(LANGUAGE !)
Monday, November 24, 2008, 7:32 AM
The Kunming dialect is known as Mandarin is spoken by the inhabitants of Kunming and the surrounding areas of Yunnan province in Southwest China. The dialect is basically similar to Standard Mandarin, the major differences being the unique pronunciation of certain sounds and the development of unique phrases and terms.
As with all dialects of Chinese, speakers of the Kunming dialect read standard Chinese characters, though the pronunciation of words can, in some cases, be markedly different. For example the Chinese word 什么 (in Standard Mandarin Hanyu pinyin shén-me) (meaning 'what') is pronounced nǎn-yàng in vernacular Kunming dialect.
In some cases entirely unique phrases are used, which may or may not have equivalent written characters. To say "I don't know" in Standard Mandarin is 不知道 (pinyin bù zhīdào) but in Kunming dialect is the completely different phrase rèn bù dé. Another example would be hai-zi meaning shoes in the Kunming dialect, whereas in Standard Mandarin hai-zi means child and xie zi is the phrase for shoes.
