Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics

The Xiàndài Hànyǔ cídiǎn 現代漢語詞典 [Dictionary of contemporary Chinese] is a medium-sized reference work of the vocabulary of Pǔtōnghuà 普通話 (standard Mandarin). The dictionary was compiled by the Department of Lexicography at the Institute of Linguistics, the Chinese Academy of Social Science, with Lǚ Shūxiāng 呂叔湘 and Dīng Shēngshù 丁聲樹 successively as editors in chief. The first edition was published in 1978 by the Commercial Press (Shāngwù yìnshūguǎn 商務印書館) in Běijīng. In February 1956, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued a decree that Pǔtōnghu…

The Xiāng dialects (Xiāngyǔ 湘語) are the representative dialects of Húnán. Besides Xiāng dialects, varieties of Southwest Mandarin, Gàn 贛, Hakka, and the local dialects known as Xiānghuà 鄉話 in western Húnán and Tǔhuà 土話 in southern Húnán are also spoken in the province. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish Xiāng dialects from Húnán dialects, the former being a linguistic, the latter being a geographic classification.The Xiāng dialects are mainly distributed over the Xiāng 湘 and Zī 資 river valleys of Húnán and a few areas of the middle reaches of the Yuán …

One of the most popular humor forms in China from the early 20th century to the present time is the verbal art of xiàngsheng 相聲, literally ‘face and voice’, indicating that the art form primarily involves facial expression and vocal skills. The name is often translated into English as ‘crosstalk’. Xiàngsheng is one of a large number of Chinese folk oral performance literature forms in the category of qǔyì 曲藝 (‘vocal arts’, or sometimes translated as ‘folk performing arts’). Westerners seeing xiàngsheng for the first time are usually strongly reminded of the classic American …

Xiēhòuyǔ 歇後語 ‘enigmatic folk similes’, sometimes referred to as ‘truncated witticisms’ have been defined as “a two part allegorical saying, of which the first part, always stated, is descriptive, while the second part, [only] sometimes stated, carries the message, e.g., ní púsà guò jiāng -- zì shēn nán bǎo 泥菩薩過江—自身難保 ‘a clay idol fording a river – hardly able to save oneself (let alone assist anyone else)’” (Běijīng 1979:762). During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution ( wénhuà dà gémìng 文化大革命, 1966–1677), a popular slogan used to describe the attitude of arrogant b…

The earliest Chinese characters were derived from pictures. For example, the character 其 stems from the oracle bone form , which is a representation of a winnowing basket. But some words, such as the third person possessive pronoun, are difficult to represent pictorially. Because the pronunciation of this word was homophonous with the pronunciation of the word for "winnowing basket", the character writing the latter could be “borrowed” to represent the former (the words are still similar in modern Mandarin pronunciation: qí ‘third-person possessive pronoun, jī ‘winnowing basket…

X-bar theory, psycholinguistics: Psycholinguistics, Overview Xī Kāng 嵇康 (223–262): Musical Notation Xī’ān 西安: Dialect Classification | Dialects, Premodern | Mandarin, Varieties of | Reconstruction, Methodology Xī’ān 西安, phonology, history: Historical Phonology Xiá lù féng 狹路逢 (Perilous encounter: Godspeed to a deadly voyage): Chinese in Nagasaki | Chinese in the Ryūkyū Islands Xià Sǒng 夏竦 (985–1051): Paleography Xiàmén 廈門, contractions: Contraction Xiàmén 廈門, migration to Australia: Chinese in Australia Xiàmén 廈門, tone: Tone, Music and Singing Xiàmén 廈門, tone sandhi: Tone…

Urban Xīníng 西寧 lies at the confluence of the Huáng (Huángshuǐ 湟水) and Dàtōng (Dàtōng hé 大通河) rivers in northeastern Qīnghǎi Province, but the metropolitan area includes Dàtōng Huí and Tǔ Autonomous County (大通回族土族自治縣), Huángzhōng County (湟中縣) and Huángyuán County (湟源縣). The 2010 Census counts more than two million people living in metropolitan Xīníng, the largest ethnic groups being Hàn 漢 74%, Huí 回 16%, Tibetan 5.5% and Monguor (Tǔ 土) 2.6%, with smaller numbers Mongolian, Salar and other ethnicities (Xīníng Government website: http://www.xining.gov.cn/html/119/12895.html, acc…