The origin of vernacular Chinese

Cantonese originated from elegance. "。 The article Ci Hai Ya Yan said: "Ya Yan, called' common language' in ancient times, is symmetrical with' dialect'. Kong said in Wen: "Speak plainly and talk right." . "Yayan" is the earliest ancient lingua franca in China, which is equivalent to Mandarin now. The spread of elegant ci in Lingnan began after the Western Han Dynasty. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up a "toe-toe secretariat" to supervise the county. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, he withdrew his toe secretariat and set up a state of communication. Toe Secretariat and Jiaozhou are both Han regimes, so official communication must be polite. Most of the time, the Department of Cross-toe Secretariat and the State House were located in Guangxin (now Zhaoqing Pass, Guangdong Province), and Guangxin was the first to use Yayan. Guangxin was also the early commercial center of Lingnan. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent envoys from Xuwen and Hepu to open up the Maritime Silk Road and bought back overseas treasures such as pearls, glazed pottery and stones with silk and porcelain. , and through the Nanliujiang-Beiliujiang and Jianjiang-Nanjiang trade channels, it is imported into Guangxin, and then exported to the Central Plains through Hejiang-Xiaoshui. Elegant words introduced from the Central Plains gradually spread in this area through commercial activities.

Guangxin was also the early cultural center of Lingnan. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, a large number of scholars took this as a position to carry out cultural activities, set up museums and teach students. Among them, the most prominent scholars are Chen Yuan and Shi Xie. Known as "Linghai Confucianism", Chen Yuan returned to Guangxin to run a school in his later years and became one of the pioneers of Lingnan culture. Shangxie served as the magistrate of Jiaotoe County for more than 40 years and was once the "Governor of Seven Counties". Many scholars from the Central Plains came here and followed them in succession. They travel, communicate and give lectures as their profession. What these literati used to spread China culture in the Central Plains was, of course, the elegant words with Chinese characters as the recording symbols. While learning China culture and Chinese characters, the aborigines also learned elegant characters. The languages of these aborigines are very different. They can't communicate with each other and have no written language. Therefore, in addition to using elegance in communication with Han people, tribes also use elegance in communication. In this way, elegance and vulgarity have become the common language of all indigenous tribes, just as elegance and vulgarity were used in the contacts of various vassal States in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, forming a bilingual system, using their own mother tongue in their own tribes and elegance and vulgarity in foreign exchanges.

At the beginning of the formation of Cantonese, there was no obvious difference between Cantonese and Central Plains Chinese. After the Jin Dynasty, there was the "Five Chaos in China", followed by the partition of the north and the south for more than 200 years. The nomadic people in the north entered the Central Plains, which had a great influence on the culture and language there. Since the Zhou Dynasty, it has been the common language of all ethnic groups, and has gradually undergone major changes. At the same time, the Lingnan region has maintained a relatively stable situation during this period, and Cantonese, which evolved from Yayan, has not changed like Central Plains Chinese, and has always maintained its original phonology. As Professor Li Rulong said; "The differentiation of initial consonants of medieval affricates, the confluence of nasal vowels, the weakening and shedding of initial consonants of affricates, and the three tones of voiced sounds and entering tones are common in many dialects, but they are all rejected by Cantonese." Therefore, Yayan has developed into modern Mandarin and Mandarin in today's North and Central Plains, while Cantonese has better inherited the original flavor of Yayan.

The stop sound in Fengchuan dialect: a living fossil of early Cantonese

Cantonese retains many quaint phonetic factors, which can be confirmed by the comparison between Cantonese and Qieyun. Qieyun is China's earliest phonological work. The book was written in the early years of Sui Dynasty, which recorded the phonology of scholars in the Southern Dynasty, that is, the phonology in the late period of Yayan. Comparing the phonology of Qieyun with the seven dialects of Chinese today, we can see that Cantonese is the most complete phonology. Take the ancient milk students as an example. Due to the rapid development of northern Chinese dialects and the rapid evolution of languages, stops and vowels are generally separated. So people in this field don't know what lactation is all about now. Although other Chinese dialects retain some entering tones, they are not complete. Because Cantonese is isolated from the Central Plains, it is in a semi-wild state, so there is no change law of "entering tone three times", so it preserves the whole set of entering tone in ancient times, which corresponds neatly to nasal rhyme.

In Wuzhou, where Cantonese was formed, the phonological factors of quaint words were well preserved. There is a group of voiced initials in the phonology of Qieyun, which has disappeared in most Chinese dialects and in Cantonese today. However, this set of voiced cold initials is completely preserved in Wuzhou Cantonese. What is more noteworthy is that in Wuzhou Cantonese, not only the words with vowels of "Bing", "Ding" and "Qun" in Qieyun are still pronounced with full voiced stops, but also the words with vowels of "Bang", "Duan" and "Jian" in Qieyun are pronounced with full voiced stops. As we know, "voiced and unvoiced" is a law of the evolution of Chinese initials. According to this law, the more developed the initial consonants of voiced consonants are, the longer their age will be. Some people say that Wuzhou Cantonese voiced consonants are more developed than cut rhyme, which means that it preserves the rhyme earlier than cut rhyme, that is, the elegant rhyme of Han Dynasty. Therefore, it is a rare living fossil of quaint words, and it is also a living fossil of early Cantonese, and it is a witness to the formation of ancient Cantonese. Cantonese The prominent feature of Cantonese distribution in China is along the Yangtze River, which is popular in China. It takes the middle reaches of Xijiang River as the center, and expands outward in four channels: east, west and south. The first passage is the Xijiang River-the Pearl River, that is, along the Xijiang River eastward to Panyu (Guangzhou). Including Wuzhou in Guangxi and Zhaoqing, Foshan, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Dongguan and Shenzhen in Guangdong, as well as Hong Kong and Macao. The second river is Xijiang-Yujiang, which goes back to Xijiang, Jiang Xun and Yujiang and reaches Jiaozhi County. Including Nanning, Chongzuo, Guigang and most counties in Guangxi. The third river is Beiliu River-Nanliu River. Including Guangxi Yulin, Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang and other cities and counties. The fourth passage is Nanjiang-Jianjiang, that is, back to Nanjiang, across the Yunkai Mountains to Jianjiang Valley. Including Yunfu, Maoming, Yunnan, Luoding, Xinyi, Gaozhou, Huazhou, Zhanjiang, Wuchuan and Lianjiang in Guangdong. Cantonese is spoken in Chinese mainland, Guangdong and Guangxi, with Guangzhou dialect as the center. The user population is around 50 million. The visit area is roughly as follows:

There are 47 counties and cities in Guangdong Province that are pure Cantonese dialect or mainly Cantonese dialect, accounting for more than 1/3 of the total area of the province, namely Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Jiangmen, Shenzhen, Maoming, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Nanhai, Panyu, Dongguan, Shunde, Longmen, Fogang, Zengcheng, Conghua, Huadu, Qingyuan, Lianxian and Yangshan. In addition, Cantonese is also spoken in parts of Huizhou, Shaoguan, Zhanjiang, Boluo, Huiyang, Huidong, Renhua, Lechang, Yingde, Baoan, Dianbai, Suixi, Haikang, Xuwen and Lianjiang 16 counties and cities.

There are 24 counties and cities in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region that speak Cantonese, namely Nanning, Hengxian, Guigang, Guiping, Pingnan, tengxian, Wuzhou, Yulin, Beiliu, Rongxian, Bobai, Luchuan, Fangcheng, Qinzhou, Hepu, Pubei, Lingshan, Beihai, Cangwu, Cenxi, Zhaoping, Mengshan, Hezhou and Zhongshan. In addition, there are many overseas Chinese whose mother tongue is Cantonese, who are mainly distributed in Southeast Asia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. Almost more than 90% of overseas Chinese and Chinese Americans come from Cantonese dialect areas.

Hong Kong and Macao: Cantonese is spoken throughout the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macao Special Administrative Region.

Cantonese dialects are distributed in most parts of Guangdong Province, Danzhou dialect-Maihua dialect-Jia Dan dialect in Hainan, eastern and southern Guangxi, and Hong Kong and Macao.

Baise-Nanning-Guiping-Wuzhou-Zhaoqing-Guangzhou is the golden waterway for Xijiang shipping, accessible in Cantonese.

dialect

Guangdong dialect (standard dialect)

Guangzhou dialect: also known as Guangfu dialect, is a recognized standard accent in Cantonese. Guangfu dialect itself is constantly changing and developing. Before 1949, the words used in Guangzhou dialect were quaint and less influenced by the northern dialect.

Divided into the following categories:

Nanfanshun dialect: Guangzhou itself is composed of Panyu and a part of the South China Sea, so Guangzhou dialect can actually be regarded as a special case of Nanfanshun dialect. The dialects of Guangzhou, Panyu and Nanhai are close, but the pronunciation of many words in Shunde is different from other places. For example, the pronunciation of "concave" is [NAP] instead of [lap]; Eating is not called eating rice, but eating rice.

Luoguang dialect: distributed in Zhaoqing, Sihui, Luoding, Guangning, Huaiji, Fengkai, Deqing, Yunan, Yangshan, Lianxian and Lianshan. Represented by Zhaoqing dialect.

Although all the phonetics and vocabulary are close to Guangzhou dialect, the intonation still retains the characteristics of the early ancient saying. For example, the high and low key of Yin Ping Tone is obviously different from that of Gao Pingtiao Tone, and the tone of Yin Ping Tone is biased (the tone value is similar to the fourth tone of Putonghua). There is almost no prevalent lazy sound in Cantonese dialect. For example, all words with non-I vowels are prefixed with initials [ng], ke [ngo 1], short [ngai2], sub [ngaa3], love [ngoi3] and evil [ngok3]. [n], [l] The sounds are different

(Modern) Hong Kong Dialect: Before 1949, Hong Kong Dialect had a strong Cantonese-Hakka mixed accent (that is, Hakka dialect was influenced by the tone and vocabulary of Guangfu dialect, and vice versa). Among them, Jintian dialect is the representative, but this accent only exists among the elderly people in Hong Kong today.

After 1949, a large number of lazy sounds began to appear in Hong Kong dialect, among which the disappearance of nasal sounds (that is, n/l is indistinguishable) and the disappearance of W- awkward sounds are the most obvious. The new generation of young people generally pronounce "you [nei]" and "I" [NGO] as [lei] and [o]. Misread "Guo" as "[gok]" and "Guo" as "Geh". This phenomenon seems to be related to a large number of foreign immigrants. For them, the pronunciation of n/l is not very different, and in most cases, confusing the two will not bring serious communication obstacles. Therefore, when they come to Hong Kong to learn this new dialect, they often give up what is difficult and take what is easy, thus diluting some indistinguishable pronunciation differences. This is also called "theory of human nature", which has also appeared in the evolution of desktop Mandarin and American English.

However, before the 1980s, the mass media still tried their best to avoid lazy voices in radio and TV programs. To this day, there are still Hong Kong linguists who criticize lazy pronunciation many times and put forward the activity of "correcting pronunciation". However, the lazy voice seems to be the characteristic of Cantonese in Hong Kong. In most mass media and singers' performances, lazy voices are regarded as "fashionable" and "fashionable" accents. But on the whole, Hong Kong dialect and Guangzhou dialect are still very close.

English is more popular in Hong Kong. In the past, Hong Kong usually came into contact with foreign new things before the mainland. In the past, the lower classes who didn't know English spelled everyday English words in Cantonese, so English loanwords in Cantonese are very common in Hong Kong. For example, plumbers call foremen, brakes call brakes, bearings call bearings, strawberries call strawberries, and so on. Many old people still refer to stamps as stamps and insurance as insurance. These idioms may confuse foreign Chinese users.

Siyi dialect

Siyi dialect refers to the dialects of Xinhui, Enping, Kaiping and Taishan, among which Taishan dialect is the representative. Half of Zhuhai people speak Cantonese (especially in Doumen area), while other areas use Xiangshan Cantonese. The pronunciation of Siyi dialect is very different from that of Guangzhou dialect.

Movies in Levin dialect

Levin dialect is mainly distributed in Maoming, Huazhou, Gaozhou, Xinyi, Dianbai, Zhanjiang, Wuchuan, Yangjiang, Yangchun and the northern part of Leizhou Peninsula.

Huazhou Dialect Film (Huazhou Dialect)

Huazhou dialect is a sub-dialect of Cantonese and one of the oldest and most special dialects in China. Huazhou dialect is simple, rich in vocabulary and special in grammar. It retains many ancient sounds and meanings of elegant words in the Central Plains, and at the same time, it is mixed with ancient slang culture in western Guangdong, which is the result of the integration of Central Plains culture and western Guangdong culture. The population of Huazhou dialect is about 6.5438+0.4 million.

Southern Guangxi dialect

Mainly distributed in southeastern Guangxi. Take the county in northeast Guangxi to Nanning and Pingxiang in south Guangxi as the dividing line. Cantonese is mainly spoken in the southeast of Guangxi, accounting for almost one-third of the total area of Guangxi; Mandarin is mainly spoken in the northwest of the line. Cantonese in Guangxi is similar to Cantonese in Guangzhou, and everyone can understand it. However, in the early days, some Cantonese residents moved into ethnic minority areas and absorbed ethnic minority language elements, forming a dialect that is completely different from Guangzhou dialect, such as Goulou Cantonese. It mainly includes Yongxun Cantonese, Wuzhou Cantonese, Goulou Cantonese and Qinlian Cantonese.

The classification is as follows:

Yongxun Cantonese (Nanning dialect): Close to Wuzhou Cantonese. Mainly popular in towns with convenient transportation on both sides of Yongzhou and Zhou Xun, such as Nanning, Yongning, Chongzuo, Ningming, Hengxian, pingnan county and parts of Liuzhou. Take Nanning as the representative point.

Wuzhou Cantonese (Wuzhou dialect): Very close to Guangzhou dialect. They are mainly distributed in Wuzhou City, Daan, Danzhu and Wulin in Pingnan County, Jintian Town in Guiping County and Cangwu County, and Hexian County (now Hezhou) and its vicinity. The internal differences are very small. Represented by Wuzhou dialect, the phonetic system has 2 1 initials and 46 finals.

Goulou Cantonese (Beiliu dialect): mainly distributed in Yulin, Guigang (except Pingnan County and Guiping County) 13 counties and cities. Beiliu is located in Yulin area, and Beiliu dialect is a typical representative of Goulou Cantonese. Throughout the ages, Goulou belongs to Beiliu, Rongxian dialect is closest to Beiliu dialect, and Beiliu dialect is closer to Guangdong Cantonese than Yulin dialect. The phonology is complex, with 10 tones. There are rare voiced initials B and D in other dialects of Cantonese. Many words have lost their endings, such as [lar] in the second reading. And the vocabulary is also very distinctive. It is very different from Guangzhou dialect, so it is difficult for both of them to communicate.

Qinlian Cantonese (Qinlian dialect): It is basically the same as Yongxun Cantonese, with little internal difference. Mainly distributed in Qinzhou City, Hepu County (formerly known as Lianzhou), Pubei County, Fangcheng County, Lingshan and Beihai City.

Wuchuan dialect: distributed in Wuchuan City and Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province. Egg family: Egg family is a Cantonese who claims to be on the water. Egg talk, also known as water talk, is widely used in houses, ships, Guangdong and Guangxi. Qingyang dialect: mainly distributed in Yangshan, Qingyuan, Yingde, near Guangzhou. Some people have poor pronunciation. If you use "I", they will send "Ai". Because most of them are Hakkas, some syllables are mixed with Hakkas. In Baixian County, 40% of the population speaks Cantonese dialect, which means that only Guangxi, which speaks vernacular, is backward! ! ! Don't think that speaking vernacular means having money. In Guangxi, maybe not! ! ! Mr. Liu speaks Guizhou dialect, which has nothing to do with the vernacular. You said that the sky above you is higher than the sky, that the ground under your feet is thicker than the ground, that you are in good health and that you are in a good mood. Congratulations to our ordinary people for happiness, good life, sunshine, good health, laughing all night, radish and cabbage, fragrant, uncontroversial and interested. As long as brave enough to love has made some progress, you will be happy to see what Cantonese people have written. You always regard Gu Guangxin and Gu Cangwu as the closure of Guangdong, and add a little to the cities on the left and right sides of southern Guangxi. For example, when reading Tang poetry and Song poetry in vernacular in Baise, you will find that the difference between flat and flat is clear and rhymes. Vernacular is indeed an ancient lingua franca. Unlike reading ancient poems in Mandarin now, it takes a long time to analyze. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up a "toe-toe secretariat" to supervise the county. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, he withdrew his toe secretariat and set up a state of communication. Toe Secretariat and Jiaozhou are both Han regimes, so official communication must be polite. Most of the time, the Department of Cross-toe Secretariat and the State House were located in Guangxin (now Zhaoqing Pass, Guangdong Province), and Guangxin was the first to use Yayan. No! Most of the time, Toe Toe Secretariat and Jiaozhou Office are located in Jiaotoe, which is now Hanoi, Vietnam!