Beijing dialect, or Pekingese (simplified Chinese: 北京话; traditional Chinese: 北京話; pinyin: Běijīnghuà), is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. It is the phonological basis of Standard Chinese, which is used by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore.

Although the Beijing dialect and Standard Chinese are highly similar, various differences generally make clear to Chinese speakers whether an individual is a native of Beijing speaking the local Beijing variant or is an individual speaking Standard Chinese.

DistributionThe term "Beijing dialect" usually refers to the dialect spoken in the urban area of Beijing only.[citation needed] However, linguists[who?] have given a broader definition for Beijing Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 北京官话; traditional Chinese: 北京官話; pinyin: Běijīng Guānhuà) that also includes some dialects closely akin to that of urban Beijing.

For example, the topolect of Chengde, Hebei, a city to the north of Beijing, is consideredsufficiently close to Beijing dialect to be put into this category. Standard Chinese is also put into this category,[citation needed] since it is based on the local dialect of Beijing.

Mutual intelligibility with other Mandarin dialectsDungan language speakers like Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that Chinese who speak Beijing dialect can understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand the Beijing Mandarin.

Phonology This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

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. (See Standard Chinese for its phonology charts; the same basic structure applies to the Beijing dialect.)

However, some striking differences exist. Most prominent is the proliferation of rhotic vowels. All rhotic vowels are the result of the use of the -儿 /-ɻ/, a noun suffix, except for a few words pronounced /ɑɻ/ that do not have this suffix. In Standard Chinese, these also occur but much less often than they appear in Beijing dialect. This phenomenon is known as érhuà (儿化) 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 any vowel except [o] as in 我 wǒ, e.g. 尾巴 wěiba [ʋei̯˨pa˦].