The editor of Anhui, a small editor, once studied in a Qinghai university 2,000 kilometers away from home, and served as the head of the school's Anhui Hometown Association during his school. For three years, every semester in the school will hold the Anhui Hometown Association, where Anhui people of all grades in the school get together, eat, sing, get to know each other, and communicate with each other. But in the past three years, I have been disappointed that many Anhui people do not seem to have much sense of identification with the province. Not only are Anhui people's willingness to participate in the Anhui Hometown Association not high, but also many Anhui people will not have much affinity when they meet classmates in a province in other places, and even a little embarrassed. The atmosphere of our hometown association is also far inferior to that of northeasterners, Sichuanese and Cantonese. I have been thinking about the reasons for this, and at the same time I have doubted the significance of the existence of the Anhui Hometown Association that I have been committed to all these years.
Qinghai Nationalities University Anhui Hometown Association publicity business card
Through understanding the history of Anhui, we know that Anhui Province is actually a province forcibly created by the Qing government, formerly known as Jiangnan Province of the Ming Dynasty. Its very existence is itself a product of ancient monarchy and national exploitation. In fact, places such as Suqian in Xuzhou in northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, most of Henan, and southern Shandong belong to the Central Plains Guan dialect area. Most of central Anhui and areas along the river, such as Hefei Chaohu Chuzhou Wuhu and other places and Jiangsu Nanjing Zhenjiang Yangzhou Huai'an and other places belong to the Jianghuai Guan dialect area. Parts of southern Anhui and Suxi Changnan, southern Jiangsu and other places, Shanghai, Zhejiang also belong to the Wu language area. During the Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan Province was established, and the Han chinese who spoke the Central Plains official dialect, the Jianghuai official dialect and the Wu language were forcibly assigned to a province. So that we can not understand each other's speech, can not produce a sense of regional identity and belonging, it is impossible to report to the group for warmth, effectively prevent local rebellion, and maintain the central monarchy. During the Qing Dynasty, Jiangnan Province was divided into present-day Anhui Province and Jiangsu Province. Some people wonder why the Qing government did not cut Jiangnan Province from east to west, so that the culture of a province was closer, rather than vertically cutting Jiangnan Province from north to south, so that the cultural differences in the province were so great. In fact, the Qing government did not want to classify people whose dialects were close to their cultures into a province, and when the local dialects were mixed, the culture was fragmented, there was no sense of regional identity and belonging, and infighting continued, the ruler was safe.
The distribution map of dialects in the last century has changed to some extent in this century
The first criterion for us to recognize fellow countrymen is often the accent. Except for a small part of the Liaodong Peninsula, the three northeastern provinces basically speak a dialect, that is, the Northeast Guan dialect, and the dialect of the Northeast is particularly unified. Although two northeasterners come from different provinces in the northeast, one Heilongjiang and one in Liaoning, they are far apart, even farther than Hefei to Beijing, I don't know which Gada is the county where your hometown is, but when I hear your accent, I recognize you as a fellow countryman, and it is especially comfortable to talk about your hometown in the field. In Sichuan and Chongqing, except for Tibetan areas, they basically speak the southwestern official dialect, and as soon as they open their mouths, they are fellow villagers. Although The Guangdong region is divided into Cantonese, Hakka and Chaoshan dialects, Cantonese has always been in a dominant position in Guangdong and has an overwhelming advantage. When we think of Cantonese, we can think of Cantonese.
In contrast, in Anhui Province, we have neither a unified dialect nor a representative dialect, so what do we do to maintain our sense of identity? Is it only the three words "Anhui Province" written on the address of the ID card? The dialect most commonly spoken in Anhui Province is Jianghuai Guan dialect, which is represented by Hefei dialect and Nanjing dialect. Although the Jianghuai dialect is the most used in cities, it is more than the people of northern Anhui. In fact, the most widely spoken dialect in Anhui is the Central Plains dialect of northern Anhui, which is the same dialect as most of Henan, Suzhou, Jiangsu, and southern Shandong. There is also Wu language coverage in southern Anhui, which is the same dialect as southern Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang. The Huangshan area belongs to the Hui language, which is basically isolated from the external dialects, and there is often a phenomenon of one dialect per village and ten different sounds. Parts of Anqingchi Prefecture speak the Gan language, also known as Jiangxi dialect. They have recognized Sichuan dialect (Southwest Mandarin), Cantonese (Cantonese), Northeast Dialect (Northeast Mandarin), Henan Dialect (Central Plains Mandarin), but we do not have recognized Anhui dialect. There used to be Many popular songs in Anhui's Douyin Internet celebrities who covered many popular songs in their hometown dialect Liu'an Shucheng dialect, saying that they were Anhui dialect versions of songs. Immediately, it was attacked by the Anhui people. This is the phenomenon of cultural fragmentation in Anhui. In order to avoid unnecessary controversy and contradictions, in the end he no longer used the word "Anhui dialect", only "Anhui Anhui dialect". I remember that before in Guangdong, chatting with Cantonese people, Cantonese people said: "Our people basically speak Cantonese, what dialect do you people say?" I was also embarrassed to say the word "Anhui dialect", and could only tell him that our people spoke Jianghuai official dialect. In fact, there is no "Anhui dialect" at all, only Jianghuai dialect, Zhongyuan dialect, Wu language (Wu Nong soft language), Hui language and Gan language.
When I was in school, I always suggested that everyone use dialects in the hometown meeting to bring people closer to each other. Just like the Northeast Sichuan Folk Association I saw before, the whole process of dialect exchange and harmonious atmosphere. However, because of different regions, different dialects in Anhui Province are mixed and varied, and the differences are too great, and speaking dialects will widen the distance between people. I remember once chatting with an Anhui alumnus, he complained that when he first came to Qinghai to study in his freshman year, he met a senior in Anhui in the same province at school, and at first he was very happy, thinking that he had met his fellow countrymen, and he was very excited to communicate with each other in dialect, and it turned out that two people, a Chizhou and a Fuyang, spoke with a completely different accent, and the mood was instantly disheartened. Although ostensibly a fellow countryman, for the most part, we can only speak Mandarin. In Huangshan and Anqing, where dialects are most differentiated, there will even be encounters with villagers in the villages next door to the county, and they can only communicate in Mandarin. Everyone can only look at each other and smile, politely, symbolically say a word of "fellow countryman", in fact, the dialects are different, it is difficult to recognize each other from the heart, it will only make two people embarrassed by each other. My mother tongue is Jianghuai guan dialect, I can speak dialects in my hometown, and probably only people in Hefei, Chuzhou, Lu'an, Chaohu, Ma'anshan, Nanjing, Wuhu, Xuancheng, Tongling (only urban accents, not fully covering all the townships and counties below) have a sense of identity, and other areas will only have a sense of alienation.
When the hometown association does not have the hometown dialect to do the foil, when everyone uses blunt Mandarin to communicate, what is the essential difference between this and the gathering with classmates and friends from other provinces? What is the significance of the existence of the Anhui Hometown Association? Each of us in charge of the hometown association should reflect on whether we should change our past thinking and no longer just stick to the provinces that hold the hometown meeting, but should consider the important factor of dialect areas.
A rough map of the homemade dialects is welcome to correct