People always yearn for a good and happy life, so when naming natural villages or other place names, especially when writing a big name, they always want to make the name of the village elegant and related to auspicious happiness. The simplest and most direct way is to use a lot of auspicious words, such as "auspicious health, peace, longevity, wealth, and merit" and so on. In rhetoric, this is called avoidance of vulgarity.
According to the statistics of Professor Li Rulong of Xiamen University, there are 54 place names of "Taiping", 24 places of Xinglong, and 125 place names of the word "An" in the Atlas of Provinces of the People's Republic of China. (Collected Treatises on Geographical Names and Linguistics, p. 75, Fujian Map Publishing House, 1993) Examples in Shantou City include Shengping District, Changping Road, Wanfuli, Wan'an Street, Xinxing Street, Wendri, Wufuli, Ren'an Street, Renheli, Yongping Road, Yongtai Road, Yingxiang Road, etc. In Chaozhou City, there are Taiping Street, Jili Street, Jiyuan Street, Jiyi Street, Nghe An Road, Taichang Road, etc.
Shantou Building: Once a landmark building in ShantouBu, it is located at the intersection of Yongping Road in the old downtown area of Shantou City
In addition to the use of auspicious and healthy words, the Chaoshan people often use the method of harmonic pronunciation to write the original more vulgar place names into elegant and auspicious words. In the Minnan-speaking area of eastern Guangdong, almost all the place names called "lower ×" or "× down" are almost commonly spoken, and many in the Chaoshan area are written as "Hua" and "tail" are written as "beautiful". For example, I am familiar with the Chenghai District of Shantou City, "Xiabu - Huafu, Xiajiao - Huajiao, Puwei - Pumei, Weidai - Meidai, Daiwei - Daimei, Longwei - Longmei, Chaowei - Guanmei" and so on. In another article, we provide a lot of examples of "tail" writing "beauty", which are listed here to share with you:
Taiping Road, the old capital city of Chaozhou City, also known as Paifang Street. More than 20 stone arches record the former glory of Chaozhou Capital
Longhu District, Shantou City, Outing Street, Longwei Village - Longmei Village, Chenghai District Dongli Town Hewei Village - Hemei Village, Dongli Middle School Tail Garden - Meiyuan, Chaoyang District Xiqi Town Piwei - Bomei, etc.;
Chao'an District, Chaozhou City, Dengtang Town, Yangwei - Yangmei, Fengtang Town Huwei - Humei, Xiangwei - Xiangmei, Guihu Town Xiwei - Ximei, Fuyang Town Lower Bottom Tail - Xia Limei, Longwei - Longmei, Caitang Town Basket Tail - Longjimei, Xiawei (Shen) - Huamei, Fenghuang Town Kengwei - Anti-American, Fengxi District Guxiang Town Shuiwei - Shuimei, Long tail - Changmei, Cut Tail - Gumei, Gouwei - Goumei, Raoping County Dongshan Town Shuiwei - Shuimei, Socheng Town Tangwei - Changmei, Dacheng Town Xiwei - Ximei, etc.;
The sheep's tail in Jieyang City - Yangmei, the big sheep's tail in Puning City, the small sheep's tail - the big Yangmei, the small Yangmei, etc.;
Dongwei Village, Hongwan, Shanwei City- Dongmei Village;
Jiaowei - Jiaomei in Longhai City, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, Shuwei - Shumei in Zhao'an County, Zhangzhou City, Empty Tail - Kangmei in Dongshan County, Xiwei - Ximei in Nan'an City, Quanzhou, Xunwei - Exhaust Tail - Jimei in Xiamen City, etc.;
Taipei City, Taiwan Province, Fengwei - Jingmei, etc.;
I believe that there are more examples of "tail-beauty" and "lower-hua" in Min-speaking areas around the world. It cannot be exhaustively recorded here.
Jieyang Yangmei: The Jade Capital of Asia. The Torch Festival, which is held from the fifth to the sixth day of the first lunar month every year, is also an intangible cultural heritage project
In addition to these two typical commonal names, there are many elegant names that use harmonic sounds in various places. For example:
Longdu Town, Chenghai District, Shantou City, has "Qiao ZiLi Village", formerly known as "QiaoZaitou". "Qiaozai" and "Qiao Zi" are homophonous in Mandarin, so they abandon the custom to write "Qiao Zi"; "Aiyang Village", formerly known as "Yayang Village", with "Duck" into the place name, the masses are vulgar, so they use the sound near word "隘" to write "Aiyang Village". There is a village of "Shanjia" in the east of Chenghai Chengcheng, or "Mountain Pit", but it is written as "Xianju Village". In the south of the city, there is "Mole Lane" (Mad Dog Lane), which is known as "Xiao Gao Lane". Chenghua Street has "Xianlong Village", orally called "Sand Dragon", named after agricultural tools, and written as "Xianlong". Shanghua Town has "Dutou Village", and the name of the village was once written "Tuhao". Legend has it that there was an ancient temple in the village, with the word "Tuhao" as the title of Lianyun: "Books are holy, and Haoshui opens up humanities". There is also the village name "Wang Zilin", orally called "Thorn Forest". "Thorn forest" sound [ci3 nan5] (test basket), referring to thorn bushes. Used as a village name to illustrate the situation before the creation of the village, it is very simple but not elegant. In the fourth year of Ming Jianwen (1402 AD), the village was renamed "Wang Zilin Zhai". The town of "Laiwu Peninsula" is verbally called "Milky Mountain" nin1 bou5 suan1 because of the scenery of Twin Breast Peaks, and is also falsely called "Basket Breast" (nan5 bou5, which may be the transliteration of "Milk Breast" nin1 bou5). It was renamed "Laiwu" because of its closeness.
Chenghai Laiwu double breast peak
There is "Xia Fei Yu" in South Australia, formerly known as "Shrimp Tail Island", which is named because the island resembles a shrimp tail. Later, he used the harmonic method as "Xia fei". The sunset is full of joy and the sky, how elegant!
Longtou Village, Waisha Street, Longhu District, there is a three-hole stone bridge in the north of the village, the name is "Plough Bridge". The village is named after the bridge, called "Plough Village", written from Ya to "Longtou Village"; Fusha Village, orally called "Fusha Village". It is so named because the sand was floating on the ground when the ancestors moved to this place. Xia Gui Village, formerly known as "Shrimp Bone Pu", was changed to its current name due to local customs.
Heping Town, Chaoyang District, the real name is "Oyster Ping". Legend has it that King Wen Tianxiang qin wang felt that it was too vulgar and that outsiders did not understand it, and suggested that it be changed to "peace" according to the harmonic pronunciation of the official dialect, and the people followed it.
Chaoyang District Gu Rao Town, formerly known as "Su Liao", Chaoyang pronunciation ciah4 liao5, so also written "Chi Liao", Hou Yahua changed "Millet" to "Valley", changed "Liao" to "Rao", meaning a bumper harvest of rice.
The old streets and alleys in Chaozhou Capital City have a deep historical and cultural heritage, and if you don't pay attention, you step into the old residence of a historical celebrity. These large mansions have been converted into homestays, which have become internet celebrity inns, and it is difficult to find a room on weekends
In chaozhou city, the cattle lane is written as "Zaifu Lane", the sheep lane is written as "Zaiyang Lane", the dog lane is written as "Waiting Lane", the soil dung (do6 bung3) lane is written as "Tuxun Lane", the cat and mouse (ngiao2 ce2) lane is written as "Wucuo Lane", the big and small urinary lanes are written as "big and small Bi Cuo Lane", etc. (materials provided by Mr. Chen Xianwu of Chaozhou Municipal Library). The "Ge Chai" (guah4 ca5) of Longhu Town in Chao'an District writes "Stork Nest" and so on.
Another type of very elegant place-name, when named with the participation of people with higher culture, is often related to the classics without considering the problem of harmonics. For example:
In 1938, when the villages of "Zhoutou, Tomb, and Xiawang" were merged, it was decided that the villages should live in harmony, so they took the sentence "Virtue is not lonely, there will be neighbors" in the Analects of Liren and shortened to "Delin". Chenghua Street has "Longtian Village", orally called "Tianliao", because the ancestors built "Tiantouliao" (grass shed) in the field, so named. In the twelfth year of Ming Chongzhen (1639 AD), Lu Sheng, a man in the village, changed his name to "Longtian" according to the "I Ching" "See the Dragon in the Field", which has been used to this day. Chenghua Street Guanshan Township has "Guanlongtan", local literature is also called "ZhongsheTan" (named in honor of Lu Tong), there is a stone bridge on the pond, named "Yuelong Bridge", it is said that Lu Dong personally named it, the meaning of the fish leaping dragon gate, symbolizing the meaning of the township will be talented.
GuanlongTang, ya called "ZhongsheTan". Chenghai sound does not have -m rhyme tail, tang, tan homophony. Guanlongtang is famous for its large mullet (mullet), which has the afterword of "Guanlongtang mullet - no technique", as well as the nursery rhyme "Guanlongziniang will dress up and dress up her husband to become an official"
Longdong Township, Nan'ao County, has "Longdi Village", the terrain is long from north to south, meandering, ascending and looking down, resembling a long snake, so it is called "snake land". During the Republic of China, the villagers changed it to "Dragon Land" because of the ugly word "snake". There is Zhupu Village in Zhuyuan Township, Haojiang District, formerly known as "Shapu", named because of its location on the waterfront and its sand and gravel. Later, the word "sand" was too vulgar and changed to "Zhupu".
There are a few examples of place names that use close-form characters to elegantly. For example, "Yunguan Road Village" was formerly known as "Niutou Road Village". Because during the Yuan Dynasty, this village had a ruins market, named after the cattle trading and cattle traders. Because "bull's head" was vulgar, it was changed to the word "Yunguan" with a close character.
The Cemetery of grand marshal Song located in Chaoyang Valley. On the Internet, I saw a WeChat public account called "Chiliao Sister KanGu Rao", which is different from the colloquial and written place names, and there are as many as 80,000 fans
Such eccentric place names often differ greatly from the original colloquial place names, as in the example above:
Gu Rao (gog4 riao5) – 寮/赤寮 (ciah4 liao5)
O5 pian5 – peace (hua5 pêng5)
Xia Gui (hê5 gui3)—Shrimp bone (hê5 gug4)
Wang Zilin (zi2 ling5) - Thorn Forest ci3 nan5
Cheng Yanggang (tian5 iang5 gang1) - Da Liang Gang / Da Niang Towel (dua7 nion5 geng1)
Stork's Nest (guang3 cao5) — Ge Chai (guah4 ca5)
Huamei (Lower Tail) Shen Ancestral Hall (courtesy of Mr. Chen Chuanjia of Chao'an). Huamei has one surname in one village, but there are more than 50 ancestral halls in the village
Such place names, which are separated from spoken from writing, sometimes cause trouble for communication. When I visited Malaysia at the end of the last century, there was a young Chinese friend surnamed Zeng and a young Chinese friend surnamed Shen who showed me an envelope, one looking for Chenghai Tuhao Village, the other looking for Chao'an Huamei Village, and they said that their predecessors told them that they did not have these two villages. At that time, I had not studied the chaoshan place names, nor did I know which two villages it was, so I could only promise to take it back and help them ask. After returning to China, I consulted the older generation of post office staff, and the problem was solved, and the original one was Chenghai Dutou Village, which was surnamed Da, known as "Dutou Zeng"; the other was Chao'an's famous "Lower Tail Shen".
Source: Lin Lunlun dialect tea
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