a character has no clue to its pronunciation 豳.ppt

Cultural Tour of China 2009 Mandarin - Guanhua, an official language used in the government, the language of officials Guoyu - National language Putonghua - Common Speech, Common Language Huayu or Huawen – Singapore or overseas Current status and Future Hanyu is used by 720 million people 70% of the population of China speak Hanyu One fifth of world population speak Hanyu (885 million ) Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family Mandarin will become the major language in Asia in the 21 century. Dialects Northern (Mandarin)-Beijing Wu-Shanghai Min Southern - Fuzhou Min Northen - Xiamen Yue (Cantonese)- Guangzhou Kejia (Hakka) Xiang - Changsha Gan - Nanchang Pronunciation The number of syllables are limited: 432. There are 1376 syllables if all tonal variation is taken into account. (Liu, 1957) Vowels are predominant. There are four tones in Mandarin. Vowels are predominant Vowels are predominant lǎo, miáo, lèi One syllable has at most two consonants nóng – consonants: [n] and [ng] There are no consonant clusters [sp] ‘speak’ [st] ‘steak’ [kst] ‘text’ Four tones in Mandarin mā má mǎ mà 妈 麻 马 骂 mother hemp horse to scold There are five tones in Shanghai dialect. There are nine tones in Cantonese dialect. 石室詩士施氏﹐嗜獅﹐誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時﹐適十獅適市。是時﹐適施氏適市。氏視是十獅﹐恃矢勢﹐使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅尸﹐適石室。石室濕﹐氏使侍拭石室。石室拭﹐氏始試食是十獅。食時﹐始識是十獅屍﹐實石獅屍。試釋是事。(趙元任《語言問題》商務印書館 Shí shì shī shì shī shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shí shí shì shì shì shī. Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shì shì, shǐ shì shí shī shì shì. Shì shí shì shí shī shū, shì shí shì. Shí shì shì, shì shǐ shì shù shí shì. Shí shì shì, shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí shí, shǐ shì shì shí shī shī, shí shí shī. Shì shì shì shì Translation of “SHI” story The poet Mr. Shi who lived in a stone house liked to eat lions. He swore that he would eat ten lions. He went to the market often to look for lions. At ten o’clock, it happened that ten lions were