Central Plains Mandarin, or Zhongyuan Mandarin, is a variety of Mandarin Chinese spoken in the central and southern parts of Shaanxi, Henan, southwestern part of Shanxi, southern part of Gansu, far southern part of Hebei, northern Anhui, northern parts of Jiangsu, southern Xinjiang and southern Shandong. The archaic dialect in Peking opera is a form of Zhongyuan Mandarin. Among Hui people, Zhongyuan Mandarin is sometimes written with the Arabic alphabet, called Xiao'erjing ("Children's script").

Subdialects

Phonology

In Central Plains Mandarin, some phonological changes have affected certain syllables but not Standard Chinese. and have shifted to before the vowel. Standard Mandarin's, and have shifted to before. has shifted to before.

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