乐山话 / Leshanhua [Sichuan]

[ai_ya]

Hi all, after staying a while [a good few months] in 乐山，I thought people might be interested to know what this crazy dialect sounds like!

It belongs to Sichuan Mandarin, but is quite different from that of Chengdu and other places!

The tones are usually the same as those used in Chengdu - so the regular sichuanhua tones are the same, apart from syllables which had a consonant ending - these seem to get a strange tone which I can't figure out.

Also sh ch zh become s c z as in most of Sichuan.

R [as in ri rang re etc] is prounounced like an English 'z'. [not the pinyin z].

The 儿 ending is actually pronounced as an 'L' [in techinal terms, it seems to be a syllabic, retroflex l], so 这儿 is pronounced like 'ze l'.

The sound -a is not an 'open a' but rather sounds like the 'o' in 'got' so

下 sounds like xioh, 哪儿 sounds like 'loh l' 啥子 is 'soh zi'

If the -a came from a syllable which ended in p t or k [i can't remember the techinal term for this] it becomes something like -ei:

辣 -> lei [辣 is laat in Canto]

-an is pronounced like -eh [like e in get]:

看 -> keh etc

去 is pronounced somewhere between 'ju' and 'ji'

-ian is pronounced as an open 'e', kind of like 'ei'

面 -> me

-uan is -ueh

四川 -> si cueh

-ue becomes -u [the u with two dots on it]:

雪 -〉 xu 下雪 -〉 xioh xu

Most syllables ending in -e [like in 俄 乐 个] become -oh except in cases where it came from a syllable which ended in a consonant ptk].

俄-> ngoh 乐 -> loh 个 -〉goh

热 -> zei [because 热 in Cantonese is 'yit']

恶 -> ngei [恶 is ngok in Cantonese]

N becomes L [as in most sichuan dialects]

你 -〉 li

Also, [i'm not sure if Chengduhua has this, I think it does], syllables which had an earlier ng- retain that ng-:

我 -〉ngo 俄 -> ngo 恶 -> ngei etc.

-uo becomes -u [but it is unrounded]

说 -> su 国 -> gu 做 -> zu

-ou is kind of different to Standard Mandarin, it sounds like -eu [a schwa followed by u for people who know IPA]:

走嘛! -> zeu moh!

That's all I can think of at the minute, I know at lot of these differences from standard Mandarin are probably the same as in Chengduhua, I just thought it'd be interesting to let you know what Leshanhua sounds like as it doesn't seem to be a widely known-about dialect!

David

[HerrPetersen]

Interesting inside information; it would of course be nice to hear a sound sample. When I was in Shanghai I was just starting out learning Chinese, so I was under the impression of not understanding anything. Just now I see, how different the Shanghai dialect is from standart chinese; for instance, qi zi xing che (ride a bicycle) sounds something like: da jia da tsu. Except for the syllable count totally different.

[Mugi]

Interesting info. Even though it's a Mandarin dialect, it seems quite far removed from the standard. How much can you understand when two native speakers talk to each other?

Most syllables ending in -e [like in 俄 乐 个] become -oh except in cases where it came from a syllable which ended in a consonant ptk].

俄-> ngoh 乐 -> loh 个 -〉goh

You might have to revise your categorizations here - 乐 was an entering tone (入声字) in Middle Chinese (cf Cantonese: lohk)

[muyongshi]

Most syllables ending in -e [like in 俄 乐 个] become -oh except in cases where it came from a syllable which ended in a consonant ptk].

俄-> ngoh 乐 -> loh 个 -〉goh

This is typical actually of almost all Sichuan dialectal varieties...

[xiaocai]

This is typical actually of almost all Sichuan dialectal varieties...

Not really, only 岷江小片 varieties differentiate 入声 endings.

[xiaocai]

All 入声 have merged into one tones which is sometimes referred as "the 5th tone" in all the 岷江小片 varieties. This also applies to 宜宾话 and 泸州话(which is my native accent). To my ear it sound a bit higher compared to the latter two in 乐山话, kind of like the 1st tone in mandarin but with a sight "stop" at the end of the syllable.

[muyongshi]

I'm not talking about 入声 here, I'm referring solely to pronunciation. Almost all varieties of 四川话 that i have encountered use a "goh" sound when saying 个, the same with 饿 it takes on a more open round sound. Words like "he" (ie 和，喝) as well take on the more rounded o sound.

I know I'm arguing with a native speaker here but do understand that this pronunciation thing that is being referred to is separate from the 入声 issue.

[xiaocai]

I'm sorry that I didn't really know which point your post was referring to.

But the 入声 endings will sometimes affect the vowels of the syllables, at least in my dialect. One example is "le" (勒), which is pronounced like "laak" in Cantonese, in standard mandarin will become "leq" or "leh" (note that here the "e" represents the English e sound but not the pinyin e) instead of "loh" in my dialect. So it seems like the ending stop has kind of merged into the vowel and become less stressed and eventually been dropped in some varieties.

[muyongshi]

That's perfectly fine and I do have to say that I know that tone and pronunciation are dependent upon each other, hence I can't say only pronunciation but in this instance I am doing just a general observation as I have no qualifications to even begin to consider the effect of tonage on the pronunciation

Thanks for your input xiaocao, it's nice to have a few native sichuan people hanging around!

[ai_ya]

Hmm, yeah I wonder why 乐 did not become 'lei', like 恶[ngok] becomes ngei...that is a mystery!

[xiaocai]

Just a joke of 乐山话.

想起以前认识的一个销魂的同学，好像是乐山或眉山的。

　　　　

　　　　她有次路过人民公园时，问我们大家：“你们看过脚花没啊？”

　　　　我们愣了，没听过这花啊，说：“没看过”。

　　　　她太吃惊了：“你们连脚花都没看过啊？”

　　　　后来才知道是菊花。

　　　　

　　　　还有次她回寝室问我们大家：“你们吃过药饼没？”

　　　　我们愣了，说：“没有”。

　　　　她又很吃惊：“你们连药饼都没吃过啊？”

　　　　后来才知道是月饼。

　　　　

　　　　还有，她说要去插说。

　　　　我们又愣了，不知道那是哪儿。

　　　　后来才知道...是厕所。

[muyongshi]

Haha that's a good one. Similar to this I just thought of an "opera" show where the guy did jokes based on like practically every city in Sichuan based on their pronunciation- for example if you want to wear free clothes {ok so I actually can't remember his lead in} you would go to 北川.

白 bai becomes bei.... I hope that made sense- I was laughing for the whole 10 minutes. It was great- wish I had recorded it/could remember more.

[Hofmann]

Hmm, yeah I wonder why 乐 did not become 'lei', like 恶[ngok] becomes ngei...that is a mystery!

The OP is probably gone but how does one pronounce

敎 角 各

in 樂山話？

[xiaocai]

The OP is probably gone but how does one pronounce

敎 角 各

in 樂山話？

To your disappointment, I'm afraid there is no 乐山话 natives on this forum, AFAIK.