Kunming dialect?

[hakkaboy]

Kunming dialect may be classed as a subdialect of Mandarin, but I think a question about it fairly goes in this forum. Are there any resources to study it? I am pretty sure some "n"s are missing at the end of words, eg instead of sanshiwu for 35, you get saashiwu. And I think ai may be ei, eg dakei instead of dakai? Is there any more information on this?

[mr.stinky]

i usually hear "qu" pronounced "qi," and occasionally "su" as "si." then there was

the old man who pronounced "meiguo" as "ma-gui."

numbers are difficult sometimes, when spoken quickly shiyi sounds like "shri."

[ajax]

I'm a bit slow at responding, but I live in Kunming and find the

dialect quite interesting....

I've seen several books related to Kunming dialect around town.

I have a dictionary called 昆明方言词典. Although not really useful

on it's own for study, it's interesting to look at for explanations of

things you hear all the time. Also, my local friends found it pretty

amusing. This should be available at either the Qinghua bookstore

on Yieryi Dajie or at Mandarin books.

Also, I'm told there's a soap opera available on vcd with dialogue in

kunming hua called 东寺街，西寺巷. I haven't found this but am

interested in finding it. I haven't noticed any shows on local tv

featuring the dialect (except for interviews on the news...). This

is something I like about Sichuan and Chongqing tv -- tons of

shows in Sichuan dialect. Nothing surprising there, though,

since Kunming is much smaller.

[timkunming]

Ajax,

I've never actually SEEN a Kunming dictionary that was commercially produced. I live right across from the Xin Jian She Cinemas, so it looks I have a little five minute trip to make!

I've been in Kunming for around two years, and schokingly enough, even within Kunming itself you will find a variety of different forms of what we all think is the Kunming dialect. That is, replacing the question word "ma" with "gah" in front of the verb, no difference between "shi" and "si" as well as potatoes not being "tu dou" and not "yang yu" but "yah yu." Another favorite of mine is not corn being called "yu mi" like one would expect, but "bao gu" as in the local favorite "bao gu jiu" a thoroughly disgusting beverage if I do say so myself.

If you want to hear some really interesting Kunminghua, I suggest you check out Guandu Disctrict, near the airport and where the majority of the industry (I use this term loosely) is located in Kunming. Their fang yan is even more bizarre than those you'd find in Wu Hua Qu. Another interesting place is Pan Long Qu, where a majority are farmers or people from other areas around Kunming like Yu Xi, etc.

Now, I'm off to find this Kunminghua Dictionary!

Thanks for the tip!

Tim

[sui.generis]

My professor wrote a linguistics book on the topic:

http://www.jainpub.com/inc/sdetail/498

[hakkaboy]

Tim: I have the dialect dictionary, which uses the International Phonetic Alphabet and gives the following values for the 4 tones in Kunming: 44, 31, 53, 212 (instead of the standard 55, 35, 214, 51), which is why the 3rd and 4th tones sound as if they are switched round in Kunming. Now: there is a character in the dictionary which is made up of a mouth radical and the character 格 which is pronounced like a pinyin ge with a 53 tonal value. Its meaning is something like 有没有. This character is found in the font Simsun Founder Extended. So the phrase:

你

[timkunming]

Hakkaboy,

You seem to be VERY well-versed on the subject. Not being familiar with linguistics myself, this all makes for excellent reading!

I actually managed to pick up the 昆明方言词典 the other day at Mandrain Bookstore on 文化巷 in Kunming. I'm still coming to grips with it as I'm an intermediate student in Chinese, and far from fluent in either reading or speaking (although I can understand Kunming dialect).

My Kunming friends especially enjoy it - apparently some of the words are grossly outdated and a lot of it isn't used so much anymore. I seemed to get the impression that Kunming dialect was something of a farmer's dialect before, but now for the urbanites it's not so cool.

[hakkaboy]

Tim, I am not well versed in it. All my info comes from that dictionary, which you also have. It sounds like you understood KM hua fluently.