Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

The post concerned is only true for quick, casual, colloquial speech. The
<j> is not pronounced as a fricative because the lenition in this case is to
aid speech speed, which fricativisation does not help.
The example of bǐjiào given is true, however, for all varieties of Mandarin,
and other such cases include zhèyàng "like this" > jiàng, or zhèbiān "on
this side" > jiān. But it is only in casual speech. It is not part of a
sound-change, and so the altered pronunciation hardly counts yet.
Particularly not to be imitated by a foreigner trying to enunciate
carefully! No one will understand.

Eugene

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>wrote:

>
> I found a post on Language Log saying that there is quite a bit of medial
> consonant lenition in spoken Mandarin, but unfortunately it doesn't mention
> at all whether the <j> is ever pronounced as a fricative.
>
> < http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=502 >
>