Scope of Pekingese
北京话的内涵
Tao Lin 林焘

Abstract 摘要
Beijing is situated on the northwest border of the North China Plain. Taking the city proper as its center and spreading out in all four directions, Beijing encompasses ten districts and nine counties. It has a total surface area of 18000 square kilometers, and as of 1982 had a population of 9230000 (Figure 1). Though possessing this great a surface area and this great a population, no one had ever surveyed the distribution of its dialects in any detail. From 1982 to 1984 I offered a course at Peking University entitled “Survey of Pekingese.” In this course the students and I conducted a rather broad survey of this language. The survey itself was conducted in five stages and altogether surveyed 40 sites. Of these, six were conducted in the city proper, while the remainder were distributed in districts and counties outside the city. Each site had on the average 14 informants, representing differences in age, level of education, gender, and ethnicity, for a grand total of 560 persons. Because Beijing is so large and populous, it is fair to say that the materials from this survey are insufficient to bear out the entire picture of the Beijing dialect. However, from these materials, it is still possible to find some very interesting phenomena. This report for the most part proposes some preliminary views based upon these survey materials.