"Mandarin is based on Beijing phonetics, northern dialects as the basic dialects, and exemplary modern vernacular writings as the grammatical norms. This is the standard definition of Mandarin. Baidu's explanation of "Mandarin" specifically lists one - Luanping County, Chengde City, Hebei Province is the place where the standard sound of Mandarin is collected. So, why Luanping? What is so special about this small county town separated from Beijing by a mountain?
△ "Hometown of Mandarin" stone carvings
Walking into Luanping, a big stone carving is eye-catching, and it is written "the hometown of Mandarin". And in Luanping, it is like being in the middle of the announcer, from the elderly to the drooping children, everyone speaks Mandarin with a straight and round tone. Due to the lack of linguistic habits such as childization, provincial characters, and tail sounds, Luanping dialect is considered to be "closer to Mandarin than Beijing dialect". Someone joked: "When I learn Mandarin, I learned the Luanping dialect!"
In order to formulate a common language standard, experts went to the village to collect pronunciation
Bai Fengran, 77 years old this year, still remembers an incident that happened 63 years ago. In the spring of 1953, when Luanping No. 4 Complete Primary School had just opened, he was called to his office at the age of 14 to read texts to two experts. While listening, the two experts kept recording in their notebooks, and in some places asked him to pause and reread a certain word. "After reading it, they asked me if I usually talk like that at home?" and I nodded. Bai Fengran recalled.
△ Data map: The State Language Commission came to Luanping to collect sample sounds
That's what Luanping said. Three students from other grades in the same school also read a few articles in front of experts, just like Bai Fengran. Today, the four young students who read the article aloud back then are very old, and together with the other three villagers who have talked to experts, they are respectfully known as Luanping's "Seven Elders of Speech".
Of course, they had no way of knowing that the two strangers were linguists sent by the Government Council of the Central People's Government at that time, who were conducting phonetic investigations for the formulation of the standard of China's common language.
The words are round, direct and clear, and Luanping dialect has become a national standard
As the saying goes, ten miles of different sounds, it is a difficult project to let people from all over the world talk freely. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was necessary to establish a standardized common language system and promote it throughout the country. However, it is difficult to reconcile the criteria according to which standards will form the final norms.
△ Data map/Visual China
As a national standard, Mandarin requires smooth syllables, a concise tone, easy to distinguish, and even a moderate speed of speech, coherent airflow, and sufficient charm for broadcasting, speech, and daily communication. From the point of view of the norms of Mandarin, the Luanping dialect has a clear pronunciation, the words are correct and round, and the intonation is more "hard" than the Beijing dialect at that time, which is direct and clear, especially without the pronunciation habits such as children's words, provincial characters, and tail sounds in Beijing hutongs, which are easy to learn and promote. A Mexican student once exclaimed that learning "Luanping Yin" is more tongue-saving than "Beijing Yin"! In this context, Luanping became one of the places where Mandarin speech was collected in the early 50s of the last century.
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Over 600 years, this flavor has become a standard note
In fact, the deep historical relationship between Luanping and Mandarin can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty more than 600 years ago. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the population of the Central Plains decreased sharply due to continuous wars. As a result, the mountainous area of northern Hebei, which was located in the mountainous area and was relatively less affected by the war, became an important base for the internal migration of the population at that time.
During the Yongle period, Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, moved the capital to Beijing, and ordered all the residents and troops outside the Gubeikou to withdraw to the Great Wall, forming a no-man's land in a large area outside the Great Wall, and Luanping was located in the southernmost part of this no-man's land. This situation was not changed until the early Qing Dynasty when immigrants from the vicinity of Beijing to Luanping were resettled.
△ Data map: Jinshanling Great Wall in Chengde, Hebei Province / Visual China
"What the dialect of Luanping was before the Ming Dynasty is now impossible to verify. The historical fault of more than 200 years in Luanping in the Ming Dynasty was like a tape demagnetization, which 'washed away' the original dialect, and Luanping became a blank tape waiting for recording. Wang Guoping, vice chairman of the Luanping County CPPCC, said.
The official language of the Ming Dynasty was Nanjing Mandarin, and the capital was moved to Beijing during the Yongle period, and the Nanjing dialect that followed became the basis of Beijing pronunciation at that time. After the Manchus took control of Beijing, they actively studied Han culture, especially language and culture, and the Beijing dialect they learned gradually became the new Beijing official dialect promoted by the Qing Dynasty. This period happened to be the peak period when the Manchu bannermen opened fields and built villages in Luanping.
△ Data map: After Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing
Wang Guoping believes that Zhuangtian had close contacts with the capital and was greatly influenced by the official dialect of Beijing at that time. Since Luanping is like a blank tape, a large number of immigrants from various sources do not have a strong dialect, and the common one is the Beijing official dialect promoted by the Qing Dynasty. It can be said that during the Qing Dynasty, Luanping was the pioneer area for the promotion of Beijing Mandarin, and the widely influential Beijing Mandarin eventually became the predecessor of Mandarin.
As long as you are from Luanping, your Mandarin level is at least the second grade
Since 2012, the state has carried out the construction of an audio database of language resources, and Hebei has participated in it, so in 2013, Bai Fengran participated in the speech collection work again after a lapse of 60 years. Bai Fengran, who was 74 years old at the time, had to record four or five hours a day in the underground recording studio, but he did not complain at all. He said, "In order to promote Mandarin and Luanping culture, I am very satisfied to do this."
Tang Yunhang, dean of Hebei Tourism Vocational College and a language scholar, started his relationship with Luanping as a national Mandarin tester. About 20 years ago, he was an examiner in Chengde for a Mandarin test, and when he reported the test results to the provincial Mandarin testing center, he was questioned because there were too many people above the second grade A and the standard was too loose. "I dare to say that in any corner of Luanping, as long as he is from Luanping, his Mandarin level is at least second-class A!"
△ Data map/Visual China
"Putonghua Experience Zone" is the name awarded to Luanping by the State Language Commission. "What is a cultural brand? Mandarin is Luanping's cultural brand. Cai Fuhao, secretary of the Luanping County Party Committee in Hebei Province, said, "We look forward to the future, when everyone knows that the place to learn Mandarin and standard Chinese pronunciation is Luanping, Hebei." ”
Source: CCTV News