Characteristics of local dialects

Chinese dialects with the largest number of tones

There are four "Shang Ping Rusheng" in medieval Chinese, but the "Rusheng" in modern Chinese has disappeared. Bobai Dilao dialect not only retains the ancient Chinese expressions of Yin Ping, Yang Ping, Yin Shang, Yin Qu and Yang Qu, but also retains the ancient entering tone form. Intonation can be divided into upper yin, lower yin, upper yang and lower yang, and the number of tones is as high as 10.

Qin Xiang (formerly known as Jude Wong He), president of the Chinese Society of Guangxi and head of the Chinese Department of Guangxi University, published "Notes on Returning Home" in the American Overseas Chinese News, saying: "Speaking of local accent, our village speaks vernacular ... which belongs to a branch of Cantonese. This vernacular retains the tone system of Guang Yun (the oldest existing rhyme book), and there are still 10 tones. In China, it is probably the highest-pitched Chinese dialect. This is related to my father (Wang Li) becoming an expert in Chinese phonology. " Professor Tang Zuofan, head of the Chinese Department of Peking University, wrote in the article "Outstanding Pioneer of Modern Linguistics in China": "Wang Li studied in France in his early years, specializing in experimental phonetics. His paper "Experimental Records of Bobai Dialect" was completed at 193 1, which scientifically described the phonetic system of Bobai Dialect and found that Bobai Dialect has ten tones (which is the most known one in Chinese dialects so far). The China Language Institute awarded a special prize to Wang Li, which enabled this book to be published in French and win glory for the motherland. "

Living fossil of medieval phonology

The ancient Bobai dialect has 24 initials, 46 finals and 10 tones, which keeps the phonetic system of Guang Yun. Guang Yun is a tax study of the medieval language in China. It divides 26 194 words into four tones and 206 rhymes. Only Dilao dialect and Minnan dialect can truly distinguish these 206 rhymes, which can be called a living fossil in the Middle Ages. Compared with modern Mandarin, the number of vowels in local dialects is more than one third and the number of tones is more than twice, so it is impossible to talk between Mandarin and local dialects. Compared with Guangzhou dialect, the local dialect is closer to the ancient sound than Guangzhou dialect.

Laryngeal sounds (see, flow, group, doubt, shadow, box) in 36 letters of Middle Chinese are located before the first high vowel. Modern Mandarin and some dialects have changed into tongue sounds, while local dialects still retain the pronunciation of the root of the tongue. Such as strangeness, technology, transmission, etc. In ancient times, the vowels of Jianpai basically read the fricative sounds of the root of the tongue and throat, but in the third-class words of "true" and "dang", the third-class letters of Xiao Xia are jawed, which is the same as Yulin dialect.

All suspicious initials in the local dialect retain the archaic sound, and even the pronunciations of "Fan" and "Fa" end with -m and-p. In addition, Wu's initials in ancient times were all "suspicious" and rhymed the same. They all belong to the ancient "fish" system. There is a saying in the silk book "Warring States Policy" unearthed in Mawangdui, Changsha: "Fish want to do its thing well." What does "fish" mean here? According to the principle of ancient pronunciation, this "fish" can be called "I"

Dilao dialect system retains the entering vowels in the middle ancient Chinese finals. From medieval Chinese to modern Chinese, the most prominent change in rhyme endings is the disappearance of [-p], [-t] and [-k] rhyme endings. And Bobai's old saying is well preserved. For example, the three numbers "ten, one and six" are Rusheng, which just reflects the three different endings of the ancient sound. Ten [-p], one [-t] and six [-k]. Another example is that the word "Fa" was received [-p] in the Middle Ages. According to the language survey, all counties in Guangdong dialect have become [-k] except the ancient pronunciation of [-p] in Bobaidi dialect. After the fricative of the ancient voiced stop is cleared, it is basically a flat breath, and it is silent and does not breathe.

"Zhi" and "Zhao" are initials, and the dialect is similar to Guangzhou dialect, with ts, TS and S. The word "production" used to be the letter "life". Many counties in southern Guangxi also read the letter "TS" like Guangzhou, but Bobai also read the word "S", retaining the ancient pronunciation.

This old saying preserved the nasal rhyme of double humiliation into the Middle Ages. There are three nasal vowels [-m], [-n] and [-η] in Middle Chinese. Modern Putonghua and dialects such as Wu, Xiang and Gan dialects have all been lost and merged into [-n] rhyme, while the ancient dialect still maintains its own rhyme style. For example, the words "fan", "fan" and "crime" in the rhyme of "fan" have well preserved the ending of [-m] in Bobai ancient saying, while all other counties in southern Guangxi read the ending of [-n]. Bobai's n can form its own syllables, and the words it manages are about: "I, Wu, Wu, Wu, error, Wu, Wu" and so on. The negative adverb "Wu" is not very useful and is usually only used in dialect words, such as "Wuben", "Wu Zeng" and "Wuzhong".

There are two more initials in the local dialect than in Guangzhou dialect: fricative D and lingual nasal N. Fricative D, which originated from the ancient initials of "heart", is a special initial, which is rare in other Chinese dialects. Its examples are: mind, innovation, place, some, four, snow, travel, speed and so on. Tongue and nasal sound n comes from the initials of ancient Japanese, and its examples are: "er, er, ear, Japanese, anger, dye, human, cognition, weakness, meat, cattle" and so on.

The ending with a nasal sound is called Yang Yun. For example, in ancient times, the pronunciation of "Yin, English and Yin" ended in [-m], [-η] and [-n] respectively, but there is no distinction between "Yin" and "Yin" in modern Mandarin and many dialects, and some dialects even distinguish "Yin, Yin and English". But the old saying preserved these three nasal sounds best in ancient times, and their sounds can be clearly distinguished.

In addition, there are some phonetic phenomena and characteristics in ancient dialects, which are quite special in Chinese dialects.

For example, Bobai's old saying does not have a pinch of mouth. It reads Chinese sharp mouth sounds into sharp tongue sounds. In Guangzhou dialect, vowels headed by Y or Y are all changed into I, such as "pig, knowledge". In Beijing, people who read Y rhyme read ui rhyme, so "troubles, tears" are homophones, and everyone reads lui. These characteristics are also different from Yulin dialect.

Words controlled by rhyme in ancient dialect, such as "body, rice", are read by Ai in other counties in southern Guangxi. Other counties rhyme with ai, while Bobai rhymes with э I.

When ancient voiced sounds are pronounced with stops and fricatives today, it is said that in rural areas of southern Guangxi, no matter whether the voice is flat or flat, it is impossible to send an initial consonant. But the situation in the county seat is different. Let's quote the old saying "skin, pu, regiment, courtyard, canal, begging, kitchen, worm"; In ancient times, there was a saying of "quilt, book, boat, giant, uncle, column and weight"; In ancient times, the sounds were "taboo, step, paragraph, decision, county, old, alive and middle"; Take 28 ancient voiced initials such as "Duo, Umbrella, Axis and Butterfly" as examples. From the perspective of modern phonetics, "total voiced" refers to unventilated voiced stops, stops and fricatives, such as [α], [G], [dz], [dz], [dэ], [Z] and []. Yulin, Cenxi, Cangwu, Xia Ying, Zhaoping and Mengshan can hardly pronounce aspirated initials. However, except for the words "Bei, Ben and Duo", Bobai can read the aspirated initials of other words of Gu Ping, but he can't read the initials of eight words in ancient music. However, except for the words "Bei", "Ben" and "Duo", Bobai can read all the other words of Gu Ping, but he can't read the word "Ba" in ancient music.

Ei is the unique rhyme of Bobai. In the local dialect, words with ei rhyme are pronounced I, and in other counties, such as vowels of "Bi, Zi, this, Si", not i. ..

εu appears as a very important rhyme in Bobai, which manages a large number of words. In the local dialect, all "good" rhymes are pronounced as εu rhymes. Ganziyuan dialect in Bobai county has no Dm rhyme. When you read en in Nanning, the words "needle, heart and forest" were all pronounced as en rhyme, so "three, heart" is homophonic. However, from Qishan, Wang Li's hometown, which is more than a mile away from Bobai County, am and em can be distinguished. Qishanpo dialect, read Dan three times, and read points in your heart.

"Ten, Ding and Li" in Bobaicheng dialect is equivalent to "Answer, Answer and Pull", but Qishan, which is more than one mile away from the city, can separate these two rhymes, the former is ep and the latter is ap. 1, an ancient word in local dialect

In addition to systematically retaining archaic sounds, archaic words are also preserved. Such as: see (see), enterprise (station), eat (eat), drink (drink), fall (fall), walk (walk), moustache (legs), face (face), shirt (clothes), brick (wooden shoes), (deep

2. Dialect characters

In addition, many dialect words still remain in the old saying, and the International Phonetic Alphabet records are as follows:

Shan (k Han, Gai), Kou Lang (loη rinse), Xiang (hoη, little hen), Lin (lam, collapsed), Yi (ηoη, silly), Yi (me, holding a child), Shrimp (há, overbearing), and wet nurse (nin,

(ηan, thin). False mouth (ηai, seeking),

(ηat, compression),

(ηap, nonsense), astringent (kips), er (ηa:k, cheating), embarrassed (man, squatting), embarrassed (ma:n, pulling, helping), embarrassed (maη, pulling), embarrassed (pad,

3. Special words arising from taboos

Umbrellas, like scattered sounds, have the general psychology of "gathering" and "getting tired of scattering", so "umbrella" was changed to "shelter", so it was called "shelter from rain" at that time. Tongue is synonymous with corrosion, and business is for profit. People want to make money instead of losing money, so they call their tongues "profit", pig tongues "pig fat" and cow tongues "cow fat", and fat is synonymous with profit, which means profit. Another example is that agricultural production hopes good weather, wet land and avoiding drought, and the word "liver" of pig liver is homophonic with "dry", so it is called "pig wet". Similarly, it is forbidden to say "cow liver", "chicken liver", "duck liver" and "goose liver", but it is called "cow wet", "chicken wet" and "goose liver". In addition, the shoulder pole is also called "wet shoulder". Another example is "Shu Tong" (calendar). Because "book" and "lose" are homonyms, people are afraid of losing money in business and gambling, so they call "Shu Tong" Wang Li (yellow calendar).

4. Spoken and silent dialects

Because the local dialect has been handed down from generation to generation, there is no need to use written records, so there are a large number of dialect words with sounds and no words.

In addition, say that the child is obese and read the tone of "capsule"; A knot in one's heart caused by mosquito bites, the sound of reading is "difficult"; Shake it with clear water and read the yin sound of "wave"; String together to read the negative sound of "neng"; Call people, read "pry" the yin equality. , too numerous to mention. It is really difficult to find Chinese characters with appropriate sounds and meanings and write them on paper truthfully. There are also some words whose sounds can be written in Chinese characters, but their contents are far from their meanings. For example, "sticky" is called "Jie" (Jena porridge); The cover is called "grade" (with private seal); Putting things into containers is called "pen" (pen cooking, pen garbage), all of which can not be explained by the inherent meaning of Chinese characters.

Dialect words that can't be written are explained by the underlying theory of language, which was originally a part of ancient Vietnamese words. It was preserved after the Guyue people were assimilated and abandoned their original language. After thousands of years of changes and elimination, some of them remain today. Because these words are different from other dialects in Chinese, they have become dialect words in the old dialects.

Some scholars even say that these old sayings that can't be written are actually absorbed from Zhuang language. The ancient training was originally the result of the long-term blending of ancient Chinese and ancient Vietnamese. In this blending process, Zhuang language absorbed many beneficial things in Chinese, and Chinese also absorbed many expressive factors from Zhuang language (the back of ancient Vietnamese). No matter how high the degree of integration is, dialects are different. Of course, it is difficult to find corresponding Chinese characters (with the same sound and meaning) to express them. This situation just caused the wonderful color and unique charm that the old saying could not write.

In addition, Wu Nong's soft language is inextricably linked with the old saying. As the old saying goes, "help" (help buy); "Jiaoguan" (very, very, very powerful); "Loose people" (relaxation and escape); "red ribs" (bare chest and back); "Mouth eye mouth eye" (just now, just right); "Batch" (cut off) and "announcement" (read the waves and hang wet things to dry instead of drying); "Training" (eye training, sleeping), "withholding one's head" (unbuttoning the headscarf) and so on are also said in Wu dialect.

However, some people are opposed to the idea of "merging" old sayings with ancient Vietnamese. On March 1985 and 19, a famous Chinese linguist, Professor Wang Li wrote to the author, saying, "The theory of Vietnamese integration is wrong, so don't mention it. It is absurd that the so-called Bobai Yue people formed Bobai's old saying. Bobai has no Yue nationality. "

5. Lexical differences between local dialects and Mandarin.

Besides phonetics, the difference between dialects and Mandarin lies in vocabulary.

(1) The nouns that are different from Mandarin in the old saying are: fine mosquito (child), adult (adult), old bean (calling dad), fine aunt (little sister), grandfather (grandfather), husband (old man), grandfather (grandfather), silkworm (earthworm) and pigeon (little frog). Spoon (table), snow stick (popsicle), perm (sun), moonlight (moon), canopy nose (rain cover), swill (swill), swill (cake), excrement depression (ass), etc. In addition, "fruit" is not called fruit, but called child. Such as fennel, peach, plum, citrus, orange, grapefruit, banana, litchi, longan, wampee, pineapple, mango, pear and so on.

⑵ There are different adjectives: sloppy (dirty), beautiful (beautiful), stingy (not generous, stingy), quiet and so on.

⑶ Different verbs are: Luo (take, pull), Ye (take), (help) and so on.

(4) The word formation order of common sayings is opposite to that of Putonghua: guest (guest), rooster (rooster), hen (hen), chick (chick), cow (bull), cow (cow), dog (male dog), dog (bitch) and duck (male duck).

5. Personal pronouns: I (me) and him (him). Add the word "one" to the plural, such as one, one and one.

Interrogative pronoun: don't be a person (who); Do it, do it (do sth)); Go to Xi 'an, Xi 'an, Xi 'an side, Lunian, Luxi, Ludong, roadside (where to go? (how about dong first?) how about dong first? )。

(6) Demonstrative pronouns: ge (this), such as ge (this), ge (here), (here, around here), ge (these), ge (like this), ge Yang (like this).

(7) Pay words, negative pay words are: no, no, no, no, no. Wu Zeng (never), Wu Ke (sorry), Wu Chong (don't).

(8) academic salary: "good". For example, "Zhong Xian said it well". The first good word is degree salary. Second (also) and also (also).

(9) Post payment: "first". For example, "you go first", as the old saying goes, "you go first". The word "first" is placed after the verb, but there is no post-blessing word in Mandarin. Another example: "Cai", the name of the example is "I only know how to listen to Guilin dialect, but I know how to say Cai again." The word "color" here means "pay later", emphasizing the tone of affirmation or negation.

⑽ Preposition: being, such as "Every bowl is rotten to hold". In(from), such as: "You have come these years" (Where are you from? )。

⑾ Conjunction: same, common (and). For example: "You and I are from Guangxi." "You are a burden."

Auxiliary words: () For example, "What happened to me." Mother (S): Example name: "You are sick, and your mother has never been sick" (Are you better? Take Ba (La) as an example: "Ba Chuba". Yes, the example name: "Do you remember me? ! "Tong:" Do you know Tong? "

6. What happened to the list of common words/meanings? People have neither time nor interest. Generally speaking, most people talk about things/play, go out to chat, find things or fold things. Come and lock the door, lock the door, so that you can stand up and live, watch TV and share with your sister. Have you thought about it? I hate it. Modal particles "da" and "duo" lai/lai 1, verb body

The old saying (1) shows that verbs are progressive: the words "live" and "tight". Examples: "He is eating and living" and "He is cheating".

② indicates a perfect figure. Use "qi" and "le" Example: "I have finished all my homework."

There are two object sentences in the syntax of the old adage: for example, "Give me a book" and "Give me two pieces of paper" (give me two dollars). In Putonghua, the object referring to the person usually follows the verb, and the object referring to the person follows the object referring to the person. In the old saying, the object referring to a person can be placed after the object of the referred object.

Comparative sentences: one is bigger than the other (this is bigger than that), "He is bigger than me" (he is bigger than me). The above example shows that the format of comparison is different from that of Mandarin. The old saying puts comparative words at both ends, embeds "greater than" and "less than" in the middle, and uses the format of "adjective+Guo".

4. Mandarin can be affirmed by double negation, such as "I have to go". When old sayings express this more emphasized meaning, affirmative sentences are usually used. Such as "I insist on going" and "I want to go to all the big ones!" Another example is Mandarin: "If you don't go, you can't do it." There is an old saying: "If you go, you will get it."

5. Putonghua says "not strong enough" and uses the subject-predicate style, but the old saying is the opposite. It can be said that the word order is completely opposite to that of Mandarin.

6. "Not quite right" in Mandarin. The blessing word "Tai" precedes the initial word, while the old saying "How much" is put in the initial word. The word "Tai" in Putonghua is used for decoration, while the word "Jiduo" in the old dialect is used to supplement the format. For example, Mandarin: "What you say in Mandarin is not quite right." As the old saying goes, "You speak a lot of Mandarin."

7. There are some special verbs or adjectives overlapping in the old saying. If you hate others' chatter, you can use: heavy rock, repetition, convexity and concavity, heavy and redundant, twittering, answering over and over again, etc. Joke: I don't want to rest. Naughty: Le Gu Le Gu. Honest and serious statement: sincerity. There are overlapping words in Mandarin, such as "study hard" and "discuss slowly". When overlapping words are used, if the first word (the first word) is originally pronounced in a rising or falling tone, then the third word will be tone-shifted. When overlapping words are used in Putonghua, only two words are used, and three words are never used. However, there are three words overlapping in the old saying. For example, a lady goes to buy fruit and talks with a fruit vendor. Woman: "I see you are a green orange. Do you know it's sweet? " Fruit merchant: "You see that you are green. If you eat it, you will know that you are sweet and sweet." "Green" means that the fruit is not ripe, and "sweet" means that the fruit is ripe. It tastes very good.