Why are 1 to 0 read as “一两三四五六拐怕勾洞”?

When watching war movies, you must have heard the signalmen pronounce numbers in various "earthy pronunciations". For example, "I am James Bond 007", the signalmen would say "I am James Bond, Dongdongguai".

Why don’t we pronounce numbers this way? Let’s find out today!

Those who have served in the military know that in the army, "1234567890" should be read as "yao liang san si wu liu guai pa gou dong". Among them, dong is zero and guai is seven. So the code name of British agent Bond became "dong dong guai".

So why did our Mr. Bond "kidnap"? This pronunciation is related to the digital font. Take a closer look and you will understand! These "earthy pronunciations" are quite appropriate for the digital font!

In the war-torn era, the soldiers in the revolutionary army came from all corners of the country, and it was inevitable that they spoke in different accents. The pronunciation of "2" was the most diverse, and the brothers in the south would pronounce "2" as [ni].

In order to avoid confusion in pronunciation, the signalmen used the Mandarin character "两" instead of [èr]. Southerners also have difficulty pronouncing the back nasal sound, so "0" cannot be read as [líng] but as [洞].

In many places, people who play mahjong also like to pronounce "bing" as "tong" or "dong". In addition, in many dialects, "b" and "p" are not distinguished, and "p" is pronounced clearly because it is a plosive sound. So "8" is pronounced as [怕]. There is another very important reason. In our Chinese pinyin, the frequency of the final "i" is the lowest and the clarity is poor. If compared with the pinyin "a", "i" is at least 3 decibels lower.

For example, your girl's name is "Yi Yi" and your friend's girl's name is "Ya Ya". You and your friend call "Yi Yi" and "Ya Ya" at the same time from 100 meters away. Your friend's girl may hear it first and run back, but your girl doesn't hear it at all.

As we all know, there is a lot of noise on the battlefield. If a communications soldier sends [i], the other side may not be able to hear it clearly. Poor communication can cost lives.

So everyone came up with a good idea. In Chinese, "壹" means small, so "1" is pronounced as [壹] in the army. "7, 0" are pronounced as [拐][洞] according to the shape of the numbers.

You can try to open the mouth shape of the digital pronunciation after the modification. The purpose of opening the mouth shape is to make the shouting sound loud enough. On the battlefield, the communication sound will not be drowned out by the sound of artillery.

Today, with the rapid development of the information industry and the increasing popularity of Mandarin, the special pronunciation of numbers has fulfilled its historical mission among the people. However, some of these pronunciations are still preserved and have penetrated into our daily lives.

In many places, we still pronounce "1" as "yao". For example, "110" is pronounced as "yaoyaoling" instead of "yiyiling" all over the country. Similarly, "119" is not pronounced as "yiyijiu", but "yaoyaojiu". This pronunciation is also used in railway transportation, such as "yao 2dong 3" means the train turns and stops, the driver understands!

This practice of changing pronunciation for fear of mispronouncing something is not unique to our country. There is already a precedent in the international aviation industry. Due to the complexity of radio wave propagation in the air, signal distortion may occur, and there are also problems with English accents in different countries. For example, although Indians, Singaporeans, Australians, and British people all speak English, their accents vary greatly.

Therefore, air traffic controllers around the world apply standard interpretation methods in voice communications in accordance with the regulations of ICAO, which is the same as we use "double Xu" to interpret "Xu". "A" will be read as "Alpha" and "B" as "Bravo".

I remember when I was in high school, I had this problem when doing multiple-choice questions. The English teacher was afraid that the pronunciation would be unclear and everyone would not understand. A is pronounced as apple, B is pronounced as boy, C is pronounced as cat, and D is pronounced as dog.

These strange ways of reading may sound funny, but they can benefit us a lot in real life. After all, it is more important for people to understand clearly and avoid misunderstanding, right?