Beijing dialect dictionary tries to save native tongue

12-28-2010 08:37 BJT

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Here a story about a book worth protecting... The latest project of a seventy-year-old retired professor was to preserve Beijing's local language. Now he's a local icon because he has complied a comprehensive Beijing dialect dictionary, and it has just landed on bookshelves.

The Beijing dialect dictionary is the first of its kind to standardize the language.

The dictionary is intended to save Beijing's native tongue, getting more and more Beijing residents using their local language. It contains over 11 thousand phrases used in downtown Beijing as well as suburbs.

Dong Shuren, Professor, said, "I've been collecting the phrases from daily life, Peking opera plays, and Radio programs. Some of them are even from what I heard in Beijing villages thirty years ago."

The Beijing dialect dictionary is the first of its kind to standardize the language.(File photo)

With a nation-wide campaign to popularize Mandarin, old slang terms with the Beijing dialect are used less and less.

And with the success of Professor Dong's work on the Beijing dialect, the language is now back in the popular consciousness.

Many people actually find it amusing and informative in learning the origin of some Beijing expressions.