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0Dialects with a twist
方言玩出新花样
With punchlines, parody, and plenty of personality, young Chinese are making local dialects cool again — and sparking a nationwide language revival.
借助热梗、模仿和十足的个性，中国年轻人正让地方方言“潮”起来，引发全民语言复兴
" Has the grain been filled?" is a playful way of asking, "Have you eaten?" Similarly, "Your hands are like excavators, with the strength of bears, wolves, and leopards "means "You have a strong grip." These expressions, marked by grammatical quirks and vivid metaphors, are known as Nangyanwen or "Nan Chinese".
“饭吃了没有（粮食装满了吗）？”是一种调侃式的说法，意思是“你吃了吗？”又如，“你的手像挖掘机，熊狼豹的劲儿都有”则是在夸“你手劲儿很大”。这些语法独特、比喻生动的表达方式，被称为“馕言文”，也就是“馕式中文”。
Nan , a type of baked flatbread, is a staple food for the Uygur, Kazakh, and some other ethnic groups in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Recently, Nangyanwen has gone viral across major Chinese social media platforms, with many people eager to imitate and learn these distinctive expressions.
“馕”是一种烤制的扁平面饼，是新疆维吾尔自治区维吾尔族、哈萨克族等民族的主食。近期，“馕言文”在中国主要社交媒体平台上迅速走红，许多人纷纷模仿、学习这些独具特色的表达方式。
One of the key figures promoting this trend is Mardanjan Ruzi, a vlogger from Xinjiang. Since February, he has released seven videos featuring the dialect, each garnering tens of millions of views. He explains that Nangyanwen is a "hybrid" of Mandarin and Uygur ways of thinking — when Mandarin fails to precisely convey a thought, speakers borrow key elements from Uygur sentence structures, creating uniquely inverted phrases and imaginative metaphors.
新疆视频博主马尔丹江·如孜是推动这一趋势的重要人物之一。今年2月以来，他已经发布了7条与“馕言文”相关的视频，每条视频都收获了数千万次观看。他解释说，馕言文是一种融合普通话和维吾尔语思维方式的“混合表达”——当普通话难以准确传达某个想法时，说话者便借用维吾尔语的句式结构，从而创造出语序倒装、比喻丰富的独特短语。
" Nangyanwen is lively because it's deeply rooted in the daily lives of Xinjiang people," Ruzi said, recalling his early videos from 2022, when he referred to this style as "Xinjiang talk", before the term Nangyanwen was coined. At the time, however, many people saw accented, locally flavored languages as "rustic" and felt embarrassed to speak them.
“馕言文之所以生动，是因为它深深植根于新疆人的日常生活。”如孜说。他回忆称，早在2022年他就发布过类似风格的视频，当时他把这种表达方式称为“新疆普通话”，那时候“馕言文”这个名称还没有被提出来。然而，当时不少人认为带地方口音的表达“土气”，并不愿意开口使用。
" Thanks to this online trend, 'Xinjiang talk' is now seen as humorous and fun, and Xinjiang people as warm and friendly. It encourages everyone to connect with us and learn our way of speaking," he said. Ruzi believes that Nangyanwen has gained popularity across China because it's easy to pick up.
“现在因为网络上的热度，‘新疆普通话’被视为幽默有趣，新疆人也被看作热情友好。这让更多人愿意接近我们、了解我们说话的方式。”如孜说。他认为，馕言文能在全国范围内流行，是因为它容易上手。
Unlike some dialects that require systematic study, Nangyanwen's appeal lies in having "a foundation in Mandarin with a regional twist". It mainly involves adjusting word order and adding distinctive vocabulary, making this form of "micro-innovation" more accessible to a wider audience. In Ruzi's view, Nangyanwen acts as a bridge between pure Xinjiang dialect and Mandarin. By connecting the two, it allows Xinjiang's language and culture to be better preserved and shared.
与某些需要系统学习的方言不同，馕言文的优势在于“以普通话为基础，加入地方特色”。它主要通过调整语序和加入有特色的词汇，使这种“微创新”的表达更容易为大众接受。如孜认为，馕言文像是一座桥梁，连接了新疆本地的语言与普通话，使得新疆的语言与文化能够更好地保护与传播。
