Literary and colloquial readings

Differing literary and colloquial readings for certain Chinese characters are a common feature of many Chinese varieties, and the reading distinctions for these linguistic doublets often typify a dialect group. Literary readings are usually used in loanwords, geographic and personal names, literary works such as poetry, and in formal contexts, while colloquial readings  are used in everyday vernacular speech.

For example, the character for 'white' (白) is normally read with the colloquial pronunciation  in Standard Chinese, but can also have the literary reading   in names or in some formal or historical contexts. This example is particularly well known due to its effect on the modern pronunciations "Bo Juyi" and "Li Bo" for the names of the Tang dynasty (618–907) poets Bai Juyi and Li Bai.

The differing pronunciations have led linguists to explore the strata of Sinitic languages, as such differences reflect a history of dialect interchange and the influence of formal education and instruction on various regions in China. Colloquial readings are generally considered to represent a substratum, while their literary counterparts are considered a superstratum.

Characteristics
Colloquial readings typically reflect the native phonology of a given Chinese variety, while literary readings typically originate from other Chinese varieties, typically more prestigious varieties. Colloquial readings are usually older, resembling the sound systems described by old rime dictionaries like the Guangyun, whereas literary readings are often closer to the phonology of newer sound systems. In certain Mandarin and Wu dialects, many literary readings are the result of influence from Nanjing Mandarin or Beijing Mandarin during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Formal education and discourse usually use past prestigious varieties, so formal words usually use literary readings. Although the phonology of the Chinese variety in which this occurred did not entirely match that of the prestige variety, literary readings tended to evolve toward the prestige variety. Also, neologisms usually use the pronunciation of prestigious varieties. Colloquial readings are usually used in informal settings because their usage in formal settings has been supplanted by the readings of the prestige varieties.

Because of this, the frequency of literary readings in a Chinese variety reflects its history and status. For example, before the promotion of Standard Chinese (based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin), the Central Plains Mandarin of the Central Plain had few literary readings, but they now have literary readings that resemble the phonology of Modern Standard Chinese. On the other hand, the relatively influential Beijing and Guangzhou dialects have fewer literary readings than other varieties.

Some Chinese varieties may have many instances of foreign readings replacing native readings, forming multiple sets of literary and colloquial readings. A newer literary reading may replace an older literary reading, and the older literary reading may become disused or become a new colloquial reading. Sometimes literary and colloquial readings of the same character have different meanings.

An analogous phenomenon exists to a much more significant degree in Japanese, where individual kanji generally have two common readings—the newer borrowed, more formal Sino-Japanese on'yomi, and the older native, more colloquial kun'yomi. Unlike in Chinese varieties, where readings are usually genetically related, in Japanese the borrowed readings are unrelated to the native readings. Furthermore, many kanji in fact have several on'yomi, reflecting borrowings at different periods – these multiple borrowings are generally doublets or triplets, and are sometimes quite distant in time. These readings are generally used in particular contexts, such as readings for Buddhist terms, many of which were earlier go-on borrowings.

Cantonese
Cantonese literary and colloquial readings have quite regular relationships. A character's meaning is often different depending on whether it is read with a colloquial or literary reading.

Initials Rimes Tones
 * colloquial 'heavy labial' (重脣, bilabial) initials /p/ and /pʰ/ correspond to literary 'light labial' (輕脣, labiodental) initial /f/
 * colloquial /ŋ/ initial (疑母) correspond to literary /j/ initial (以母)
 * colloquial readings with nuclei correspond to literary  and  nuclei
 * colloquial correspond to literary
 * colloquial correspond to literary
 * colloquial correspond to literary ; of course, not all colloquial readings with a certain nucleus correspond to literary readings with another nucleus
 * some Middle Chinese 'full-muddy (i.e. voiced obstruent) rising-tone' (全濁上聲) words now have colloquial 'subclear' (次清, aspirated) initials along with preserved 'muddy rising' (濁上) tone called yang rising (陽上), while literary initials are 'full-clear' (全清, tenuis) and merge into 'muddy departing' (濁去) tone called yang departing (陽去), but if they now have fricative or approximant initials then they have no aspiration distinction. Most other varieties share this sound change process to varying degrees which is called '(full) muddy rising become departing' ((全)濁上變去).

Examples:

Hakka
Hakka has instances of differing literary and colloquial readings.

Examples:

Mandarin
Literary readings in modern Standard Chinese are usually native pronunciations more conservative than colloquial readings. This is because they reflect readings from before Beijing was the capital, e.g. from the Ming dynasty. Most instances where there are different literary and colloquial readings occur with characters that have entering tones. Among those are primarily literary readings that have not been adopted into the Beijing dialect before the Yuan dynasty. Colloquial readings of other regions have also been adopted into the Beijing dialect, a major difference being that literary readings are usually adopted with the colloquial readings. Some of the differences between the Standard Chinese of Taiwan and the mainland are due to the fact that Putonghua tends to adopt colloquial readings for a character while Guoyu tends to adopt a literary reading.

Examples of literary readings adopted into the Beijing dialect:

Examples of colloquial readings adopted into the Beijing dialect:

Sichuanese
In Sichuanese Mandarin, colloquial readings tend to resemble Ba-Shu Chinese or southern Proto-Mandarin during the Ming, while literary readings tend to resemble modern standard Mandarin. For example, in the Yaoling dialect the colloquial reading of 物 'things' is, which is very similar to its pronunciation of Ba-Shu Chinese in the Song dynasty (960–1279). Meanwhile, its literary reading, [], is relatively similar to the standard Mandarin pronunciation []. The table below shows some Chinese characters with both literary and colloquial readings in Sichuanese.

Wu
In the northern Wu-speaking region, the main sources of literary readings are the Beijing and Nanjing dialects during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and modern Standard Chinese. In the southern Wu-speaking region, literary readings tend to be adopted from the Hangzhou dialect. Colloquial readings tend to reflect an older sound system.

Not all Wu dialects behave the same way. Some have more instances of discrepancies between literary and colloquial readings than others. For example, the character 魏 had a initial in Middle Chinese, and in literary readings, there is a null initial. In colloquial readings it is pronounced in Songjiang. About 100 years ago, it was pronounced in Suzhou and Shanghai, and now it is.

Some pairs of literary and colloquial readings are interchangeable in all cases, such as in the words 吳淞 and 松江. Some must be read in one particular reading. For example, 人民 must be read using the literary reading,, and 人命 must be read using the colloquial reading,. Some differences in reading for the same characters have different meanings, such as 巴結, using the colloquial reading means 'make great effort', and using the literary reading  means 'get a desired outcome'. Some readings are almost never used, such as colloquial for 吳 and literary  for 江.

Examples:

Min Nan
Min languages, which include Taiwanese Hokkien, separate reading pronunciations  from spoken pronunciations  and explications. Hokkien dictionaries in Taiwan often differentiate between such character readings with prefixes for literary readings and colloquial readings and, respectively.

The following examples in Pe̍h-oē-jī show differences in character readings in Taiwanese Hokkien:

In addition, some characters have multiple and unrelated pronunciations, adapted to represent Hokkien words. For example, the Hokkien word ('meat') is often written with the character 肉, which has etymologically unrelated colloquial and literary readings  and, respectively).

Min Dong
In the Fuzhou dialect of Min Dong, literary readings are mainly used in formal phrases and words derived from the written language, while the colloquial ones are used in more colloquial phrases. Phonologically, a large range of phonemes can differ between the character's two readings: in tone, final, initial, or any and all of these features.

The following table uses Foochow Romanized as well as IPA for some of the major differences in readings.

Gan
The following are examples of variations between literary and colloquial readings of Chinese characters in Gan Chinese.