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73-512: Beijing Mandarin may refer to: Beijing dialect , of Mandarin Chinese Beijing Mandarin (division of Mandarin) See also [ edit ] Beijingese (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Beijing Mandarin . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

146-493: A "swallowing of consonants", or 吞音 ; tūnyīn . ⟨ j q x ⟩ /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ become ⟨ y ⟩ /j/ , so 赶紧去 ; gǎnjǐnqù ; 'go quickly' can sound like gǎnyǐnqù ; pinyin ⟨ b d g ⟩ /p t k/ go through voicing to become [b d ɡ] ; intervocalic ⟨ p t k ⟩ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ also lose aspiration and can be voiced, sounding identical to ⟨ b d g ⟩; similar changes also occur on other consonants. ⟨ f ⟩

219-679: A 1913 decision by the Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation , which took the Beijing dialect as its base but retained a lot of phonology from other varieties of Mandarin , resulting in the Old National Pronunciation . This was overturned in 1926, resulting in the "pronunciation of the educated natives of Beijing" officially adopted as the basis for the phonology of Standard Chinese (Guoyu) in 1926. In 1955,

292-626: A castle, fortress, or fortification, but in modern Chinese, the character means city. Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gugong ( 故 宮 ), which means the "Former Palace". The museum which is based in these buildings is known as the "Palace Museum" ( 故 宮 博 物 院 ; Gùgōng Bówùyùan ). In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Forbidden City was also known as Danei ( 大 内 ) or "Palace City" ( 宮 城 ; Gōngchéng ). When

365-551: A ceremony was held at the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor as ruler of all China under the Qing dynasty . The Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings to emphasise "harmony" rather than "supremacy", made the nameplates bilingual (Chinese and Manchu ), and introduced shamanist elements to the palace. In 1860, during the Second Opium War , Anglo-French forces took control of

438-420: A city, and its speech has held sway as a lingua franca. Being officially selected to form the basis of the phonology of Standard Mandarin has further contributed to its status as a prestige dialect , or sometimes the prestige dialect of Chinese. Other scholars have referred to it as the "elite Beijing accent." Until at least the late eighteenth century, the standard language of the Chinese elite had been

511-579: A coiled dragon, from the mouth of which issues a chandelier-like set of metal balls, called the " Xuanyuan Mirror". In the Ming dynasty, the emperor held court here to discuss affairs of state. During the Qing dynasty, as emperors held court far more frequently, a less ceremonious location was used instead, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was only used for ceremonial purposes, such as enthronements , investitures , and imperial weddings. The Hall of Central Harmony

584-714: A feature known as 女国音 ; nǚguóyīn ; 'female Standard Chinese'. Moreover, the Beijing dialect has a few phonetic reductions that are usually considered too "colloquial" for use in Standard Chinese. These are often dependent on which syllables are stressed and unstressed. For example, in fast speech, initial consonants go through lenition if they are in an unstressed syllable : pinyin] ⟨ zh ch sh ⟩ /tʂ tʂʰ ʂ/ before ⟨ e i u ⟩ become ⟨ r ⟩ /ɻ/ , so 不知道 ; bùzhīdào ; 'don't know' can sound like bùrdào ; 老师 ; lǎoshī can sound like lǎor , resulting in

657-438: A glide or vowel it is often eliminated along with any following glides so 中央 ; zhōngyāng is pronounced zhuāng and 公安局 ; gōng'ānjú as guānjú . Sibilant initials differ significantly between Standard Chinese and the Beijing dialect. The initials ⟨z c s⟩ /ts tsʰ s/ are pronounced as [tθ tθʰ θ] in Beijing. ⟨j q x⟩ /tɕ tɕʰ ɕ/ are pronounced as /ts tsʰ s/ by some female speakers,

730-420: A layout of three palaces on either side of an alley that runs from north to south. Every palace has its own courtyards, main halls, and side-halls. The main halls stand in the middle and the side-halls are in the east and west. The front courtyard and its main hall was used for receptions, while the back courtyard and its main hall served as living quarters. An imperial consort with the rank of concubine and above

803-400: A more "refined" accent than the poorer people, craftsmen, and performers of the south. Some fear that the vernacular Beijing dialect will disappear. According to a 2010 study by Beijing Union University , 49% of young Beijingers born after 1980 prefer to speak standard Mandarin rather than the Beijing dialect. According to a UN report, nearly 100 Chinese dialects, especially those spoken by

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876-614: A physical installation. The courtyard was built on a massive, luxurious scale but it has the appearance of an ordinary quadrangle courtyard. The Forbidden City was designed to be the centre of the ancient, walled city of Beijing. It is enclosed in a larger, walled area called the Imperial City . The Imperial City is, in turn, enclosed by the Inner City; to its south lies the Outer City. The Forbidden City remains important in

949-587: A square before it, and five gateways. The central gateway is part of the Imperial Way, a stone flagged path that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and the ancient city of Beijing itself, leading all the way from the Gate of China in the south to Jingshan Park in the north. Except for the empress on the occasion of her wedding and successful students after the Imperial Examination , only

1022-671: Is a double-eaved building, 9 bays wide and 3 bays deep. In the Ming dynasty, it was the residence of the Empress. In the Qing dynasty, large portions of the Palace were converted for Shamanist worship by the new Manchu rulers. From the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, the Empress moved out of the Palace. However, two rooms in the Palace of Earthly Harmony were retained for use on the Emperor's wedding night. Between these two palaces

1095-408: Is a rectangle, measuring 961 m (3,153 ft) from north to south and 753 m (2,470 ft) from east to west. It consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,886 bays of rooms. A common myth states that there are 9,999 rooms including antechambers, based on oral tradition, but it is not supported by survey evidence. The layout of the Forbidden City protected the imperial code of ethics as

1168-414: Is a smaller, square hall, used by the emperor to prepare and rest before and during ceremonies. Behind it, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, was used for rehearsing ceremonies, and was also the site of the final stage of the Imperial Examination . All three halls feature imperial thrones, the largest and most elaborate one being that in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. At the centre of the stairs leading up to

1241-464: Is a translation of the Chinese name Zijincheng ( 紫 禁 城 ; lit.   ' Purple Forbidden City ' ), which first formally appeared in 1576. Another English name of similar origin is "Forbidden Palace," though "city" is much closer to the original Chinese meaning. The name " Zijincheng " has significance on many levels. Zi , or "purple", refers to the North Star , which in ancient China

1314-583: Is arguably the most famous palace in all of Chinese history , and is the largest preserved royal palace complex still standing in the world. The Forbidden City was constructed from 1406 to 1420, and was the imperial palace and winter residence of the Emperor of China from the Ming dynasty (since the Yongle Emperor ) to the end of the Qing dynasty , between 1420 and 1924. The Forbidden City served as

1387-912: Is claimed to be strong in Khorchin Mongolian , whilst there have been claims of phonetic influence from Mandarin Chinese in the Kharchin variety of Mongolian. The aspirated bilabial stop /pʰ/ and the labial approximant /w/ are phonemes only found in loanwords from Chinese and Tibetan , evident in their limited distribution in Mongolian. Substantial diglossia can also be observed in Inner Mongolia. The Beijing dialect typically uses many words that are considered slang, and therefore occur much less or not at all in Standard Chinese. Speakers not native to Beijing may have trouble understanding many or most of these. Many of such slang words employ

1460-498: Is extremely important to the Chinese public and nation, who often view it as a cultural and heavenly link to their ancestors. The palace gained its name from its enormous scale and severely restricted access to all but the Emperor , the Imperial family , and Eunuchs ; hence the Chinese term "Forbidden City" emerged. The punishment for unauthorised entry to the palace was immediate execution. The common English name "Forbidden City"

1533-421: Is located to the west of Cining Palace. To the south of Cining Palace is Cining garden. Religion was an important part of life for the imperial court. In the Qing dynasty, the Palace of Earthly Harmony became a place of Manchu Shamanist ceremony. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to have an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties. There were two Taoist shrines, one in

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1606-576: Is the Hall of Union , which is square in shape with a pyramidal roof. Stored here are the 25 Imperial Seals of the Qing dynasty, as well as other ceremonial items. Behind these three halls lies the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small, and compact in design, the garden nevertheless contains several elaborate landscaping features. To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Might. Directly to

1679-582: Is the imperial palace complex in the center of the Imperial City in Beijing , China . It was the residence of 24 Ming and Qing dynasty Emperors , and the center of political power in China for over 500 years from 1420 to 1924. The palace is now administered by the Palace Museum . As a UNESCO World Heritage Site , it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. The Forbidden City

1752-400: Is the guttural Scotch or German ch. A Manchu Grammar: With Analysed Texts , Paul Georg von Möllendorff , p. 1. The Chinese Northern Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing had a major impact on the phonology of the dialect of Manchu spoken in Beijing , and since Manchu phonology was transcribed into Chinese and European sources based on the sinified pronunciation of Manchus from Beijing,

1825-458: Is the largest, and rises some 30 m (98 ft) above the level of the surrounding square. It is the ceremonial centre of imperial power, and the largest surviving wooden structure in China. It is nine bays wide and five bays deep, the numbers 9 and 5 being symbolically connected to the majesty of the emperor. Set into the ceiling at the centre of the hall is an intricate caisson decorated with

1898-471: Is voiced and relaxed in intervocalic positions, resulting in [ʋ] . Affricates are elided into fricatives when not word initial, such as 茅厕 ; máocè becoming máosi. Some of these changes yield syllables that violate the syllable structure of Standard Chinese, such as 大柵欄 ; Dà Zhàlán Street, which locals pronounce as Dàshlàr . The literary tones of the Beijing dialect tend to be more exaggerated than Standard Chinese. In Standard Chinese,

1971-629: The 55 ethnic minorities in China , are endangered. The Beijing dialect is generally mutually intelligible with other Mandarin dialects, including Standard Chinese. However it is not intelligible with other Sino-Tibetan languages or even other Chinese languages including Cantonese , Hokkien , and Wu Chinese . The Dungan language is a Sinitic language derived from Mandarin spoken throughout Central Asia , particularly in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan . Speakers like Dungan poet and scholar Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak

2044-663: The Hongwu Emperor 's son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor , he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 on what would become the Forbidden City. Construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers. Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood ( 楠 木 ; nánmù ) found in the jungles of south-western China, and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing. The floors of major halls were paved with "golden bricks" ( 金 磚 ; jīnzhuān ), specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou . From 1420 to 1644,

2117-539: The Nanjing dialect , despite political power having already been located in Beijing. Through the nineteenth century, evidence from Western dictionaries suggests that a shift occurred in the court from a Nanjing-based standard to a more local Beijing-based one. During the Qing dynasty it was used alongside the Manchu language as the official court language. The establishment of phonology of Standard Chinese dates from

2190-640: The People's Republic of China declared that Standard Chinese was to be "modeled on the pronunciation of Beijing, draws on Northern Chinese as its base dialect, and receives its syntactic norms from exemplary works of vernacular literature". The Beijing dialect has been described as carrying a lot of "cultural heft." According to Zhang Shifang, professor at Beijing Language and Culture University , "As China's ancient and modern capital, Beijing and thus its linguistic culture as well are representative of our entire nation's civilization... For Beijing people themselves,

2263-612: The Beijing dialect could understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand Beijing Mandarin. In fundamental structure, the phonology of the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are almost identical. In part, this is because the pronunciation of Standard Chinese was based on Beijing pronunciation. However, the Beijing dialect also has vernacular readings of characters which are not only different, but have initial and final combinations that are not present in Standard Chinese, such as 嗲 ; diǎ , 塞 ; sēi , 甭 ; béng , 忒 ; tēi , and 色 ; shǎi . Other differences exist, including

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2336-481: The Beijing dialect is an important symbol of identity." Some argue that Cantonese is the "only dialect which has attained a level of prestige that rivals that of the standard national language." The dialect has been described as "the official language of the entertainment industry", making it also the "showbiz accent." Even within Beijing the dialect varies. Those north of the Forbidden City spoke with

2409-408: The Beijing dialect. Both southern Chinese and southern Mandarin syntactic features were incorporated into Standard Mandarin, while the Beijing dialect retains features of northern Mandarin. The Beijing dialect also uses colloquial expressions differently. There is a conditional loss of the classifier under certain circumstances after the numeral 一 ; 'one', usually pronounced as yí with

2482-466: The Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war. In 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion , leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. After being the home of 24 emperors — 14 of the Ming dynasty and 10 of the Qing dynasty — the Forbidden City ceased being the political centre of China in 1912 with

2555-402: The Forbidden City has seen an average of 14 million visitors annually, and received more than 19 million visitors in 2019. In 2018, the Forbidden City's market value was estimated at US$ 70 billion, making it both the world's most valuable palace and the most valuable piece of real estate anywhere in the world. It was listed as the first batch of national key cultural relics in 1961. The palace

2628-511: The Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming dynasty . In April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng , who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty . He soon fled before the combined armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces, setting fire to parts of the Forbidden City in the process. By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, and

2701-593: The Forbidden City. Part of the collection returned at the end of World War II , but the other part was evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 under orders of Chiang Kai-shek , whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese Civil War . This relatively small but high quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it again became public as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei . After

2774-475: The Hall of Supreme Harmony, is even longer, but is made from two stone slabs joined — the joint was ingeniously hidden using overlapping bas-relief carvings, and was only discovered when weathering widened the gap in the 20th century. The stone slabs were likely transported from a quarry via ice sledge along an ice path lubricated by well water en route. In the southwest and southeast of the Outer Court are

2847-478: The Inner Court is Cining Palace (Palace of Compassion and Tranquility) and Shoukang Palace (Palace of Longevity and Good Health). The palaces were the residences of widowed consorts of previous emperors. In accordance with feudal manners, emperors should not live with the wives of late emperors, so they lived in this separate area of the Inner Court. The Cining palace is bigger and older than Shoukang Palace which

2920-469: The Inner Court is taken up by the Palace of Tranquil Longevity ( 寧 壽 宮 ) (O), a complex built by the Qianlong Emperor in anticipation of his retirement. It mirrors the set-up of the Forbidden City proper and features an "outer court", an "inner court", and gardens and temples. The entrance to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity is marked by a glazed-tile Nine Dragons Screen . To the west and to

2993-546: The Ming and Qing Dynasties", due to its significant place in the development of Chinese architecture and culture. In the early 21st century, the Palace Museum carried out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all buildings in the Forbidden City to their pre-1911 state, with the goal that 76% of the palace would be open to the public by 2020. As a result of that project, the Shoukang Palace

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3066-470: The abdication of Puyi , the last Emperor of China. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, until he was evicted after a coup in 1924. The Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925. In 1933, the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in

3139-500: The axis was designed during the Yuan dynasty to be aligned with Shangdu , the other capital of their empire. The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 m (26 ft) high city wall and a 6 m (20 ft) deep by 52 m (171 ft) wide moat . The walls are 8.62 m (28.3 ft) wide at the base, tapering to 6.66 m (21.9 ft) at the top. These walls served as both defensive walls and retaining walls for

3212-537: The centre of the Inner Court is another set of three halls (L). From the south, these are: Smaller than the Outer Court halls, the three halls of the Inner Court were the official residences of the Emperor and the Empress. The Emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, would occupy the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The Empress, representing Yin and the Earth, would occupy the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. In between them

3285-581: The civic scheme of Beijing. The central north–south axis remains the central axis of Beijing. This axis extends to the south through Tiananmen Gate to Tiananmen Square , the ceremonial centre of the People's Republic of China, and on to Yongdingmen Gate . To the north, it extends through Jingshan Park to the Drum Tower and Bell Tower . This axis is not exactly aligned north–south, but is tilted by slightly more than two degrees. Researchers now believe that

3358-575: The east of the three main halls of the inner court are the Six Western Palaces (西六宫; xīliùgōng ) and the Six Eastern Palaces (东六宫; dōngliùgōng ). These palaces were the residences of the imperial consorts . Six palaces lay to the west and six to the east of the three main halls, hence the name. The architecture of the twelve palaces, connected by passageways, is more or less the same. The Western and Eastern Palaces each have

3431-404: The emperor could walk or ride on the Imperial Way. Traditionally, the Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the Outer Court ( 外 朝 ; Wàicháo ) or Front Court ( 前 朝 ; Qiáncháo ) to the south, which was used for ceremonial purposes; and the Inner Court ( 内 廷 ; Nèitíng ) or Back Palace ( 后 宫 ; Hòugōng ) to the north, which was the residence of the emperor and his family and

3504-476: The establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as the country was swept up in revolutionary zeal. During the Cultural Revolution , however, further destruction was prevented when Premier Zhou Enlai sent an army battalion to guard the city. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO as the "Imperial Palace of

3577-622: The four tones are high flat, high rising, low dipping, and falling; in the Beijing dialect, the first two tones are higher, the third one dips more prominently, and the fourth one falls more. However, toneless syllables are incredibly common in the vernacular Beijing dialect and the third tone is realized as a low tone instead of a dipping tone, known as a "half third tone". Many of the Manchu words are now pronounced with some Chinese peculiarities of pronunciation, so k before i and e=ch', g before i and e=ch, h and s before i=hs, etc. H before a, o, u, ū,

3650-614: The halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The former was used at various times for the emperor to receive ministers and hold court, and later housed the palace's own printing house. The latter was used for ceremonial lectures by highly regarded Confucian scholars, and later became the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries was stored there. To

3723-572: The home of Chinese emperors and their households and was the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government for over 500 years. Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum , whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts was built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. The complex claims to consist of 9,999 rooms in total, although experts have shown in recent years that

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3796-516: The imperial garden and another in the central area of the Inner Court. Another prevalent form of religion in the Qing dynasty palace was Buddhism . A number of temples and shrines were scattered throughout the Inner Court, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decorations of many buildings. Of these, the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers

3869-536: The late Qing era, Empress Dowager Cixi resided in one of the Western Palaces and became known as the "western empress", while her co-regent Empress Dowager Ci'an lived in one of the Eastern Palaces and was thus known as the "eastern empress". The names of the palaces were: Western Six Palaces Eastern Six Palaces To the west of the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N) in the western area of

3942-472: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beijing_Mandarin&oldid=1218331641 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Beijing dialect As the political and cultural capital of China , Beijing has held much historical significance as

4015-515: The most visible parts of the palace to people outside the walls, and much folklore is attached to them. According to one legend, artisans could not put a corner tower back together after it was dismantled for renovations in the early Qing dynasty, and it was only rebuilt after the intervention of carpenter-immortal Lu Ban . The wall is pierced by a gate on each side. At the southern end is the main Meridian Gate (A) ( 午 門 ; Wǔmén ). To

4088-608: The north is the Gate of Divine Prowess (B) ( 神 武 門 ; Shénwǔmén ), which faces Jingshan Park. The east and west gates are the East Glorious Gate (D) ( 東 華 門 ; Dōnghuámén ) and the West Glorious Gate (C) ( 西 華 門 ; Xīhuámén ). All gates in the Forbidden City are decorated with nine-by-nine arrays of golden door nails, except for the East Glorious Gate, which has only eight. The Meridian Gate has two protruding wings, which form three sides of

4161-499: The north-east are the Southern Three Places ( 南 三 所 ) (K), which was the residence of the crown prince . The Inner Court is separated from the Outer Court by an oblong courtyard lying orthogonal to the city's main axis. It was the home of the Emperor and his family. In the Qing dynasty, the Emperor lived and worked almost exclusively in the Inner Court, with the Outer Court used only for ceremonial purposes. At

4234-476: The number only amounts to 8,886, covering 72 ha (720,000 m )/178-acre. The palace exemplifies the opulence of the residences of the Chinese emperor and the traditional Chinese palatial architecture , and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. It is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Since 2012,

4307-420: The original authentic Manchu pronunciation is unknown to scholars. The Manchus that lived in Beijing were influenced by the Beijing dialect insofar as pronouncing Manchu sounds was hard for them, and they pronounced Manchu according to Chinese phonetics. In contrast, the Manchus of Aigun , Heilongjiang could both pronounce Manchu sounds properly and mimic the sinified pronunciation of Manchus in Beijing. This

4380-587: The palace. They were constructed with a rammed earth core, and surfaced with three layers of specially baked bricks on both sides, with the interstices filled with mortar. At the four corners of the wall sit corner towers (E) with intricate roofs boasting 72 ridges, reproducing the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Yellow Crane Pavilion as they appeared in Song dynasty paintings. These towers are

4453-651: The proliferation of rhotic vowels . All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the 儿 ; -r /-ɚ/ , a noun suffix , except for a few words pronounced [ɐɚ̯] that do not have this suffix. In Standard Chinese, these also occur but much less often than they appear in the Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as 儿化 ; érhuà , or rhotacization , as is considered one of the iconic characteristics of Beijing Mandarin. When /w/ occurs in syllable-initial position, many speakers use [ʋ] before vowels other than [o] as in 我 wǒ , and [u] as in 五 ; wǔ , e.g. 尾巴 wěiba [ʋei̯˨pa˦] . When / ŋ / occurs before

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4526-589: The rhotic suffix "-r", which is known as erhua . Examples include: Some Beijing phrases may be somewhat disseminated outside Beijing: Note that some of the slang are considered to be 土话 ; tuhua ; 'base', 'uneducated language', that are carry-overs from an older generation and are no longer used amongst more educated speakers, for example: Others may be viewed as neologisms used among younger speakers and in "trendier" circles: The dialect also contains both Manchu and Mongol loanwords: There are syntactic differences between Standard Mandarin and

4599-592: The second tone, as if undergoing tone sandhi with the classifier 个 ; gè after it. In general, Standard Chinese is influenced by Classical Chinese , which makes it more condense and concise. The Beijing dialect can therefore seem more longwinded; but this is sometime balanced by the generally faster speaking rate and phonetic reductions of colloquial Beijing speech. 今天 Jīntiān 会 huì 下雨， xiàyǔ, 所以 suǒyǐ 出门 chūmén 的 Forbidden City The Forbidden City ( Chinese : 紫禁城 ; pinyin : Zǐjìnchéng )

4672-489: The smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation (N) to the west, out of respect to the memory of the Kangxi Emperor . The Palace of Heavenly Purity then became the Emperor's audience hall. A caisson is set into the roof, featuring a coiled dragon. Above the throne hangs a tablet reading "Justice and Honour" ( Chinese : 明 光 大 正 ; pinyin : míngguāng dà zhèng ). The Palace of Earthly Tranquility ( 坤 寧 宮 )

4745-487: The square stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F) ( 太 和 門 ; Tàihémén ). Behind that is a square from which a three-tiered white marble terrace rises and three halls stand on top of this terrace, the focus of the palace complex. From the south, these are the Hall of Supreme Harmony ( 太 和 殿 ; Tàihédiàn ), the Hall of Central Harmony ( 中 和 殿 ; Zhōnghédiàn ), and the Hall of Preserving Harmony ( 保 和 殿 ; Bǎohédiàn ). The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G)

4818-456: The terraces from the northern and southern sides are ceremonial ramps, part of the Imperial Way, featuring elaborate and symbolic bas-relief carvings. The northern ramp, behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.57 m (54.4 ft) long, 3.07 m (10.1 ft) wide, and 1.7 m (5.6 ft) thick. It weighs some 200 tons and is the largest such carving in China. The southern ramp, in front of

4891-503: The west is the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N). Originally a minor palace, this became the de facto residence and office of the Emperor starting from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing dynasty, empresses dowager, including Cixi, held court from the eastern partition of the hall. Located around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council and other key government bodies. The north-eastern section of

4964-749: Was because they learned the Beijing pronunciation from either studying in Beijing or from officials sent to Aigun from Beijing. They could also tell them apart, using the Chinese influenced pronunciation of Beijing to demonstrate that they were better educated and had "superior stature" in society. A substantial proportion of the loanwords in Mongolian are derived from Chinese, with the oldest layer of loanwords in Written Mongolian being Chinese in origin. Much of Mongolian spoken in Inner Mongolia has been affected by Mandarin: lexical influence

5037-653: Was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrology was the heavenly abode of the Jade Emperor . The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure ( 紫 微 垣 ; Zǐwēiyuán ), was the realm of the Jade Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin refers to a prohibition or taboo . Cheng originally meant

5110-422: Was given a residence in the main section of a palace and was the manager of that palace, an honor in itself. Lower ranking imperial consorts (noble ladies and below) lived in the side halls of the palaces and were supervised by the higher ranking imperial consort. The twelve palaces were the place where many of the Qing emperors were born and grew up, and they formed the daily life of the imperial family. During

5183-644: Was officially opened to the public in 2013, after initially being displayed in its original state. A sculpture museum was opened in the Cining Palace in 2015. Also opened in 2015 were the precincts around Cining Palace, the Yanyin Building and the Donghua Gate. On the 5 November 2024, 100 years was marked since the expulsion of the last Emperor of China , Puyi , from the palace by republican forces , led by Feng Yuxiang . The Forbidden City

5256-541: Was the Hall of Union, where the Yin and Yang mixed to produce harmony. The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a double-eaved building, and set on a single-level white marble platform. It is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to its south by a raised walkway. In the Ming dynasty, it was the residence of the Emperor. However, beginning from the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing dynasty , the Emperor lived instead at

5329-464: Was used for day-to-day affairs of state (the approximate dividing line shown as a red dash in the plan above). Generally, the Forbidden City has three vertical axes. The most important buildings are situated on the central north–south axis. Entering from the Meridian Gate, one encounters a large square, pierced by the meandering Inner Golden Water River, which is crossed by five bridges. Beyond

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