中文USEUROPEAFRICAASIA

    Digital dialects

    By Sun Ye ( China Daily ) Updated: 2013-12-08 07:30:13

    Digital dialects
    [Illustration by Song Chen/China Daily]

    New media such as smartphone apps are preserving China's local vernaculars, which are otherwise declining among the younger, tech-savvy generation. Sun Ye reports.

    Computer codes are deciphering a lifeline for China's dying dialects.

    The digitalization of dialects via smartphone apps and other new media is reconnecting the tech-savvy younger generation with the ancient vernaculars they're being slowly pulled away from by modernization, urbanization and globalization.

    The low-budget IOS and Android game Crazy Dialects, for instance, has 10 million players.

    Users listen to a phrase spoken in one of the country's incalculable dialects and define - usually, guess - their meanings by multiple choice.

    They start with Beijing dialect, which is a slightly slurred tweak on Putonghua, the standardized version of Mandarin. They then advance to the somewhat less standard Hebei and Tianjin dialects. From there, they move on to other increasingly distant-from-Putonghua parlances from 20 other provinces.

    They don't have the database for the entire nation. Creating it would be an unprecedented task.

    Only the most successful gamers can rise to the newly added Zhejiang dialect level, which is at least as difficult to beat as it is to reach.

    China's dialects are generally dichotomized as Mandarin-based and non-Mandarin based. Putonghua is, in fact, an auxiliary Mandarin-based dialect that's nobody's mother tongue. Rather, it is a standardization of Mandarin dialects developed from a family of similar parlances from eight linguistic regions, including Beijing, Northeast China, Jianghuai and Southwest China.

    It was declared the sole official language in 1955 to enable the entire nation to better understand one another. Other dialects, such as Hakka and Cantonese, don't share the rules of Mandarin or the family that sired it.

    While there are broad branches of China's linguistic tree, every city, county, town and village sprouts progressively idiosyncratic offshoots. So, the nation's dialects are as numerous as leaves and provide plenty of data for such apps as Crazy Dialects.

    "We had so much fun designing it," developer Zhu Weibo says.

    "We laughed often when we heard the strange expressions. It was fun, even though we worked through the nights."

    The 34-year-old came up with the idea and toiled with four colleagues for three weeks to develop the game.

    "I discovered how much fun a different dialect could bring," he says.

    "I was confident we'd get many users and wanted to display the diversity of dialects."

    The developers grabbed sound bites by asking friends from across the country to find native speakers in their respective locales.

    Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

    Most Popular
    Special
    ...
    ...
    中文无码精品一区二区三区| 日本中文字幕一区二区有码在线| 无码国模国产在线无码精品国产自在久国产 | 无码人妻精品一区二区蜜桃网站 | 无码无套少妇毛多18PXXXX| 天堂最新版中文网| 日韩专区无码人妻| 亚洲AV无码乱码国产麻豆| 亚洲成a人片在线观看中文动漫| 久久中文字幕无码专区| 无码中文字幕乱在线观看| 欧美日韩中文字幕在线观看| 中文资源在线官网| 成人无码精品1区2区3区免费看| 中文字幕日韩精品无码内射| 中文字幕视频一区| 中文日韩亚洲欧美字幕| 丰满少妇人妻无码| 无码人妻一区二区三区兔费| 日日摸夜夜添无码AVA片| 天堂在/线中文在线资源官网| 中文字幕极速在线观看| 国产高清无码视频| 男人的天堂无码动漫AV| 无码人妻精品一区二区三区夜夜嗨| 亚洲va中文字幕无码| 在线天堂中文在线资源网| 狠狠躁夜夜躁无码中文字幕| 久久精品中文无码资源站| 亚洲人成人无码网www国产| 无码精品蜜桃一区二区三区WW| 精品人妻大屁股白浆无码| 精品无码一区二区三区亚洲桃色| 亚洲国产精品无码专区在线观看| 久久精品亚洲AV久久久无码| 无码H黄肉动漫在线观看网站| 亚洲欧洲中文日韩av乱码| 亚洲伊人久久综合中文成人网 | 伊人久久一区二区三区无码| 人看的www视频中文字幕| 中文字幕一区二区人妻性色|