I'm working on a vocab list for a book I'm studying and it lists 嗯 as "ng4". Skritter has this as "e" with pretty much any tone. Nciku says it's "ng3" or "ng2" or "e" with any tone.

Is there really a difference in pronunciation between "e" and "ng", or is this just a quirk of the Romanization system?

James

Not sure if it's official pinyin... Chinese pod uses "ng" for the "You done yet?" "mm" sound.

Yeah, if I had to Romanize it I would use "m4" or "n4" (or even first tone), but that's not legitimate pinyin.

I think it should be en1, based on 恩。

Sorry, apparently my question wasn't clear enough. What I'm asking is not what the appropriate pinyin is; I'm asking if "ng" and "e" actually represent different sounds in spoken Chinese.

James

Given that ng is nonsense as far as Chinese is concerned and could be translated as "mm" or "uh" (an affirmative one), and "e" is proper pinyin with a particular pronunciation, then yes - they're different...

Byzanti - do you have a source for saying ng is not proper pinyin? My 新时代 汉英大词典 lists 嗯 under ng, and under n with references to the entries under ng. Tones are 2, 3, and 4.

This would suggest they are valid pinyin at least for some. pinyin.info however doesn't list n or ng as valid.

http://pinyin.info/rules/initials_finals.html

Under e and en it doesn't list 嗯, although to type it I have to use en. Would be interesting to see something definitive on the pronunciation here.

If Wikipedia counts as a source, g isn't there as a final, and there's no other mention of a ng? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

Either way, enough with the pedantry!

@Byzanti: Wikipedia does list "ng" as one of the pronunciations of 嗯:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exclamative_particles

More-authoritatively, so do nciku and MDBG.

That same Wikipedia page also says that 哼 (grunt) is pronounced "hng, heng".

But really my question is one about SPOKEN Chinese, not about whether "ng" is proper pinyin. I was hoping someone with experience with the various grunts and hmmms and huhs of spoken Chinese would explain that, in one part of China, they go like this, and in another part, they go like that.

James

In my experience, Chinese grunts and mms are not really different from our own. It's not like you hear a sound and think "I wonder what that means".

Even some of the more distinct chinese exclamations like 哎呀 carry enough universal exasperation to know what's what without looking up a dictionary entry.

I suspect knowing the reasons for why the pinyin is as it is may be helpful for understanding the spoken Chinese.

In my experience the most surprising use of the 嗯 is when expressing an affirmative reaction. It sounds like a disinterested "mmm hmm" in English but has a more positive meaning. I don't think these meanings are completely fixed though, you need to adapt to individuals.

As a point of reference, my dictionary has ng2 meaning "what?" or "eh?", ng3 meaning surprise ("hey?", "what?"), and ng4 meaning "ok" (that's the surprising one).

For comparison and to save any other interested people looking it up, that pretty much matches what nciku has, and MDBG has en1 as a groan, en4 similar to ng4, above, and en5 indicating approval again.

All of this suggests to me that there's not much difference between the two. Would be interested if anyone can do better than my digging, for example into history.

I looked at the article on ŋ (the ng sound in IPA) in Wikipedia. In the Chinese article it mentions that Cantonese uses this as an initial, which reminded me that Ng is quite a common surname:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng

So what you said about different places having different pronunciations is probably about right. I'd be interested if anyone else can shed some more light on the details.

If I haven't bored everyone yet, I did some searches in Chinese for en ng 拼音 and found quite a few presumably Chinese people asking about which pinyin is correct and how to pronounce.

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/16086273.html?fr=qrl&cid=197&index=3&fr2=query

The answers at the link above basically say - not the same, as ng is nasal and en is not. But apparently different IMEs expect different input to type 嗯. Certainly I've had teachers who do not clearly distinguish nasals from non-nasals, so I expect it's going to be hard getting a conclusive answer to this one.

And this one has people saying ng is correct, but in everyday life people say en because it's easier on the toungue.

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/294156.html?fr=qrl&cid=197&index=1&fr2=query

I reckon you'll be doing a good job if you can distinguish the two pronunciations in the three different tones though :P

@ximeng Thanks for the research! That's what I was looking for. My Chinese reading skills are still quite basic so I will have to trust your interpretation.

James

And all this time, when someone types 嗯 to me in a chat, I've been imagining them saying "en", as if it's a word rather than a vocalisation! :-)