dialect

dialect

dialect

The word "dialect" first came from Han Yang Xiong's book "the interpretation of dialects of other countries in the unique language of Fuxuan emissary". "Dialect" refers to different people. The term "dialect" in Chinese population is a political concept, which is actually "local language", also known as "vernacular", "vernacular" or "vernacular". It refers to the language of a certain area which is different from the standard language. This term does not consider the kinship between languages.

"Dialect" in European population is a linguistic concept, which refers to the "dialect" under "language" which has been widely called since the 18th century. According to the kinship between languages (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar), it can be divided into family, group, branch and language Considering the special situation of China, the translation of "Chinese dialect" into English is "variations of Chinese".

According to the European understanding, a language which is different from the standard language and only in one region is dialect.

Citation explanation

Local variation of language. A language that is different from the standard language and only in one region. Jin Gehong's baopuzi Junshi: "the number of ancient books is hidden, so it may not be that people in the past, so it is difficult to understand, or the world is different, or the dialect is different." "When you move your family to the south for a long time, you will understand dialect in a childish way," said Huang furan of the Tang Dynasty Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty wrote the poem "changmen Jishi": "why did Wugeng buy it? Siyuan dialect is always different. " Bing Xin's "re sending to readers" 8: "his poems are written in dialect, full of people's character, sense of justice, simplicity and beauty."

Basic meaning

definition

Some linguists think that the difference between "dialect" and "language" is basically arbitrary, which is opposed by many other linguists, and they put forward various criteria, but these different criteria often lead to inconsistent conclusions. Generally speaking, all dialects can actually be called or regarded as languages (languages that are close to each other can be called each other's dialects, while languages that are far away from each other and have little correlation in the history of formation and development can not be called each other's dialects.)

In practice, the reason why individual languages are "dialects" is usually due to the following reasons:

There is a lack of proper written language, the language does not reach the level of accurate description; language users do not belong to their own country; the same nation (or country) has multiple language systems. The following is a discussion of several commonly used "dialect and language comparison" discrimination methods by linguists, and further points out the difficulties in practical application of these criteria. In some cases, the definition of language and dialect is not only a linguistic problem.

Note: the difference between "dialect" and "language" is basically arbitrary. It means that a language (accent), such as Jining dialect, can be called a dialect and a language at the same time. It can not be understood that any language can be called a dialect of another language. To determine whether a language is a dialect of another language, we should start from the language family In addition, some political and other factors should be taken into account.

classification

Dialects are generally divided into regional dialects and social dialects.

The similarities and differences between regional dialect and social dialect can be investigated from the following aspects.

The similarities between them are as follows

First,

They are the result of language differentiation and the manifestation of the imbalance of language development.

Second,

Social dialects are popular in a certain stratum, while regional dialects are popular in a certain region. Of course, in terms of region, regional dialects are popular in a certain range.

Third,

We should use the materials in the language of the whole people.

overview

With the collective moving to distant places or contacting with foreign cultures, languages will gradually differentiate and produce dialects distributed in different regions. Chinese dialects are widely distributed, with a population of more than 900 million.

Chinese dialects, commonly known as local dialect, are only used in certain areas. They are not independent of other languages, but only used in local areas. Most of the dialects in modern Chinese have been formed through a long process of evolution. There are many factors for the formation of Chinese dialects, such as social, historical and geographical factors, such as the migration of population, the barrier of mountains and rivers, and so on; there are also factors belonging to the language itself, such as the imbalance of language development, the contact and mutual influence of different languages, and so on.

Although dialect is only used in certain areas, it has a complete system. Dialects have phonetic structure system, lexical structure system and grammatical structure system, which can meet the needs of local social communication. All kinds of local dialects of the same nation are the common language of the nation, and generally show the linguistic characteristics of "similarities in differences, differences in similarities". In general, the national common language is always developed on the basis of a dialect.

According to its nature, dialects can be divided into regional dialects and social dialects. Regional dialects are the variations of languages due to regional differences. They are the branches of the languages of the whole people in different regions and reflect the unbalanced development of languages in different regions. Social dialects are social variants formed by social differences in occupation, class, age, gender, culture and so on.

Among the major modern Chinese dialects in China, the northern dialect can be regarded as the development of ancient Chinese in the vast northern region after thousands of years, while the southern dialect is gradually formed by the continuous southward migration of northern residents in history. The Han people in the North once went south on a large scale for several times, bringing the ancient Chinese of the north in different periods and dispersing it to various areas in the south of the Yangtze River, thus gradually forming six distinct dialects.

There are various dialects in modern Chinese, which are widely distributed. The differences among the dialects of modern Chinese show phonetics, vocabulary and grammar, especially phonetics. Some domestic scholars believe that most dialects and common language have some corresponding rules in pronunciation, and there are many similarities in vocabulary and grammar, so they are not independent languages. At present, the opinions of Chinese linguists on the division of modern Chinese dialects are not completely consistent. Most people think that there are seven dialects in modern Chinese.

China has a large population and is more complex, so it is difficult to deal with and analyze the dialects in different areas. According to the modern popular classification, modern Chinese dialects can be divided into seven dialect areas. They are northern dialect, Wu dialect, Xiang dialect, Hakka dialect, Min dialect, Yue Dialect, Gan dialect and Jin dialect.

At the same time, in the complex dialect area, some can be divided into several dialect slices (also known as sub dialect), and even into "dialect slices". The dialects that clearly know one place (a city, a county, a town, a village) are called local dialects. Such as Nanchang dialect, Guangzhou dialect, Changsha dialect, etc.

Heritage Protection

Dialect is the living fossil of culture. Because dialect, as a kind of local culture, is an organic part of national culture, the more inclusive culture is, the more attractive it is. When necessary, it's not too bad to write it into the textbook and learn and spread dialects through teaching.

Mr. Niu Guodong, a folklore expert, believes that the promotion of Putonghua may have a certain impact on local dialects, but the formation and continuation of the language is a process of hundreds and thousands of years, which cannot be changed overnight. As a cultural form and carrier rooted in the folk, dialect has a deep soil of folk culture.

Niu Guodong said that according to his own situation, the inheritance of Jinan dialect is still relatively optimistic. Many old Jinan people are still using it, especially among some family members. The most used dialect is Jinan dialect. From this point of view, there is no need for Jinan dialect to be protected.

Prof. Qian Zengyi, a famous dialectologist and a professor in the school of literature, journalism and communication of Shandong University, strongly believes that dialects cannot disappear. She said it is impossible to unify hundreds of millions of people with Putonghua as the only language tool. The purpose of popularizing Putonghua is only to promote a communication tool, not to replace dialect as the only language.

significance

Culture

1. Dialect is a unique national culture. Every place has its own unique dialect. It has been handed down for thousands of years and has rich cultural heritage.

2. People have begun to consciously protect the history and culture, such as protecting the quintessence of Peking Opera, protecting the national traditional festivals and so on.

3. It is important to popularize Putonghua, but we can't abandon dialect and national art.

4. As a tool of communication between people, Putonghua's popularity is of course important, while dialect, as a culture and art, contains strong national characteristics and should also be protected. There is no contradiction between the two.

5. To some extent, dialect is more representative of regional cultural characteristics, and dialect is a social phenomenon.

For example, the biggest characteristic of Shanxi dialect is to retain the entering tone of ancient Chinese, and the tone has extremely complex changes. Language and cultural heritage has a very important protection value. First of all, it lies in the dual role of language and culture as intangible cultural heritage

Chinese PinYin : Fang Yan