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白話

简白话 · 繁白話

Mandarin · pinyin bái huà

spoken language
vernacular

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Characters in this entry

白: bái · white; pure, unblemished; bright
話: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect
话: huà · speech, talk, language; dialect

Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

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Mandarin tones

2–4 · bai2 hua4

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Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

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Rime Cantonese 粵拼

baak6 waa2

Cantonese word readings for 白話. This lexicon supplies readings, not definitions.

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Wiktionary English definitions · Chinese section

Independent source senses for this spelling, with usage labels retained. Not matched to the pronunciation above.

noun

vernacular Chinese (as opposed to Classical Chinese); plain language
(chiefly Guangdong, Guangxi, rare in Hong Kong) Yue; Cantonese
(Eastern Min) proverb; common saying
(Southern Min) local dialect
(Zhangzhou Hokkien) Pe̍h-ōe-jī (a Latin alphabet-based orthography for Southern Min); POJ

noun

empty words; meaningless talk

noun

(Hokkien) frank words
(Zhangzhou Hokkien) lie; untruth

verb

(regional) to chat
(regional) to brag; to boast; to talk big

Source page · dump 2026-09-02 · Contributors & history

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