Kunming dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kunming dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Kunming dialect of standard Chinese (Mandarin), known as Kunminghua (昆明话), is spoken by the inhabitants of Kunming city and the surrounding areas of Yunnan province in the southwest of China. The dialect is basically similar to standard Chinese, 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 pronounciation of words can, in some cases, be markedly different. For example the Chinese word 什么 (meaning 'what') is pronounced shen-me in the standard dialect, but in vernacular Kunming dialect the word is pronounced nai-yah. In some cases entirely unique phrases are used, which may or may not have equivalent written characters. One common example is the term 'rahn bu deh' meaning 'I don't know.' The standard dialect term is markedly different: 不知道 'bu zhi-dao'.