|Upper Yangtze Mandarin|
|Region||Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei|
|more than 260 million (date missing)|
Southwestern Mandarin, excluding New Xiang
Southwestern Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 西南官话; traditional Chinese: 西南官話; pinyin: Xīnán Guānhuà), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 上江官话; traditional Chinese: 上江官話; pinyin: Shàngjiāng Guānhuà), is a primary branch of Mandarin Chinese spoken in much of central and southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the northern part of Guangxi, and some southern parts of Shaanxi and Gansu.
Varieties of Southwestern Mandarin are spoken by roughly 200 million people. If removed from the larger "Mandarin Chinese group", it would have the 6th-most native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Bengali.
Modern Southwestern Mandarin was formed by the waves of immigrants brought to the regions during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Because of this comparatively recent move, these dialects show more similarity to modern Standard Mandarin than to other varieties of Chinese like Cantonese or Hokkien. For example, like most southern Chinese dialects, Southwestern Mandarin does not possess the retroflex consonants (zh, ch, sh, r) of Standard Mandarin, but nor does it retain the entering tone, as most southern dialects do. The Chengdu-Chongqing and Hubei dialects are believed to reflect aspects of the Mandarin lingua franca spoken during the Ming Dynasty. However, some scholars believe its origins may be more similar to Lower Yangtze Mandarin.
Though part of the Mandarin dialect group, Southwestern Mandarin has many striking and pronounced differences with Standard Mandarin such that, until 1955, it was generally categorized alongside Cantonese and Wu Chinese as a group of non-Mandarin dialects.
Southwestern Mandarin is the common language in the (Han-Chinese majority) Kokang district in Northern Myanmar. Southwestern Mandarin is also one of two official languages of the Wa State, an unrecognised autonomous state within Myanmar, alongside Wa language. Because Wa has no written form, Chinese is the official working language of the Wa State government.
Most Southwestern Mandarin dialects have, like Standard Mandarin, only retained four of the original eight tones of Middle Chinese. However, the entering tone has completely merged with the light-level tone in most Southwestern dialects, while in Standard Mandarin it is seemingly randomly dispersed among the remaining tones.
|Entering tone||Geographic Distribution|
|Sichuan||Chengdu dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩ (21)||˦˨ (42)||˨˩˧ (213)||light-level merge||Main Sichuan Basin, parts of Guizhou|
|Luzhou dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩ (21)||˦˨ (42)||˩˧ (13)||˧ (33)||Southwest Sichuan Basin|
|Luding County dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩ (21)||˥˧ (53)||˨˦ (24)||dark-level merge||Ya'an vicinity|
|Neijiang dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩ (21)||˦˨ (42)||˨˩˧ (213)||departing merge||Lower Tuo River area|
|Hanzhong dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩ (21)||˨˦ (24)||˨˩˨ (212)||level tone merge||Southern Shaanxi|
|Kunming dialect||˦ (44)||˧˩ (31)||˥˧ (53)||˨˩˨ (212)||light-level merge||Central Yunnan|
|Gejiu dialect||˥ (55)||˦˨ (42)||˧ (33)||˩˨ (12)||light-level merge||Southern Yunnan|
|Baoshan dialect||˧˨ (32)||˦ (44)||˥˧ (53)||˨˥ (25)||light-level merge||Western Yunnan|
|Huguang||Wuhan dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩˧ (213)||˦˨ (42)||˧˥ (35)||light-level merge||Central Hubei|
|Shishou dialect||˦˥ (45)||˩˧ (13)||˦˩ (41)||˧ (33)||˨˩˦ (214)||˨˥ (25)||Southern Hubei (Jingzhou)|
|Hanshou dialect||˥ (55)||˨˩˧ (213)||˦˨ (42)||˧ (33)||˧˥ (35)||˥ (55)||Northwestern Hunan（Changde）|
|Li County dialect||˥ (55)||˩˧ (13)||˨˩ (21)||˧ (33)||˨˩˧ (213)||(light) ˧˥ (35)||Northwestern Hunan（Changde）|
|Xiangfan dialect||˧˦ (34)||˥˨ (52)||˥ (55)||˨˩˨ (212)||light-level||Northern Hubei|
|Guilin dialect||˧ (33)||˨˩ (21)||˥ (55)||˧˥ (35)||light-level||Northern Guangxi, Southern Guizhou, parts of Southern Hunan|
|˧ (33)||˩˧ (13)||˦˩ (41)||˦˥ (45) ~ ˥ (55)||˨˩ (21) ~ ˩ (11)||˨˦ (24)|
Southwestern Mandarin dialects do not possess the retroflex consonants of Standard Mandarin, but otherwise share most Mandarin phonological features. Most have lost the distinction between the nasal consonant /n/ and the lateral consonant /l/ and the nasal finals /-n/ and /-ŋ/. For example, the sounds "la" and "na" are generally indistinguishable, as well as the sounds "fen" and "feng". Some varieties also lack a distinction between the labiodental sound /f/ and the glottal /h/.
Southwestern Mandarin has been classified into twelve dialect groups:
- Chengyu 成渝 (Chengdu and Chongqing)
- Dianxi 滇西 (western Yunnan): Yaoli 姚里 and Baolu 保潞 clusters
- Qianbei 黔北 (northern Guizhou)
- Kungui 昆貴 (Kunming and Guiyang)
- Guanchi 灌赤 (southwest Sichuan and northern Yunnan): Minjiang 岷江, Renfu 仁富, Yamian 雅棉, and Lichuan 丽川 clusters
- Ebei 鄂北 (northern Hubei)
- Wutian 武天 (Wuhan)
- Cenjiang 岑江 (eastern Guizhou)
- Qiannan 黔南 (southern Guizhou)
- Xiangnan 湘南 (some cities of southern Hunan)
- Guiliu 桂柳 (northern Guangxi: Guilin and Liuzhou)
- Changhe 常鹤 (northwestern Hunan: Changde and Zhangjiajie)
- Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Xinan Guanhua [Southwest Mandarin]". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Zhou and Xu 周及徐, 2005. "The pronunciation and historical evolution of '虽遂'-class characters in Ba-Shu dialects" 《巴蜀方言中“虽遂”等字的读音及历史演变》, Zhonghua Wenhua Luntan 中华文化论坛.
- Wang Qing 王庆, 2007. "Consonants in Ming Dynasty Repopulation Area Dialects and Southern Mandarin" 《明代人口重建地区方言的知照系声母与南系官话》, Chongqing Normal University Journal 重庆师范大学学报.
- Liu Xiaomei 刘晓梅 and Li Rulong 李如龙, 2003. "Special Vocabulary Research in Mandarin Dialects" 《官话方言特征词研究》, Yuwen Yanjiu 语文研究.
- Interactive Myanmar Map, The Stimson Center
- Wa, Infomekong
- Li Lan 李蓝, 2009, Southwestern Mandarin Areas (Draft)
- Kurpaska, Maria (2010). Chinese Language(s): A Look Through the Prism of The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 66–67. ISBN 978-3-11-021914-2.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>