नानजिंग मंदारिन

Nanjing Mandarin (南京话) is the urban-prestige variety of Jianghuai Mandarin spoken by ~6M people in greater Nanjing, and one of the most historically prestigious Chinese vernaculars: it served as the de facto national koine (官話 Guanhua) of the Ming and early Qing courts, was the basis of the "Mandarin" recorded by Matteo Ricci and Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, and remained the standard pronunciation taught in late-Qing schoolbooks until Beijing-based Putonghua displaced it in the 1920s–30s. Phonologically Nanjing preserves the Middle Chinese entering tone (rusheng, ~˥ʔ) — lost in northern Mandarin but shared with Wu and Hui — and lacks the /n-/ ~ /l-/ merger typical of southwestern Mandarin. Its 5-tone system (˧˩, ˩˧, ˨˩˨, ˦, ˥ʔ) makes it transitional between Mandarin and Wu.