1. General

Běijīng Mandarin (Běijīnghuà 北京話, Pekingese, hereafter BM) is a language spoken in the city of Běijīng (Peking) by its natives. The development of BM in this definition is essentially influenced by two factors: the special status as capital that the city enjoyed almost uninterruptedly for nearly a millennium, and the normative language(s) of its successive ruling elites.

Situated for many centuries in the borderlands between China proper and the Altaic peoples to its north, the pr…