Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
Chengdu speech is the received pronunciation among the various Sichuan dialects spoken by ten million people in Southwest China. In this short paper, I intend to discuss the characteristics of the initials of Chengdu speech as compared with Standard Chinese. The following abbreviations and conventions are used: CDH = Chengduhua, i.e. Chengdu speech of Chinese. PTH = Putonghua, Standard Chinese based on Beijing pronunciation. CPA = the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet. Chinese characters are transliterated into CPA first when they are cited as examples. A phonetic transcription of CDH pronunciation follows, in square brackets. Tone symbols are placed before the CDH syllable: [̄] High Level, [̖] Low Falling, [̀] High Falling, [̬] Fall-rise. For PTH the tone symbol is placed above the CPA nuclear vowel letter e.g. mā High Level, má High Rising, mǎ Fall-rise, mà High Falling.