Talk:Erhua

[Incorrect IPA]
The IPA given for "er" is incorrect. Both NPA (bo po mo fo) and Wade-Giles romanization clearly distinguish between "er" and "jih." Approximately the same distinction occurs in English. Saying "The star rode a donkey," will let the English speaker appreciate the lax tongue position in the case of the first "r" and the very active tongue curling and contact with the roof of the mouth in the second "r." The speaker of Mandarin can achieve the same result by saying "我女兒入醫院." (My daughter entered the hospital." P0M 07:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[References]
Since references are needed, here's one... this is from my Chinese-English Dictionary, Revised Edition, published in the PRC by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Copyright 9/1997, 16th printing, 4/2004, purchased in the PRC, as translated from Chinese.

Quote:

儿化 érhuà linguis. suffixation of a nonsyllabic 儿 (r) to nouns and sometimes verbs or adjectives, causing a retroflexion of the preceding vowel, typical of the pronunciation of standard Chinese and of some dialects -- see also 儿2 ér

...and under 儿 (Second defition, the first is "child")

儿 ér (transcribed as r) suffix 1) (added to nouns to express smallness) ... 2) (added to verbs to form nouns) ... 3) (added to adjectives to form nouns) 4) (added to concrete nouns to change them into abstract nouns) ... 5）(added to nouns to form nouns with different meaning) 6) (a verb suffix very much restricted in use)

I cut the examples to save myself typing effort. ;）I can add them if people request it.

Kaerondaes 12:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[Avoidance of use]
Most Southern Chinese don't avoid the erhua sound because they have difficulty pronouncing it; rather they find it unpleasant and possibly even pretentious. Thus, they avoid it out of preference, not because they can't pronounce it. I edited the text to reflect this, since the "difficulty pronouncing" comment gave no references. However, I don't have any references on hand to support my assertion either, other than my own POV as a Southern Chinese, so I'd appreciate it if someone knows of any quotable references one way or the other.
 * Herbal.zh (talk) 19:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The statement that Southern Chinese dislike Erhua is false. Southwestern Mandarin does have Erhua. It is the Chinese who speak non-Mandarin dialects cannot pronounce Erhua. Karolus 2010-1-18  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.77.177.229 (talk) 20:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Karolus, please don't just edit stuff to reflect your views without backing them up. It is ridiculous to claim that southern Chinese cannot pronounce erhua. This is tantamount to saying that it is impossible for Chinese people to pronounce the th-sounds in English because Mandarin doesn't have it. I personally know several southern Chinese that can do erhua, and plenty of Chinese who are very good at the th-sounds.JREL (talk) 11:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * JREL, I think a better example is that the assertion that south-eastern Chinese can't pronounce Erhua is particularly suspect since even without Erhua, Mandarin still has a (small) number of rhotic vowels (such as 二 and 耳, as noted in the second paragraph). Since there's no citation either way and the consensus here is that lack of ability is incorrect, I'm changing it back to something closer to the "distasteful" wording.  Carychan (talk) 09:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It's now standard for a number of words
It's now standard for a number of words, as they are part of the HSK test. Maybe the word "distasteful" should not be used, even if erhua is not common for south China? Atitarev (talk) 01:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Nasalization?
What is meant, pronouncing the whole vowel with the twang, like in Guarani, or turning it into a nasal diphthong, like in French, Portuguese or Polish? 31.6.141.51 (talk) 02:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

About the "Mandarin Dialect" section
Many words are left unexplained because I found them hard to be explained clearly. I'll try to give explanations later.

The data are depended on my memory, but I can guarrantee their accuracy and validity. I'll expand the section later when I get more and enough information.

Rethliopuks (talk) 14:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Labialization?
"Coda [u] and [ŋ] are deleted, but the syllable becomes labialized and nasalized respectively."

Any examples for this? Komitsuki (talk) 06:44, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

The origin of erhua?
Qs: Origin of Erhua in Beijing/Northern Chinese. Any more insight on this would be great. Thank you. Komitsuki (talk) 06:47, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Request: changing the IPA transcription system from presently used "broad" to a more accurate one
As for now, the IPA transcriptions used in this page is very misleading.

While it distinguishes between, for example, "e" "o" "ɛ" "ɤ" "ɨ" as (roughly) IPA does, and while it uses very precise discriptions as "ɯ̯ʌɻ i̯ɛɻ u̯ɔɻ y̯œɻ", implying considerable precision (even attempting to distinguish between the quality of e in ei and ie), it does not distinguish between the vowel quality of, for example, anr and angr.

In essence, it deliberately confuses and equates a phonological transcription with a phonetic transcription. (by "phonological", I mean "pertaining to a system resulting from a phonological analysis which may or may not agree with what the surface shows")

I request to change the IPA trascription system presently used in the page.

If by the end of 2014 no request to maintain the status quo system with a satisfactory (here I mean "conforming to IPA usage and linguistic reality") solution is made, I will 1) use a phonetic transcription system, 2) clearly distinguish between phonological and phonetic transcriptions, and 3) be as faithful as meaningfully possible to the linguistic reality of erhua and other aspects of the language(s). The two-main-vowel analysis will still be used unless I will see a significant flaw of it then (which is very unlikely). It will expectably be improved now and then.

After that, if anyone wants to change the system and use instead a system that does not follow all of the above three ethics of transcription, please kindly request in this discussion page and wait until people reach a conclusion.

Rethliopuks (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Changed to more phonetic explanation. Do check to see if there's any problems. Thank you.--Officer781 (talk) 11:40, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I have changed the table to the five-vowel analysis as it is more amiable to explanation. Here the /u/ nucleus finals are explained naturally as rhotacization and the /i/ and /y/ finals as converting to glides, which is problematic under the two-vowel analysis.--Officer781 (talk) 14:24, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Is "er" [ɤ˞], [ɚ] or [aɚ]?
Is "er" [ɤ˞], [ɚ] or [aɚ̯]? In Standard Chinese phonology it's [ɚ] or [aɚ] whereas in Erhua it's [ɤ˞]. LoveVanPersie (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Fixed. "er" is either [ɚ] or [aɚ̯], while "e'r" (e+er) is [ɤ˞]. Thanks for pointing that out.--Officer781 (talk) 17:00, 23 November 2017 (UTC)