medial ü was indicated by a com-
bination of the previous two. 45 No matter which fǎnqiè speller included the medial, such a
system necessitated a larger number of initial or final spellers that would include versions
that incorporated the medials. To create a more streamlined set of symbols, the Dúyīn tǒngyī
huì representatives decided to follow a method first used a few years earlier in Mandarin
phonetic spelling systems developed by Tián Tíngjùn ࢫ҂ȶ and Liú Shìēn ᚅŒԥ (in
1906 and 1909, respectively). 46 Referred to as the sānpīnzhì ፀ‫ء‬ᘲ ‘three speller system’, it
uses a third speller that is placed between the initial and final spellers to indicate the medial.
For Guóyīn they chose to use the symbols for the finals i, u, and ü (ᆭႱᆮႱᆯ), which
would serve to indicate either medials or finals as necessary. This resulted in a set of twelve
finals plus three medial/finals, a significant reduction from the twenty-two finals in Zhāng’s
original set.
44. Jiàoyùbù 1921, “Lìyán” Ȟ䗼 (Introduction), 1–24; Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 57; Ní 1959: 190–96; Kaske 2008: 411–
13; Lín Tāo 2010: 440.
45. Simmons 2016.
46. Ní 1959: 160–66, 204–7; Kaske 2008: 411.
The analysis behind this medial solution has its roots in a neat four-way division of rime
onset in Mandarin phonology that was seen first in the dialects of the central plains at least
as early as the Yuán. 47 The four-way split came to be known as the sìhū ᫗ᡸ ‘four vocaliza-
tions’: qíchǐ 妡妧, hékǒu ᠄៟, cuōkǒu ⓙ៟, and kāikǒu 冇៟, which respectively referred
to the presence of medial or main vowel i, u, or ü, or none of the three. The first explicit
textual descriptions of the four-part categorization are found in mid-sixteenth-century rime
books and rime tables that describe Mandarin pronunciation and the prestige phonology of
the Guānhuà koiné. Hence this particular conceptualization of the syllable and the solution
to representing it arrived at by the Dúyīn tǒngyī huì representatives is a further reflection of
the deep Mandarin roots of the zhùyīn zìmǔ system.
The Committee for the Unification of Reading Pronunciation finished their work on May
13, 1913 with the passage of a set of instructions for the Ministry of Education titled Guóyīn
tuīxíng bànfǎ ᬇઞ⏓䑈䮢ⴀ “Measures for the Promulgation of the National Pronuncia-
tion.” The new standard had been decided through democratic means and was clearly Man-
darin based. But it was decidedly not based strictly on Běijīng pronunciation. The result of
the rime-by-rime process of decision was not a reflection of the pronunciation of a single
living language, but rather an abstract ideal.
This new National Pronunciation eventually came to be known disparagingly as lán-qīng
Guānhuà because it mixed disparate features from a variety of Mandarin dialects. Branner
characterizes it as a diasystem, which does fit with the composite nature of Guóyīn. 48 How-
ever, the democratic process that created it reveals that this outcome involved a large mea-
sure of serendipity and a lesser measure of deliberate design. The first dictionaries based on
the work of the Dúyīn tǒngyī huì were the Guóyīn zìdiǎn ᬇઞ̸ᕴ (Dictionary of National
Pronunciation) published in 1918 and the revision of it published three years later (Jiàoyùbù
1921). Comparing the Guóyīn phonology presented in the dictionary with Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s Lǐshì
yīnjiàn, we find a similar mix of features:
1. It has a five-tone system with a rù tone, reflecting the tones of nányīn. Examples
include: běi ᜓ ‘north’ glossed ᆌᆢ be, ròu 㲅 ‘meat’ glossed ᆜᆮru, and fó ȅ
‘Buddha’ glossed ᆏᆮ fu.
2. Syllables such as jiāng Ⲋ (ᆗᆭᆪ) ‘river’ are glossed with the běiyīn medial /i/ and
prepalatalized initials.
3. It has the běiyīn distinction between retroflex and dental sibilants that is lost in nányīn.
4. It maintains the jiān-tuán distinction of nányīn. Thus the following pairs of syllables
are distinct, though they were already merged in Běijīng: 49 jiān 㲥 ‘shoulder’ is ᆗ
ᆭᆨ jian, while jiān Η ‘tip, point’ is ᆝᆭᆨ zian; qiān ㄞ ‘take by hand’ is ᆘᆭᆨ
qian while ᜿ ‘thousand’ is ᆞᆭᆨ cian; and xiān ⎫ ‘uncover’ is ᆙᆭᆨ xian while
xiān ǃ ‘immortal’ is ᆟᆭᆨ sian.
Guóyīn also has the group of features that, as we noted earlier, is shared by both nányīn and
běiyīn types of Mandarin and that sets them apart from non-Mandarin dialects:
5. The shǎng tone includes syllables with sonorant initials.
6. Only the píng tone is split into yīn and yáng, and there is no upper-lower register
distinction in the shǎng, qù, and rù tones.
47. Gěng 1992: 62.

48. Branner 2006b: 219–21.
49. But note that the distinction is also preserved in the Peking Opera tradition, which is where the term “jiān-
tuán” originated (Branner 2006b: 220).
7. Obstruent initials in syllables with yángpíng tone are aspirated.

8. There are two final nasal consonants, n and ng, and no final m.
9. There is a non-nasal retroflex fricative initial represented by ᆜ r.
10. There is a non-nasal zero initial in words with medial ᆮ u where non-Mandarin dia-
lects have initial [m].
While the latter six of the above features are universally shared by all Guānhuà dialects,
the 1913 version of Guóyīn also included other features that are found in some varieties of
Mandarin but not seen in Běijīng. In addition to the rù tone and jiān-tuán features identified
in numbers 1 and 4 above, other elements of the National Pronunciation represented by the
Guóyīn zìmǔ that are not found in Běijīng include: 50
A. A voiced dentilabial ‘v’ initial, written ጁ, such as in wéi Ӑ ‘tiny’ and wèi ᡯ ‘fla-
vor’, both spelled ጁᆥ vei (compare wéi ᬉ ‘surround’, spelled ᆮᆥ wei).
B. A velar nasal ‘ng’ ([ŋ]) initial, written ጂ, such as in wǒ ֦ ‘I, me’, spelled ጂᆡ ngo,
ǒu ɱ ‘by chance’, spelled ጂᆧ ngou, and ào ʀ ‘proud’, spelled ጂᆦ ngao.
C. A palatal nasal ‘gn’ [ଔ] initial (a nasal version of the sounds represented by j, q, and x
in pīnyīn), written ጃ, such as in niē ‫‘ ى‬pinch’, spelled ጃᆭᆣgnie, and nǐ ┗ ‘draft,
plan’, spelled ጃᆭ gni (compare nǐ Ȋ ‘you’, spelled ᆒᆭ ni). 51
The revised Guóyīn zìdiǎn of 1921 incorporated a small revision that the Ministry of Edu-
cation adopted in May 1919 to make a distinction between the vowels e and o that was not
reflected by the original set of zhùyīn zìmǔ. This revision added the symbol ᆢ for e to dis-
tinguish that vowel from ᆡ, which was then reserved for o. 52 This revision was designed
to maintain a southern Mandarin distinction found in certain rù-tone syllables. 53 Thus hēi
ఇ ‘black’, written ᆖᆢ he, could be distinguished from hē ᦙ ‘drink’, written ᆖᆡ ho (cf.
Nánjīng [xəʔ5] vs. [xoʔ5]); and běi ᜓ ‘north’, written ᆌᆢ be, could be distinguished from
báo 䆀 ‘thin’, written ᆌᆡ bo (cf. Nánjīng [pəʔ5] vs. [poʔ5]). 54
This collection of features in lán-qīng Guānhuà are found variously in other Mandarin
dialects, but are not all found collectively in any single Mandarin dialect. 55 As represented
in the zhùyīn zìmǔ, Guóyīn was a fairly well structured formal phonological system. But
the Ministry of Education’s dictionaries included no description of the actual or expected
pronunciation of any of its elements. As it was not based on any single spoken dialect, there
were also no native speakers whose pronunciation could be emulated. 56 It had no pool of
native speakers to draw upon as teachers.
50. Chao (1976: 101–3) notes the rù tone and jiān-tuán features of the National Pronunciation and points out its
inclusion of the voiced dentilabial and the palatal nasal initials.
51. According to Y. R. Chao this distinction apparently was only found in Hángzhōu at the time (1976: 102).
52. Lín Tāo 2010: 437–38.
53. In Běijīng and other northern Mandarin dialects, e and o are normally allophones of one phoneme (Chao
1976: 101 and Branner 2006b: 221). So ᆡ alone could have been sufficient, though it was a useful addition that was
later adopted for other purposes.
54. Nánjīng forms are from Qián 2010.
55. John DeFrancis called it a “complete victory for the Mandarin group” of Dúyīn tǒngyī huì committee mem-
bers (1950: 58), which is true in that the final Guóyīn system clearly belongs to Mandarin in the broad sense. On the
other hand, Elisabeth Kaske points out that the result was not really a victory for supporters of the Běijīng dialect
(2008: 413), which conclusion is clearly borne out by its mixed nature.
56. Two sets of phonograph recordings were made of the standard, one by Wáng Pú ࠹ࢇ and one by Yuen
Ren Chao. Wáng simply used his own dialect’s reading pronunciation and did not follow all the mixed conventions
of the system. Chao’s recordings, issued in 1922, faithfully and accurately recorded the standard as it had been
While the standard National Pronunciation was intended to be indicated by zhùyīn zìmǔ,
the Guóyīn zìdiǎn complicated matters by presenting the pronunciation glosses in a convo-
luted arcane manner. It did not actually mark tones following the sìshēng diǎnfǎ. Instead
users were expected to determine the tone on the basis of a four-character formula that
supplemented each zhùyīn zìmǔ gloss. The formula consisted of four characters, identifying
four traditional phonological categories for the particular syllable (morpheme) being glossed:
A. The name of its initial in the Qièyùn system.
B. The category of the sìhū it belonged to (called “sìděng ᫗㝅” in the dictionary’s
introduction: kāikǒu, qíchǐ, hékǒu, or cuōkǒu). 57
C. The traditional tone category it belonged to (píng, shǎng, qù, or rù).
D. The traditional rime category it belonged to.
Users were expected to use the information provided by (a) and (c) in this formula to deduce
the actual tone of the syllable in the National Pronunciation. Instructions for doing so were
given in the introduction to the dictionary (pp. 13–14 in the 1921 edition). For example, the
dictionary gives the following pronunciation glosses for tóng ᠈ ‘same’ and dòng ᛑ ‘move’:
᠈౱ᆑᆮᆫ͞᠄я➜
ᛑ౱ᆐᆮᆫ͞᠄ፁ䁟
Both have the initial dìng ͞. For tóng, users were expected to convert syllables with initial
dìng in the píng я tone to yángpíng in the National Pronunciation (modern 2nd tone); for
dòng, users were expected to convert syllables with initial dìng in the shǎng ፁ tone to qù
tone for the Guóyīn pronunciation (modern 4th tone).
The complexity of the dictionary’s presentation seriously diminished the prospects of
effectively establishing the Guóyīn standard. Those who were called upon to teach the
National Pronunciation surely found it highly difficult to determine the complete pronuncia-
tion of the characters in the dictionary, the average user probably even more so. Though the
original motivation in its design had been to produce a practical, accessible standard that
would serve efforts to increase literacy and education, the tools for the promulgation of that
standard were frustratingly ineffective.
Yet despite these issues, optimism for the applied use of the Guóyīn system was high
in the beginning. In the years when the zhùyīn zìmǔ were introduced to the public and the
first editions of the Guóyīn zìdiǎn were published, there were many prominent supporters
of its mixed standard in intellectual and educational circles. Elizabeth Kaske recounts much
lively public discussion that took place from 1918 into the early 1920s with many promi-
nent advocates for the mixed lán-qīng Guānhuà. 58 Qián Xuántóng 伞࠶᠈ (1887–1939), Wú
Jìnghéng, Péng Qīngpéng Ҳ‫ڹ‬堸 (b. 1883), and Líu Fù ᚅ⅜ (zì Bànnóng ᝆ䮮, 1891–1934)
all spoke out in favor of an integrated standard. They variously supported a lingua franca that
could include diverse accents and regional differences. Though they were seeking a language
for a new China, the essence of their ideal standard neatly matched the Qīng Guānhuà koiné
represented in Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s Lǐshì yīnjiàn with its flexible pan-dialectal heterogeneity and
tolerance for regional variation. As Qián Xuántóng put it (1918):
established. But even with the recordings to emulate, no one else ever successfully learned the National Pronuncia-
tion. See Chao 1976: 102–3.
57. This system should be distinguished from the sìděng of the traditional Qièyùn/Middle Chinese phonological
system from which the sìhū differed significantly. The resemblance is only fortuitous. See Simmons 2017c.
58. Much of the discussion took place in the pages of Xīnqīngnián ◛华ѐ during the years 1917–1919. For an
overview, see Kaske 2008: 450–57.
In the country nowadays when people meet from south, north, east, or west whose language
is completely different, the “common language” (pǔtōnghuà) they speak is somewhat like the
so-called “pronunciation of the officials” (guānyīn) in sound and intonation. “Guānyīn” and
“Jīngyīn” (the pronunciation of Běijīng) are essentially similar, and it seems that they are based
on northern pronunciation, which is not completely unreasonable. But since the zhùyīn zìmǔ
are the norm for the country, of course they cannot take the pronunciation of a single place as
standard.
㈤ᬤᬇŢᝓᜓ➜䕻䚚䗼㥑㌭ųƬढ़䖇ˈҹ⮏㰈⓸ųĀ⚙䰖䙭āˈᕲ១䚻㱮ઞˈࣁ吾ּ
䛾Ā͜ઞāĀ͜ઞĀ㸃āƦઞāʖ᠈Γ㌭ˈǶŶǊᜓઞ⿌Ūˈơ博ᕤ】࡝ࢬ˗ǹ♚☍⿌
ᬇ͞शⴓઞ̸⯸ˈ㌱‫ޕ‬ŋ㳹Ỹ‫ؤ‬ጸᐼᬬ◤शઞᏫɭ⩄⸱Ⴒ
THE TURN TO THE BĚIJĪNG STANDARD

Despite the high hopes that many held for this lán-qīng Guānhuà, with no native speak-
ers to recruit as its teachers and its mixed nature complicated by poorly conceived reference
tools, the National Pronunciation ultimately proved impossible to teach and to learn. This
reality began to sink in during the early years of the 1920s when it became clear that the
“artificial standard was not accepted by the public and was broadly ignored in language
education.” 59 Signs of a general change in attitude began to increase following a call to use
a Běijīng-based standard that was issued by Zhāng Shìyī ℗᳧ጸ (1886–1969) in 1920 from
his influential position on the front lines of teacher training as Chair of the English Depart-
ment at Nánjīng Teachers College (Nánjīng gāoděng shīfàn xuéxiào ᝓƦ୏㝅⁰㟀ậ⡌),
which would eventually become modern Nánjīng University. He said that the standard for
both Guóyīn and the zhùyīn zìmǔ should be based on “the speech of a native of Běipíng who
has had at least a middle school education.” 60
At the time, Zhāng Shìyī was serving on the Guóyǔ tǒngyī chóubèihuì ᬇ䚚㥭ጸ㡈ᒠ
✮ (Planning Committee for the Unification of the National Language) that had been set up
under the Ministry of Education between 1918 and 1919. 61 Initially his ideas met with stiff
resistance, spurred by fears that it would require a complete revamping of the zhùyīn zìmǔ.
But his recommendation did receive a strong endorsement from the Quánguó jiàoyùhuì lián-
héhuì ᕤᬇ▄㲮✮㱫᠄✮ (General conference of education associations) in August of 1920. 62
The tide had turned, though it would take a few more years to crest and achieve results. In an
article completed in 1923, Lí Jǐnxī remarked that there is “a daily trend toward ‘Pekingiza-
tion’ of the National Pronunciation” ᬇઞᝰጸʗጸʗᬬ✴‘Ʀઞᜒ’श䦤ᛞ and argued that
the complexity of the rù tone in Běijīng was the primary hurdle that remained in the effort. 63
Finally, at a consultation assembly (tánhuàhuì 䛃䙭✮) of the Guóyǔ tǒngyī chóubèihuì held
to discuss the further revision of the Guóyīn zìdiǎn chaired by Wú Jìnghéng on December
21, 1924, the decision was made to take the pronunciation of Běijīng as the standard. A year
59. Wippermann 2015.

60. “ɭ⩄⸱䚚शᜓя䙭ౣ⊵䙮‫♚͞ا‬Uᜓя❗ᬬƬౣ៓䱊Ţ㝅▄㲮शౣּ䚦श䙭’” (Zhāng Shìyī 1922:
8). Zhāng Shìyī first issued his call in a book titled Guóyǔ tǒngyī wèntí ᬇ䚚㥭ጸ᥋听 (Issues in the unification of
the National Language). Written in 1920, but now lost, the relevant recommendations of Zhāng’s call are cited by
Lí Jǐnxī (1934: 96). Zhāng reiterated his recommendations in a volume titled Xiǎoxué “Guóyǔhuà” jiàoxuéfǎ Γậ
“ᬇ䚚䙭” ▄ậⴀ (Methods for teaching the spoken National Language in elementary schools) published two years
later in 1922, and cited in an article in the Gwoyeu Joukan ᬇ䚚䰭ᘆ(no. 86, May 20, 1933) titled “Zhāng Shìyī
xiānsheng lùn biāozhǔnyǔ” ℗᳧ጸᕄࢣ䛒⩄⸱䚚 (Mr. Zhāng Shìyī on standard language).
61. Kaske 2008: 391, 442.
62. Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 95–96.
63. The article, titled “Jīngyīn rùshēng zìpǔ” Ʀઞᕡ㱮̸䝘 (A guide to the Běijīng rù tone), was published
one year later in 1924 by Dōngfāng zázhì ➜◤勘䚈 (no. 21, L64–L97), and is also cited in Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 102–6.
later, at a formal meeting held on December 20, 1925, the committee appointed a subcom-
mittee to undertake the task of revising the standard to reflect natural Běijīng pronuncia-
tion. The original appointments to the committee included, among others, Wáng Pú ࠹ࢇ,
Yuen Ren Chao [Zhào Yuánrèn] 䦕ᔿǕ (1892–1982), Qián Xuántóng, and Lí Jǐnxī అ伢ޫ
(1890–1978). The committee began its work in March 1926, revising the standard pronun-
ciation character-by-character and syllable-by-syllable. By November of that year they had
concluded the revision (Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 171–72).
The edited version of Guóyīn dropped the jiān-tuán distinction and glossed rù-tone syl-
lables under the other four tones according to the Běijīng pattern. The voiced dentilabial ‘v’
ጁ, the velar nasal ‘ng’ ጂ, and the palatal nasal ‘gn’ ጃ were also eliminated from the zhùyīn
zìmǔ, which were then renamed zhùyīn fúhào. Finally, the committee designated a set of tone
marks to replace the sìshēng diǎnfǎ of tonal notation: yīnpíng would not be marked, yángpíng
would be marked by a rising mark ‘ˊ’, shǎng, by a ‘v’ shaped mark ‘ˇ ’, and qù by a falling
mark ‘ˋ’. 64 These changes put an end to the heavily mixed nature of the Guóyīn standard and
made it essentially representative of Běijīng pronunciation. The resulting system was thus far
easier to adopt, learn, and promote. With the implementation of these revisions, “more than
a million native speakers suddenly became available as potential teachers,” as Y. R. Chao
later noted. 65
The new Guóyīn was not officially promulgated until 1932, when the Gwoin Charngyonq
Tzyhhuey [Guóyīn chángyòng zìhuì] ᬇઞрࢥ̸ℰ came out to replace the old Guóyīn
zìdiǎn. 66 In his preface to the Tzyhhuey, dated April 28, 1932, Wú Jìnghéng explained:
Běijing is the locale of the standard for the National Pronunciation; by standard, it is meant to
adopt the city’s modern phonological system, and not that all syllables must be pronounced
according to the local pronunciation; it is appropriate to make allowances for the habits of north
and south, and deliberate so as to avoid hindrances. . . . As noted in previous publications, “over
nine out of ten of the pronunciations indicated in the Dictionary of National Pronunciation cor-
respond to Běijīng pronunciation without adjustment”; thus the changes in the present edition
are in fact rather few.
‫ᜓ͞ا‬яᬬ◤⿌ᬇઞų⩄⸱˗ּ䛾⩄⸱ˈŮ្ᕲ㈤ǈųઞ㣷ˈ㰈博̸̸ӗ䱱ᕲᬛઞ˗ᝓ
ᜓ㯎≠ˈ͠✴䰖䎉ˈƺ᚜◊䵈ˈɏ】੽㖉Ⴒ. . . ŐᙉᕨЩ▲ŢС䛾þᬇઞ̸ᕴּⴓųઞˈ
ƯƀǊፁ㸃ᜓƦઞŋ❊㰈⛂᠄ÿˈᙃƸ㼮ּ╤ˈᕲ̸▣‫ס‬ោ】ʑႲ 67
The editors collectively played down the significance of the changes to Guóyīn in the Explan-
atory Introduction to the Tzyhhuey, while also playing up the prestige of the Běijīng dialect,
attributing to it the status of a long-standing historical standard: 68
The National Pronunciation is the so called guānyīn “pronunciation of the officials.” This
guānyīn is the pronunciation of Běipíng, . . . which has been the standard pronunciation for the
whole country for 600 years, . . . It is merely because the previous [1913] version was deter-
mined by majority [vote], that the current pronunciation of Běipíng was neglected.
64. Lí Jǐnxī 1934: 177. This set of tone marks was first used for these tones by Liú Mèngyáng ᚅ̿␅ (1877–
1943) in his Zhōngguó yīnbiāo zìshū Ţᬇઞ⩄̸✣ (Chinese phonetic writing), preface 1908.
65. Chao 1976: 103.
66. Note that the official Romanized title of the Tzyhhuey was written in the National Romanization which had
been adopted for use by the dictionary. See below and also Simmons 2015b.
67. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Preface, iii.
68. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Introduction, ii. The Introduction was titled “Běnshū de shuōmíng” ❗✣श䚦☹ and was
signed “Jiàoyù bù Guóyǔ tǒngyī chóubèi wěiyuánhuì” ▄㲮䳤ᬇ䚚㥭ጸ㡈ᒠˠᣝ✮ (Planning Committee for the
Unification of the National Language of the Ministry of Education). But Lí Jǐnxī (1939: 10) pointed out that it was
written entirely by Qián Xuántóng. It is thus also collected in Qián Xuántóng 1999: 441–51.
ᬇઞΡ♚⚙䰖ּ䛾‘͜ઞ’Ⴒ䰕㙌͜ઞ❗♚ᜓяઞˈ. . . ᕩऴѐᏫ☔С֥⿌ᕤᬇश⩄⸱ઞ
Ƌˈ. . .ՙ᫜䲟♭♚្ⲥ◧ʑ▣ˈỻ◧㈤ǈशᜓяٟઞŋᕉӱࣁႲ
Yet despite the adoption of Běijīng pronunciation as the basis of the standard, and notwith-
standing the changes made to the original—now Lǎo ‘Old’—Guóyīn, the editors could still
not fully give up old preferences and traditions:
But, saying that the standard is based on the pronunciation of Běipíng is in reference to the
modern phonology of Běipíng; it does not mean that every Běipíng pronunciation will be pulled
in and considered to be Guóyīn.
ǹ♚ˈּ䛾Ǌ㈤ǈशᜓяઞ⿌⩄⸱ˈ㣷‫ا‬þ㈤ǈशᜓяઞ㣷ÿ㰈䗼ˈፊ博‫ᜓנ‬яशጸᘃ
䝼ⴀ▟ᐼᕎ⑗Ƌ䱊ᏫˈΡ㞓ᬇઞႲ 69
They then described some of the ways that the new standard still differed from Běijīng. The
most significant of the differences that they discussed was with regard to the rù tone. They
noted that “the rù tone reading should still be kept in addition [to the non-rù reading of
Běijīng]” ᕡ㱮श䝼ⴀˈ䲀⊵䙮ᕸ̹. 70 The dictionary thus also includes alternate rù tone
readings for all relevant syllables. 71 To underscore the reason for this, and its importance,
they supplied rhyming examples to illustrate. The following poem by Liǔ Zōngyuán ⠞͛ᔿ
(773–819), “Jiāng xuě” Ⲋ勦 (River Snow), is one of their examples, for which we render
the rù-tone syllables in a modified form of pīnyīn that represents how the editors wished
them to be read:
᜿ρ垱咆㥑ౣ Qiān shān niǎo fēi juė, By layered peaks, the flight of birds has ceased,
䀨⅌Ƭ䩠⹎Ⴒ Wàn jìng rén zōng miė. On myriad paths, all trace of mortal gone.
͂㸛䃍㜜㮽ౣ Gū zhōu suōlị wēng, In a solitary boat, with hempen cape and hat,
ㆷ䷟ͽⲊ勦Ⴒ Du˙ diào hán jiāng xuė. A lone old rustic, fishing in the frigid river snow. 72
The editors point out that the prosodic requirement that rhyming words should be in the
same tone is violated if jué 㥑, miè ⹎, and xuě 勦 are read in the yángpíng (2nd), qù (4th),
and shǎng (3rd) tones, respectively. They also note that even though lì 㜜 and dú ㆷ are
not in rhyming position, it would still be preferable to use the rù-tone reading for both.
As it happens, the practice recommended here reflects a Běijīng reading tradition that was
still common in the early twentieth century. 73 So this is not an outlandish proposal that
breaks completely from the Běijīng model. Yet the importance ascribed to it in the Tzyhhuey
Introduction is a clear indication that traces of the old north-south mixing still remained
even in the new highly Pekingized Guóyīn of the early 1930s. Lǐ Rǔzhēn would surely have
approved.
A mixed framework for Guānhuà, inclusive of difference forms of Mandarin, had been
generally accepted for centuries, as Lǐ Rǔzhēn’s system illustrated. Tradition and traditional
69. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Introduction, iv.

70. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Introduction, iii.
71. The Tzyhhuey editors distributed rù-tone syllables under the other four tones, following Běijīng pronun-
ciation, while also providing alternate rù-tone readings marked with a dot ‘˙ ’. For example, the plain negative bù
ŋ was listed under ᆌᆮˋ (bù) with the rù reading ᆌᆮ˙(bu˙) listed as an alternate. Forms occurring in the neutral
tone (qīngshēng 䬑㱮) were listed separately and spelled with a preceding dot; for example, the particle ne ᡞ was
HMPTTFEVOEFSӥᆒᆢ (ne).
72. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Introduction, vii.
73. The present author was instructed in how to read Chinese poetry this way by a venerable old teacher at the
Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies (㮊ᬇ᠀ʖậŢᬇ䚚▲ঽ㯎ּ) at National Taiwan Univer-
sity in the early 1980s, Yeh Liu Hsiao-hsien䁅ᚅ̾Ṑ, affectionately known as Mrs. Yeh (䁅ʘʘ), who had been
educated according to the old Běijīng tradition.
linguistic tools such as fǎnqiè easily allowed for the representation of a mixed model. But a
mixed standard in fact is poised to easily go either way if need be. Indeed a few subtle adjust-
ments in another direction could have rendered the Guóyīn zìmǔ a fine tool to teach Nanjing
dialect as the standard as well (such as was started with the addition of ᆢ for e). But the
time for Nanjing and the southern Mandarin standard had finally passed and the balance had
tipped in favor of the Běijīng standard.
LATINXUA SINWENZ: A FINAL ATTEMPT AT A MIXED MODEL

Just as the revision of Guóyīn was finalized, a competing system was developed by a
group of communist scholars in exile in the Soviet Union in 1929. These scholars advo-
cated replacement of the traditional character-based script and designed a Romanization
for Chinese called Latinxua sinwenz ‫؀‬Ňᜒ◛▲̸. Spearheaded by Qú Qiūbái ড੃ळ
(1899–1935) with the participation of the Russian Sinologist Alexander Dragunov [姖⟇ʙ]
(1900–1955), Latinxua sinwenz was initially used as a tool for eliminating illiteracy among
ethnic Chinese in the Soviet Union. Success at that effort, primarily in the east in Vladivo-
stok, created a push to adopt the system in China, where it joined a broad drive to promote
dàzhòngyǔ ʖ㑇䚚 ‘language of the masses’. 74
Based on northern Chinese, Latinxua sinwenz was intended to be an orthography that
could easily be learned by speakers of other dialects from all parts of China. The system
received the support of Lǔ Xùn, Guō Mòruò 䳩Ⳗ㻡 (1892–1978), and others as a subversive
but preferred alternative to the National Romanization (Gwoyeu Romatzyh ᬇ䚚㮁唡̸ or
“GR”) that had been developed as an alphabetic counterpart to zhùyīn fúhào to write the new
Guóyīn. 75 It subsequently came to be broadly used in communist-controlled territories in
north China in the 1930s and 1940s despite severe opposition from the Nationalist govern-
ment and the KMT (Guómíndǎng ᬇⰼ套).
However, Latinxua sinwenz was also a mixed system that was not based on the speech
of any single dialect and in many ways was quite similar to Lǎo Guóyīn. Qú Qiūbái held
that a Romanization should not discriminate against, or particularly favor, any dialect and
advised a return to the mixed Mandarin pronunciation of the 1913 version of zhùyīn zìmǔ. 76
So, although it was Mandarin based, Latinxua sinwenz represented “a common northern
speech that did not take just one place as standard.” 77 This state of affairs led Lín Tāo ⟂ッ
to conclude that “Gwoyeu Romatzyh spelled a standard language, while Latinxua sinwenz
spelled dialect.” 78
74. The drive to promote Latinxua sinwenz in China was a politically charged affair and even had the support
of Máo Zédōng Ⰶ⻮➜ (1893–1976) in the early years. For details and background, see DeFrancis 1950: 87–135,
1984: 248–55; Ní Hǎishǔ 1948, 1958: 49–59; Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 44–48; and Lín Tāo 2010: 451–63.
75. On the development and design of Gwoyeu Romatzyh see Simmons 2017b.
76. Qú Qiūbái 1931: 672–74; DeFrancis 1950: 94, 232–33; Lín Tāo 2010: 461. Qú Qiūbái held no affection for
the dialect of Běijīng, as can be discerned in this highly satirical passage that he penned in the early 1930s: “Let the
gentry and merchants preserve the superior genuine Běijīng dialect of the noble Manchu bannermen to serve as their
‘National Language’ [Guóyǔ]; let them go ahead and ridicule blue-green Mandarin. The language of the proletariat
themselves will become . . . the common language [Pǔtōnghuà] of modern China” 䞏㤯᥂ិ㦩‫⹳إ‬ٛ䢰◺☂Ƭश
᜽ᘂ䱏ᬬशፁ㝅Ʀ䙭ɭ‘ᬇ䚚’㭳ౣ䞏ǀᐿិ䝋㜍䇉华͜䙭㭳Ⴒ】㋿劊㤖㷦Рश䙭ౣỷ䕽 . . . Ҭ֥㈤ǈशŢᬇ
⚙䰖䙭 (1932: 464).
77. Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 97.
78. Lín 2010: 461. Latinxua promoters also developed and promoted versions of the system to write in southern
dialects, including varieties for Jiāngnán, Guǎngdōng ⃦➜, Mǐnnán 冥ᝓ (Xiàmén ⃒兼), and others; see Ní Hǎishǔ
1948: 49–61. The version we describe here was called Běifānghuà Latinxua ᜓ◤䙭‫؀‬Ňᜒ ‘Northern Latinxua’, or
Běilā ᜓ‫؀‬, and was the most widely used and promoted.
The characterizing features of Latinxua sinwenz include: 79

1. It does not mark tones and thus does not conflict with Mandarin dialects that have the
rù tone—thus allowing for both four- and five-tone systems.
2. It preserves the jiān-tuán distinction, for example the jiān syllables jiāo ‫‘ ޑ‬burnt’
spelled ziao, qiào ȸ ‘nimble’ spelled ciao, and xiǎo Γ ‘small’ spelled siao, as com-
pared to the tuán syllables jiāo ▄ ‘teach’ spelled giao, qiāo ▝ ‘knock’ spelled kiao,
and xiǎo ⛴ ‘dawn’ spelled xiao.
3. It maintains the southern Mandarin distinction between o and e not found in Běijīng
(discussed above), for instance gé ⡧ ‘standard’ spelled ge, versus gē ⭷ ‘song’
spelled go, and kè ͥ ‘guest’ spelled ke, versus kě ៫ ‘can, may’ spelled ko. Compare
Nánjīng ⡧ [keʔ5]/⭷ [ko1] and ͥ [kʻeʔ5]/៫ [kʻo3]. 80
4. In many words, sinwenz writes üo, spelled yo, where Běijīng has üe, for instance yuè
ϛ ‘high mountain’ spelled yo, jué 䖶 ‘feel’ spelled gyo, and què 劼 ‘sparrow’ spelled
cyo; but note yuè ✳ ‘moon’ spelled ye, xuē આ ‘boot’ spelled xye, and xuě 勦 ‘snow’
spelled sye. This parallels a distinction found in Nánjīng: 81 ϛ [ioʔ5], 䖶 [tɕioʔ5], 劼
[tsʻioʔ5] vs. ✳ [yeʔ5], આ [ɕye1], 勦 [syeʔ5].
5. In many words it writes o where pīnyīn is uo, for example duō ʑ ‘many’ spelled do,
ruò Ҟ ‘weak’ spelled rho, zhuō ⡷ ‘table’ spelled zho; but compare guó ᬇ ‘country’
spelled guo, huǒ ‫‘ ݎ‬fire’ spelled xuo, and shuō 䚦 ‘say’ spelled shuo. This distinc-
tion is only partially seen in Nánjīng: compare ʑ [to1], Ҟ [z̢oʔ5], ⡷ [tʂoʔ5] and ᬇ
[kueʔ5], ‫[ ݎ‬xo3], 䚦 [ʂoʔ5].
6. Where Běijīng has eng following labial initials, sinwenz writes ung, for example béng
ࢩ ‘do not’ spelled bung, mèng ᴏ ‘dream’ spelled mung, and fēng 呛 ‘wind’ spelled
fung. A rounded vowel in these words is characteristic of southern Mandarin, for
example Yángzhōu ᴏ [moŋ4] and 呛 [foŋ1]. 82
These characteristics reveal the considerably mixed nature of Latinxua sinwenz. As with
Lǎo Guóyīn, its specific dialect base is indeterminate. A resolution passed by its designers
in Vladivostok on September 26, 1931 said it was based on the language of migrant workers
working in Russia’s far east, who were mostly from north China. 83 Though it is thought that
the majority of those workers might have been from Shāndōng, no specific connection can
be drawn between Latinxua sinwenz and any dialect in Shāndōng. 84 On the other hand, we
can see a strong affinity with southern Mandarin in the above examples.
Overall, Latinxua sinwenz thus comprised a haphazardly mixed, common northern Chi-
nese that deliberately rejected Běijīng as a standard. For this reason, and because its design
lacked rigor and was too unsophisticated to serve as a national orthography, Latinxua sin-
wenz was not adopted by the government of the People’s Republic of China after it came to
power. However, elements of the Latinxua sinwenz did receive serious consideration in the
79. Drawn from Chén Wàngdào 1938.5 and 1938.6; Nǐ Hǎishǔ 1948: 42–48; Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 96–97;
and Lín Tāo 2010: 456–58.
80. From Jiāngsū shěng dìfāngzhì 1998.
81. Here and below Nánjīng forms are from Qián 2010, except for què 劼, which is from Jiāngsū shěng
dìfāngzhì 1998.
82. Yángzhōu forms are from Jiāngsū shěng dìfāngzhì 1998.
83. The resolution titled Zhōngguó Hànzì Lādīnghuà de yuánzé hé guīzé Ţᬇ⺎̸‫؀‬Ňᜒशលᙃᢈ䖋ᙃ (Prin-
cipals and rules for the Latinization of Chinese characters) was passed at the Dì-yī cì Lādīnghuà Zhōngguózì dàibiǎo
dàhuì 㜨ጸ⭌‫؀‬ŇᜒŢᬇ̸ǈ䑤ʖ✮ (First conference of Chinese representatives on the Latinization of Chinese);
see Lín Tāo 2010: 452. The relevant text of the resolution is cited in Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 97.
84. Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 97.
effort to develop a Romanization for New China and did leave a legacy of sorts: the official
Hànyǔ pīnyīn system ultimately adopted some of its spelling conventions, for example the
dental sibilants z, c, s, the retroflex initials zh, ch, sh, and the prepalatal fricative x.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Latinxua sinwenz was the last gasp of the mixed, interdialectal model, and the last pos-
sibility for a rù tone, in a standard for Mandarin. In 1949, many centuries of tradition that
mixed northern and southern standards in the common vernacular came to an end. We have
seen that the clear identification and widespread common acceptance of Běijīng as a stan-
dard language came very late—much later than generally assumed, although Guānhuà-cum-
Mandarin was accepted as a linguistic norm quite early in Chinese history. Clearly, the delay
and reluctance of the Nationalist language reformers to adopt Běijīng as the national standard
in the early decades of the twentieth century leads us to seriously doubt that the Chinese
considered the language of the northern capital to have any monopoly on prestige in the
imperial period.
Guānhuà in traditional times in fact was, for most Chinese, not based on the Běijīng
dialect but was an abstract ideal that allowed for a variety of interpretations depending on
one’s background, yet for which the prestige form was generally understood to be centered
on the southern Mandarin of the Jiāngnán region. This flexible, pan-dialect ideal continued
to have a powerful appeal among the Chinese even in the twentieth century. Hence the first
national pronunciation standard for a modernizing China was not based on Běijīng. However,
the Lǎo Guóyīn failed not just because of its unusual mixed nature, but also because of its
complex presentation with the tone-free use of the zhùyīn zìmǔ system that was used to rep-
resent it. Even after the Nationalist government finally adopted the Běijīng standard, it faced
competition from a competing standard in Latinxua sinwenz, the use and popularity of which
underscores a continuing preference for a looser, mixed standard among a large portion of
the Chinese population in the 1930s and 1940s. Latinxua sinwenz had a common appeal.
As Lǔ Xùn noted in a 1935 essay “Lùn xīnwénzì” 䛒◛▲̸, “they are connected with the
masses and are not a decorative object of the research office or study; they are a thing of the
streets and alleys.” 85
The question was not settled until the PRC unequivocally declared Běijīng the standard
in the 1950s, as noted at the start of this article. After the PRC’s declaration to follow the
Běijīng standard, the Hànyǔ pīnyīn Romanization that the PRC designed under the auspices
of Zhōu Yǒuguāng ᡤ✴ᕅ fully adopted the phonological framework of the zhùyīn fúhào
and GR, the counterpart Romanization to zhùyīn fúhào. Thus all three share an essentially
one-to-one correspondence between their categories of initial, medial, final, and tone (exclud-
ing certain spelling conventions). Consequently, the zhùyīn fúhào were not consigned to the
dustbin by the PRC, but rather were taken up to serve as a convenient representation of those
categories in explanations of pīnyīn instead of other phonetic symbols (such as those of the
International Phonetic Alphabet). They are used this way, for example, in official government
descriptions of Hànyǔ pīnyīn and dictionaries such as Xīnhuá zìdiǎn ◛ᝊ̸ᕴ and Xiàndài
Hànyǔ cídiǎn ࡄǈⱴ䟩䟉ᕴ. The end result of this long evolutionary process is that today
nearly everyone educated in China in the past half century or so, whether or not they were
born and raised in Běijīng, speaks a facsimile—more or less perfect—of that city’s dialect,
85. Lǔ Xùn 1935: 189: “͐ᢈⰼ㑇♚✴㱫㩧शౣŋ♚ঽ੯ͧ֩✣妢䓋श‫ࡀڹ‬ౣ♚䑓名ФΩश➜䕻.” This

passage is also partially cited in Zhōu Yǒuguāng 1961: 48. See De Francis 1984: 248–51 for further discussion of
Lǔ Xùn’s views regarding sinwenz.
which is referred to as Pǔtōnghuà or Guóyǔ or Mandarin. And, except for some of those who
speak southern dialects, few people know anymore what syllables should be rù tone.
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Whence Came Mandarin?

Qīng Guānhuà, the Běijīng Dialect, and the National Language

Journal of the American Oriental Society 137.1 (2017) 63

OVERVIEW OF THE RISE OF BĚIJĪNG AS STANDARD

6. “ʖᚗ⏓⃦ǊᜓƦ䚚ઞũ⠲⸱ઞश⚙䰖䙭,” reprinted in Yǔwén xuéxí 䚚▲ậ㯎 (Chinese language learn-

THE MÍNG-QĪNG MANDARIN KOINÉ

13. Gěng Zhènshēng 2003; Wáng Hóngjūn 2006.

is pronounced qiān (qīn-yān-qiè ⭨‫ݻ‬ᘃ /kʻ>tɕʻin1+ian1=kʻ>tɕʻian1/); thus in the northern pro-

THE MIXED NATIONAL PRONUNCIATION OF THE YOUNG REPUBLIC OF CHINA

47. Gěng 1992: 62.

7. Obstruent initials in syllables with yángpíng tone are aspirated.

THE TURN TO THE BĚIJĪNG STANDARD

59. Wippermann 2015.

69. Jiàoyùbù 1932, Introduction, iv.

LATINXUA SINWENZ: A FINAL ATTEMPT AT A MIXED MODEL

The characterizing features of Latinxua sinwenz include: 79

85. Lǔ Xùn 1935: 189: “͐ᢈⰼ㑇♚✴㱫㩧शౣŋ♚ঽ੯ͧ֩✣妢䓋श‫ࡀڹ‬ౣ♚䑓名ФΩश➜䕻.” This

. 1958. Hànyǔ pīnyīn de gùshi ⱴ䟩‫ء‬ઞश╰Ǝ. Shànghǎi: Shàonián értóng chūbǎnshè.

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