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After watching this video, I asked about a dozen of my current and former graduate students and colleagues from the PRC what Sinitic topolect they thought the Chinese man was speaking.  They all placed it somewhere in the north, most of them in the region where Henan and Shandong intersect, but there were other surmises as well.

The most detailed response came from a professor at Peking University, who wrote:

I listened to it a couple times and transcribed the whole thing, the African man's words are in【】. I highlighted a couple of suspected dialect words and put the English translations in ( ). There are several places where he pronounced "的" [de] as [di], which I highlighted in red.  [VHM:  See below for the complete transcription.]

I also asked a few of my students, and those from Henan 河南 and Shaanxi 陕西 said it’s not a dialect of these two provinces. One of the students who has studied Chinese phonetics sent me this:

Kěndìng bùshì Shǎnběi kǒuyīn, Shǎnběi kǒuyīn de tèdiǎn shì bǎ na (n) yùnwěi dú dé xiàng ṅa(ng), érqiě bǎoliúle rù shēng; zhège wǒ juédé shì Huáběi píngyuán mǒu chǔ de kǒuyīn, jí yǒu kěnéng shì Héběi hé Shāndōng de jiāojiè chù (Jì Lǔ guānhuà) de kǒuyīn.

肯定不是陕北口音，陕北口音的特点是把 ন (n) 韵尾读得像 ঙ(ng)，而且保留了入声；这个我觉得是华北平原某处的口音，极有可能是河北和山东的交界处（冀鲁官话）的口音。

"It is definitely not northern Shaanxi accent. The characteristic of northern Shaanxi accent is that the final rhyme of ন (n) is read like ঙ(ng), and the entering tone is retained. I think this is the accent of somewhere in the North China Plain, most likely the accent of the border between Hebei and Shandong (Ji-Lu Mandarin [Mandarin Chinese spoken in the Chinese provinces of Hebei (Jì 冀) and the western part of Shandong (Lǔ 魯) and Xunke, Tangwang & Jiayin counties of Heilongjiang])."

Since the video has sound, we know exactly how the topolects being spoken are pronounced, so I do not provide romanization for the character transcription.  The video also has adequate subtitles, so neither do I provide a translation for what is being said.

Whereas the Chinese man has a thick accent, the African man has decent Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM).

政府办事的效率太没谱（too unreliable），我们就是跟政府谈，这个谈在……春节左右的时候就开始谈。现在已经半年了，现在，到现在都没有一个明确答复。

按说是你们受欧洲国家管理这么长时间应该是学到了很多先进的[di]管理经验。

【哪有多长时间，没有多长时间，我们才……那个国庆节啊，现在是五十年】

就是五十年以前你们不是都受西方那个。。。

【五十年以前什么都好啊】

是啊，那个先进的影响力，那应该代代往后传下来，越传那个文明越发达了，怎么越来越倒退、越来越落后了？把原来留下的东西根本都没有更加的爱护、保护、去利用它，反而都遭到毁灭性的[di]重创，成了这样子的。

 

就慢慢经过几代人，他是，就是中国说的那句话“今日有酒今日醉，明日没酒喝凉水“就是，就这样子。

 

在这个消费观念上头（here means “on”, usually 头is not used)）噢，中国人和这个……他们这个刚果人，这个，他们受比利时这个西方影响，绝对，他们有钱没钱啊，该消费照消费，那潇洒得很，那一发工资那几天特别潇洒。比利时我没有直接接触到，我当然接触他们这些人，当然因为他受比利时这个影响应该是，我想也是这样子的。男的也是，有钱那几天狂得很着呢（very），过了几天都蔫儿了都回来了，再没几天就开始跟你借钱了。其实他们喝酒，让他们说喝酒他喝不了多少，他就喜欢那个，喝，酒吧里喝一喝，屁股扭一扭，那这个扭屁股那真的是一绝（unique）啊，这是在……这确实是一绝哦，实在好看。

 

下来之后，这个一扭就进去了，这个粗的[di]，这么长的[di]噢。

唉，你们真的……不是，我叫你拿一个粗的[di]！

 

尤其他们这个黑人开车，这个，他们这个……开车这个……你看他们这个一起步这个车轮就在底下打转。

他这个铁路线整个都毁掉了，真是，建起来不容易的[di]很呐（very）。到处的[di]这个基础设施都很差的[di]。

 

作为一个国家的公民你都不了解你国家的情况。

【我呀？】

 

你真的是，你很懒。

【你要干什么？】

不是我干什么，你要帮我准备一下，把它该怎么叠啊，得盖一下，你看我都在这做着准备工作，你这真的是……

This video is indeed hard to take, but the most difficult portions to process are those silent portraits of Chinese men with beautiful African women, as though they were couples or even families.

Zhang He (an anthropologist and art historian specializing in the development of writing, and a native of Xinjiang Province who has done extensive, extended fieldwork in many far-flung places around the world) provides the following assessment:

The Chinese man sounds like he has a  northern accent; from Shandong probably, or Henan. The translator’s Chinese sounded like he learned it in Shanghai or somewhere in the south.

应该是北方口音；山东或河南人讲普通话。那个非洲翻译的中国话口音是南方口音，可能在上海或者江浙一带学的中文。

Ten years ago, I met a taxi driver in Nepal who spoke very fluent Chinese with a typical Shandong accent on the border with Henan, which amused me all the way from Kathmandu to Chitwan. He learned it from fellow Chinese workers who were also building highways in Nepal like in Africa. 

The Chinese railway and highway companies and construction sites are everywhere in Georgia. I have not seen any in Azerbaijan though.

The idea that Shandong topolect is being spoken by Nepalese in "mērō dōsrō mātr̥bhūmi मेरो दोस्रो मातृभूमि" ("my second homeland") tickles my fancy.

 

Selected readings

• "Heavily accented Mandarin" (9/22/23)
• "Learning to understand regionally accented Mandarin" Hacking Chinese (6/21/21)
• "Shandong vernacular, then and now" (8/1/21)
• "Shandong Dialect Intelligibility" (5/24/09)
• "Voice recognition vs. Shandong accent" (3/1/15)
• "Shandong lisp" (1/18/16)

 

December 7, 2024 @ 7:20 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Dialects, Topolects

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