What is "erhua"

n. (context linguistics English) A phonological process that adds rhotic (R-like) sounds in some dialects of Mandarin Chinese.

Erhua ; also called erhuayin or erization, refers to a phonological process that adds r-coloring or the "ér" (儿) sound (transcribed in IPA as ) to syllables in spoken Mandarin Chinese. It is most common in the speech varieties of North China, especially in the Beijing dialect, as a diminutive suffix for nouns, though some dialects also use it for other grammatical purposes. The Standard Chinese spoken in government-produced educational and examination recordings features erhua to some extent, as in 哪儿 nǎr ("where"), 一点儿 yìdiǎnr ("a little"), and 好玩儿 hǎowánr ("fun"). Colloquial speech in many northern dialects has more extensive erhua than the standardized language. Southwestern Mandarin dialects such as those of Chongqing and Chengdu also have erhua. By contrast, many Southern Chinese who speak non-Mandarin dialects may have difficulty pronouncing the sound or may simply prefer not to pronounce it, and usually avoid words with erhua when speaking Standard Chinese; for example, the three examples listed above may be replaced with the synonyms 哪里 nǎlǐ, 一点 yìdiǎn, 好玩 hǎowán.

Only a small number of words in standardized Mandarin, such as 二 èr "two" and 耳 ěr "ear", have r-colored vowels that do not result from the erhua process. All of the non-erhua r-colored syllables have no initial consonant, and are traditionally pronounced in Beijing dialect and in conservative/old Standard Mandarin varieties. In the recent decades, the vowel in the toned syllable "er" has been lowered in many accents, making the syllable come to approach or acquire a quality like "ar" (i.e. with the appropriate tone). In some new accents and some different accents than Beijing, all the non-erhua r-colored syllables (may) use "ar"-like qualities regardless of tones. All other instances of r-colored vowels are a result of erhua being applied to originally non-r-colored syllables.