清代鸿胪寺正音考

Standard pronunciation of the Court of State Ceremonial (Honglu-si) in the Qing Dynasty

根据清初的制度,担任朝仪唱赞的"鸿胪寺序班"选用直隶、山东、山西、河南四省生员。而到乾隆十七年,以山东等三省"土语难变",清朝把序班的籍贯限定在直隶,从此以后直隶音成为朝廷唯一公认的权威性语音。但明清时期的江南人不大重视"北音",把"南音"视为自己的标准官话。利玛窦等传教士重视南京话,可能受到了南方这种正音观念的影响。清代直隶音在宫廷里享有权威性语音的地位,但它还没有成为整个汉人的共同语音。

Early in the eighteenth century,the Qing government adopted the Ushers (xuban) of the Court of State Ceremonial (Honglu-si) from the government students (shengyuan) in Zhili,Shandong,Shanxi, Henan.But since 1752,only the government students in Zhili qualified for the Usher for the reason of their pronunciation met the strict standard of the Court.After that,the Zhili Mandarin obtained the ex- clusionary status of the officially authorized pronunciation.People of the Lower Yangtze area did not approve the authority of this 'northern pronunciation,' and still supported the 'southern pronunciation (Southern Mandarin)' as their own standard language.Missionaries in the late imperial China,such as Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault,regarded the 'Nanjing' dialect as the standard Chinese,probably their evaluation was deeply affected by the viewpoint of the educated classes in the Lower Yangtze.The Zhili (Beijing) Mandarin maintained dignity in the Court through the late Qing Dynasty,but it had not established its status as the uniformed pronunciation of the nation.