The Liao dialect hails from Shandong province, and as everybody knows, Shandong was the birthplace of Chinese culture. Therefore Dalian has the most standard Mandarin when culturally weighted, and 5000 years of continuous culture is a large weighting. In comparison Beijing’s been the capital for just a blink of an eye and Shanghai wasn’t even around a couple of hundred years ago.

Dalian, it’s said ‘chuar’ and that’s because it’s standard.

If anything, it is up to debate because of what you said. I’ve had conversations with scholars that will either say “there is an erhuayin, but not nearly to the extent that Beijingers try to tell you” or “no erhuayin at all”, with the vast majority going with the second (the others were all from Beijing). I think it comes down to mandarin being so influenced by the dialects it is closest to (Beijinghua, northeastern dialects, etc.) for so long that it is difficult to really know how much of it is truly “proper mandarin” and how much is really just dialectal influence that has been accepted by society (which politically, is greatly influenced by Beijing). Nonetheless, I still hate it.

i wonder how much this may happen with 儿, though obviously not through cinema. i could even see it as a sign of national pride, to take on what you see as a sign of affiliation to the capital city.

@Chip: Actually, “er” does exist in most, if not all Mandarin dialects, and perhaps most Chinese languages (perhaps, because I’m not sure). How else do you pronounce 二? But that Beijing-style 儿化音, in which the tongue is curled back into a baijiubelch-suppression position at the end of apparently random syllables is also quite common across Mandarin dialects. I have personally heard it in Taiyuan in the West, Tianjin in the east and Dalian in the northeast, and have heard people from parts scattered farther afield use it, too. I’ve also been told of its appearance in Chengdu, although that is second-hand information and those who told me that did not speak very good Chinese. And I’m pretty certain that if I opened my dictionary I would find words with a very clearly marked 儿化音 without the dreaded (dial.) note, meaning they are counted as standard Putonghua, too. Sorry.

i’m still sold on using chuar in english as a loan word. and mark this down in your OED notes as the first use of chuarwalla. it’s going to be huge, i tell you. huge.

i’m digging beijing sounds, btw.