Tuesday 13 May 2014

Chongqing Hua

Chongqing Hua (Chongqing Dialect) means the language spoken by Chongqing locals living in its main urban areas – there's a big differentiation between its other counties and regions; it belongs to Chengyu (Chengdu and Chongqing) branch of southwestern Mandarin, it represents one of the standard pronunciations in Sichuan Hua, and has more geographic application as compared to Chengdu Hua. As Chongqing has been a city of migrations from ancient times – the ratio of original Chongqing locals is no more than one third; the migration was mainly from Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Anhui, and it had absorbed some of their pronunciations into its own language system. Due to the promotion of standard Mandarin, the original Chongqing Hua is spoken less and less by the younger generation.

Chongqing Hua is also called Chongqing Yanzi(er), which has very straight-forward meaning, is easy to follow, and actually many of its phrases are quite amusing.

Yanzi pronunciation samples

Chinese
English
Mandarin Pinyin
Chongqing Hua
street
jiē
gāi
解手
go to the toilet
jiĕ shŏu
gǎi sŏu
鞋子
shoes
xié zi
i zi
salty
xiăn
hán
敲门
knock at the door
qiāo mén
o mén
叫花子
beggar
jiào huā zi
gào huā zi
睡觉
go to sleep
shuì jiào
suì gào

Yanzi phrase samples

Chinese
English
要得 yao de
ok
假打 jia da
hypocritical
撇脱 pie tuo
convenient
啥子/ 爪子 sa zi / zua zi
what
晓得 xiao de
I know
巴适 ba si
nice, comfortable
豁我 huo wo
lie to me
踏雪 ta xue
despise
打望 da wang
go see pretty girls
嘎嘎 ga ga
meat
国孽 guo lie
quarrel, start a fight
香音 xiang yin
cheap
唐家沱 tang jia tuo
a place quite far from the city center, it usually is used in a sentence to mean one’s business suffers a big loss
刹一脚 sa yi jio
stop there, pause
说嘞些 suo lie xie
Don’t mention it, no big deal
偷油婆 tou you po
Thief of oil - cockroach
扭到费 niu dao fei
Stubborn, insistent on something
耙耳朵 pa er duo
soft ears – afraid of wife
麻麻鱼 ma ma yu
spicy fish – be cheated
不存在 bu cun zai
It’s ok, doesn’t matter
假巴意思 jia ba yi si
pretend to
巴心不得 ba xin bu de
most desired