I admit it, I’m a bit of a language nerd. One of my friends and a previous colleague of mine often sends me language memes and I get quite passionate in teaching my A-Level English Language class. In that specific sixth form class, as part of the course I’m teaching, we’ve often discussed in depth about the significant role that language plays in shaping our own cultural identities.
My language, my dialect even, is not merely a means of communication; it is the essence of who I am and where I come from. It serves as a cultural marker that distinguishes me from others and connects me to my community and heritage. The places where we grow up and live clearly contribute to the way we speak, whether we are from the Yorkshire Dales, the Deep South of America or even Beijing.
For many people, this is where the discussion of accent begins and ends; we tend to sound like where we are from. Aside from this influence of geography, our speech is initially influenced primarily by our parents or caregivers, although this soon switches to our peers in childhood. Moving around a lot as a child, my own mother probably recognised this switch where the accent at home was different from the accent of the local area.
Even into adulthood, this influence of geography and peers still influences the way we speak. I’m not ashamed to admit it, that when I attempt to speak Chinese (I used to naively think I was speaking Mandarin) I have adopted a slight Sichuanese twang; the result of 7 years living in Chengdu and a clan of spicy in-laws.
China has 129 officially recognised dialects . When you walk through the bustling streets of a diverse city such as Chengdu, the melodic sounds of different languages and dialects fill your ears. Mandarin, Sichuanese, Chengduhua, Tibetan; each serves as a cultural marker that distinguishes and celebrates the unique identities of its speakers. Could Nanjing be the same? I set out to stop, listen and attempt to speak to Nanjing locals to find out if Nanjing has a rich linguistic tapestry and far this shapes cultural identities.
Early missionaries from the US to China learned Nankinese as the official language. During the Edo period (1603 – 1868) in Japan, Nankinese was taught as standard Chinese and, in fact, was considered “standard” Chinese all the way up until the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911), when the Yongzheng Emperor changed the official language to the Beijing variant
Even further back into history, when China was split between the Northern and Southern dynasties (420 – 589), Nanjing was revered as a bastion of Han culture in contrast to the “barbarian” northern tribes, and the language was considered the purest of China’s dialects. During the Sui (581 – 618), Tang (618 – 907), and Song (960 – 1279) dynasties, official texts on correct pronunciation and language use all took Nankinese as the model. The Nanjing dialect has been revered for a very long time, preceding even the English of Shakespeare’s time, so it should be implied that the Nanjing dialect has some clout.
My initial hypothesis to stop, listen and speak to Nanjing locals came out flat. I hadn’t really noticed any differences in the way people spoke. Maybe I was listening in the wrong areas of the city? Maybe my ears weren’t as attuned to the local dialect as I’d hoped they would be?
I lamented to my some of my sixth form students between lessons one day, and one of them told me to listen a little bit more carefully, as I should be noticing a specific but an apparent difference in pronunication. They explained that a common element of the Nanjing dialect was that the “n” and “l” sounds were often mixed when people spoke.
For example, I should hear people pronouncing “Nanjing” as “lan jin”. My ears weren’t as attuned that much is true, I hadn’t made that initial connection but something did click, not so much a Damscus moment, but more like the pieces of a challenging jigsaw puzzle slowing coming together. In my residential community, I’d often overheard young children calling after their grandmothers (奶奶; nai nai) as “lai lai”.
From then on, this apparently quite common element of in the Nanjing dialect, the dropping of the nasal “ng” sound; [ŋ] for anyone interest in phonology. Picking up my packages after work in the evening, I heard it. On the Metro, I heard it again. It almost became a daily occurrence; the overhearing of this specific pronunciation; “lan jin” began floating around in my ears.
Eavesdropping on conversations out and about (I make no apologies; I was conducting a linguistic experiment in my nosy mind), elements such as the the dropping of the nasal “ng” and the mixing of the “n” and “l” became common. At first, I noticed it in the older generations of Nanjing and presumed that this was because standard Mandarin has become the norm throughout the younger generations. But I heard it more and more with younger generations walking past me in shopping malls or waiting in Starbucks as people around spoke to their friends.
In fact, within those same conversations I noticed another linguistic element; code switching. This is the process of adjusting the way we speak according to the context around us (such as the well-known phenomenon of “phone voice”). For example, purely hypothetic here, when your mum goes from shouting at you because of the messy state of your bedroom to using her posh phone voice to answer her phone, all in a matter of seconds.
Code shifting, or style shifting which is a whole other linguistic debate that I’ll save you from here, is a way of projecting subtly different identities depending on where we are, who we are with, what we are trying to achieve, and the extent to which we want either to fit in or to distance ourselves from particular people, groups, or situations.
The code-switching I often overheard when out-and-about was people jumping between Nanjing dialect and Mandarin to communicate to their respective friends; Mandarin on the phone, Nankinese to their friends in Starbucks. It was fascinating to listen to.
The ayi in my lift bemoaned that her grandkids, while they could understand it, couldn’t speak Nanjing dialect. This reflected what one of my previous students had previously mentioned before, that their local dialect, in fact any trace of dialect, had been quickly stomped out during their formative years in kindergarten.
I pressed her more (anxious to gather as much information before we reached our respective floors) about her emotional attachment to the dialect. Her replies indicated a sense of linguistic pride in her dialect, saying, “I’ve lived in Nanjing all of my life, of course I speak 南京话. I enjoy speaking to other grandparents in the square or supermarket […] I speak to my son and my grandkids in the Nanjing dialect”. She seemed to be a proud Nanjinger through and through, and her dialect reflected that, further commenting, “I understand Mandarin, but I don’t use it”, before the lift doors closed behind her.
I rushed back to my apartment to note down what she said and pondered more on her words. Did her language use in her daily interactions fosters a sense of belonging and solidarity among the Nanjing dialect speakers? Her tone suggested so, I’ll have to ask her further when I see her again in the lift.
While my linguistic experiment was rudimentary, it gave me a lot of food for thought. Language and identity seem to go hand-in-hand. Whether it’s the Nanjing dialect or watching my wife slip straight back into using the Sichuan dialect with ease almost as soon as we stepped off the plane this Chinese New Year, dialect and accents are an integral part of our identity.
We do have some control over our dialect; code swifting is a prime example of that. I often lament that I lost my Yorkshire accent as a kid as we moved away from where I grew up, but I experience slipping back into the local way of speaking when I speak with friends and family from the area, or even when I speak to them on the phone.
This may seem to happen unintentionally, but the fact that I am are aware of it happening suggests some degree of intent. And why shouldn’t there be? After all, it is an entirely natural way to demonstrate that we belong to, or associate with, a particular group of people. More than this, it is a way of subtly, or not so subtly, reasserting our geographic or regional identity.
For many people, where they come from is a big part of who they are; the ayi in the lift exemplified this. For some, being from Dublin, or Chongqing, or even Birmingham is a matter of fierce personal pride. Others feel a more passive sense of belonging to or identifying with particular geographical groupings. But however active or passive the link between an individual and a particular place, it does exist, and can be demonstrated by the way we speak.
It is important to see the Nanjing dialect, or any local dialect, as a symbol of cultural heritage and identity. Regional linguistic diversity needs to be celebrated, regional dialects such as Nanjing’s, and I would encourage everyone to engage with and appreciate the richness of linguistic diversity in their own communities and beyond.
Stop and listen once in a while, you might learn something. Or in the words of Ferris Bueller himself; “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”. If you’re feeling literary, listen to wise words of Hemingway himself; “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen”.
