Yangcheng Evening News reported on the Hakka context on April 27
Text/Chu Renee Lai Jiahua
Over the years, the road is not exhausted; the vast rivers and rivers cannot finish the thousand-year guest rhyme. "It is better to sell the ancestral fields than to forget the words of the ancestors." As one of the seven major dialects of Chinese, Hakka dialect not only retains the phonetic, lexical and grammatical characteristics of ancient Chinese in different historical periods, and is known as the "living fossil of ancient Chinese"; it has also developed its unique language expression method, showing the charm of Hakka culture.
On April 23, the theme song of the 31st World Hakka Friendship Conference "Hakka under heaven" began filming in Meizhou and will be premiered in the world in June this year, the Hakka Mountain opera "Egret Village" and "Spring Noise" won the first prize of the Guangdong Provincial Arts Festival, the Hakka pop song "Mo Cheating Young Poor" was popular all over the Internet, and the Hakka movie "Happy Affair in the House" was released nationwide and awarded the annual Guangdong Excellent Film Work... In recent days, the Yangcheng Evening News reporter interviewed and learned that Hakka Mountain operas, Hakka pop music, Hakka sitcoms, movies and micro-films with hakka dialect as the carrier have frequently appeared and searched for hot searches in recent years, and ancient dialects are giving new vitality in various forms and moving towards a broader world.
Photo by He Zhilin, Hakka Museum of China
Widely distributed Hakka dialect
The Hakka dialect, or "Hakka dialect", is also known as "mountain dialect" and "Amu dialect" in some regions. As a magnificent flower in the Chinese language forest, in terms of its naming, the other six names in the seven major dialects of Chinese are related to the common area, but the Hakka dialect is related to the people who speak this dialect, for which the famous linguist Li Xinkui explained that "it is the language of the 'immigrant group' formed due to the migration of the group of people".
Hakka dialect is widely distributed in the south of the mainland, especially in the junction of the three provinces of northeast Guangdong, western Fujian and southern Gan as the base camp, representing the cities of Meizhou, Longyan and Ganzhou, which have been successively given the titles of "World Hakka Capital", "Hakka Ancestral Land" and "Hakka Cradle". In Guangdong, in addition to Meizhou, Shaoguan, Heyuan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen and other places are also inextricably linked to the Hakka. Hakka dialect is also widely distributed overseas, and many people still use Hakka dialect for daily communication overseas.
Meijiang night view He Zhilin photo
Luo Xin, a teacher at the Hakka Research Institute of Jiaying University, said that the Hakka dialect is widely distributed, but except for a few regions, the internal differences are not very large. At present, meixian dialect in Meizhou is used as the "standard tone" of Hakka in academic circles. Hakka dialect has a total of "four tones and six tones": "four tones" that is, flat sound, upper sound, desound and into the sound; "six tones" are yin flat tone, yang flat tone, upper tone, de-tone, yin into tune and yang into tone. It is worth noting that the "six tones" are only the basic tone of Hakka, and in the actual dialogue, there are often various transpositions.
Quite a characteristic Central Plains ancient sound
In the eyes of many people, the most memorable point of Hakka is to call yourself (first person)
Where did the characters "亻厓" ("ngai") and "亻厓" come from? In fact, "亻厓" is the ancient Chinese pronunciation of "I". "From the perspective of phonology, Hakka dialect retains the characteristics of 'ancient no light lip sound' and 'ancient no upper tongue tone'." Luo Xin gave an example to reporters that in Hakka dialect, the vowel of the word "fa" can read both f[f] of the light lip tone and b[p] of the accented lip tone, of which the b[p] of the accented lip sound is the ancient Chinese pronunciation; the vowel of the "zhi" character can read both the d[t] of the tongue sound, the z[ts] of the upper tongue sound, and the z[ts] of the upper tongue sound is also an ancient Chinese pronunciation.
"Voiced Qinghua Pingshu all send gas" is another major feature of Hakka dialect pronunciation, that is, the ancient full voiced vowel is basically purified into a sending sound regardless of whether it is flat or not, such as "climbing", "poor", "pan", "row", "loss" in the ancient full voice flat sound characters have [ph] sounds in Hakka, and "grab", "da", "step", "generation", "ding" in the ancient full voice of the voice have [th] sounds in Hakka.
In addition, Hakka dialect has quite an ancient legacy in many sentence structures. For example, "兮" is a common mood auxiliary in Chu Ci, according to the famous phonologist Kong Guangsen in the Qing Dynasty, the pronunciation of "兮" in the ancient language is "ah". "Ah" is one of the commonly used mood auxiliaries in Hakka. Whenever they encounter scenes that make people feel infinite emotion or breathtaking, Hakka people will always blurt out "fate + adjective + bi yi ye", for example, "fate xi beautiful bi yi ye (very beautiful)" and "fate xi slang bi yi ye (ugly death)".
"Hakka is a living ancient Chinese language, accumulating a large number of pronunciation, vocabulary and grammatical characteristics of ancient Chinese from different periods." Luo Xin said that many ancient poems and songs that are somewhat difficult to read today are particularly rhyming and catchy when recited in Hakka, precisely because Hakka retains the "ancient sound of the Central Plains".
A unique expression of developmental change
As one of the oldest dialects in China, the Hakka dialect vocabulary is rich in origin, preserving a large amount of ancient Chinese. For example, the Hakka called "rice" "he", "firewood" as "wood", "clothes" as "shirts", "sleep" as "sleep", and rice pastries as "粄", and the word "粄" was derived from ancient Chinese and was explained in the Tang Dynasty's special book on the study of phonetics. Another example is the Hakka dialect, which refers to "equivalent" and "arrival" as "quasi", and "looking up" and "looking up" as "騀", all of which are derived from the spoken Chinese words from the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Grammatically, wen dialects exist in large quantities in the oral expressions of Hakka. For example, "horizontal" is usually a noun when pronounced Yang, and when it is read, it becomes a verb, indicating that it falls horizontally. Another example is "Have you eaten breakfast" translated into Hakka as "Ru food chao wu", which is a typical literary expression sentence pattern.
In addition to retaining the classic Expression of Old Chinese, the Hakka dialect has also developed its own unique way of expression in the process of gradual development. For example, the word "head", the Hakka call the wok "wok head", the lock is "lock head"... How should this "head" be explained? "The 'Ding' without feet is called 'wok', and the reason why the Hakka people add a 'head' to the 'wok' is because eating is the most important thing in life." Luo Xin said that in the Hakka dialect, most of the nouns that end with "head" occupy an important position in production and life. The resulting "uncle head" is represented as an elderly man with a certain prestige status who is responsible for the council of the clan. For example, in Hakka dialect, "ear" is called "ear gong", "nose" is called "nose gong", tongue is called "tongue concubine", ginger is called "ginger", which is another feature of hakka dialect: with more sexual nouns, which to a certain extent reflects the traditional pattern of Hakka "male cultivator female weaving" and "male outside female inside" in the agricultural era.
Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, many Hakka people have made a living by "Fan", leaving behind many "waiting for Lang Sisters", and also brought some foreign loan words to the Hakka dialect, such as "foreign oil", "red hair mud", and even foreign transliterations, such as "Roti cake".
New and interesting ways to pass on
On December 19, 2020, a Hakka dialect comedy film "Happy Affair in the House" about the adherence and inheritance of Hakka traditional culture was released nationwide and was awarded the 2020 Guangdong Excellent Film Work. While winning the praise of the audience, the film has also aroused strong resonance among many Hakka people, and many post-80s and post-90s have said that they have "retrieved their childhood memories". How to better inherit and carry forward The Hakka culture and show the excellent Hakka culture and spirit to more people is the problem that the director of the film, Han Rongsheng, has been thinking about.
Stills of "Happy Affair in the House" Han Rongsheng Courtesy photo
"I am a native of Meizhou Hakka, when writing the script, I saw a lot of traditional Hakka old buildings, listened to a lot of representative Hakka mountain songs, and also recorded a large number of Proverbs in Hakka dialect, after the break, etc. I think more people should know and understand the beauty of Hakka dialect and Hakka culture." Han Rongsheng told reporters that in order to better restore the life of the Hakka family, the crew filmed many ancient Hakka buildings and former residences of celebrities, such as the calyx building in Tai Po County, the former residence of Qiu Fengjia in Wenfu Town, Jiaoling County, and the former residence of Li Huitang, the world ball king of Laolou Village, Hengpi Town, Wuhua County.
Meizhou Tai Po Calyx Building Photo by Han Rongsheng
More than 95% of the lines of the film are in Hakka dialect, in addition to the story and fun, the film also cleverly intersperses a large number of literary, food and architectural elements with Hakka characteristics, which allows the audience to open a window to understand the history and culture of Hakka through the film. "It is very kind to hear Hakka, and I hope that more Hakka works will be born." An audience member who watched "Happy Affair in the House" sighed.
In recent years, the inheritance forms of Hakka culture have become more and more novel, and art forms such as Hakka Mountain opera, Hakka pop music, Hakka sitcoms, movies and micro-films with hakka dialect as the carrier have borne fruitful results. A song "Mo Cheating The Poor Youth" made the Hakka pop music rush to the Weibo hot search, and later became the ending song of the animated film "Lion Boy"; a "Grandma" made the Hakka micro-film closer to the hearts of young people, reminding young people to care for the "Hakka Grandma" who has been paying and waiting at home while restoring life; the Hakka Mountain opera "Egret Village" and "Spring Noise" blossomed and won the first prize of two plays at the 14th Guangdong Provincial Arts Festival; the Hakka dialect series sitcom "Walled House People' Home" was broadcast for nearly a thousand episodes. Use pure Hakka dialect and witty and humorous expression to accompany the Hakka family to spend every wonderful night. "The Hakka area has beautiful scenery, profound history and rich themes, and I hope that there will be more good works to further promote Hakka culture." Han Rongsheng said.
Former residence of Zhang Bishi in Tai Po, Meizhou Photo by Han Rongsheng
The Hakka dialect is a treasure trove of Chinese language and culture. In addition to literary and artistic workers in different fields, experts and scholars are also carefully studying how to inherit and carry forward Hakka culture in a better way. In December 2020, Luo Xin's book "University Hakka Language Course" was launched and was loved by the majority of readers. According to the "Hakka Pinyin Scheme", the book uses an easy-to-understand Zhuyin method to mark the pronunciation of Hakka dialect, and explains the knowledge points of Hakka dialect with auxiliary and extended interesting stories, which well meets the needs of college students and Hakka culture lovers to learn Hakka dialect and understand Hakka culture. The reporter learned from the Hakka Research Institute of Jiaying College that at present, Jiaying College has also opened public elective courses related to Hakka dialect, and the course selection rate is basically full; at the same time, the school has also been actively sorting out and publishing books on Hakka culture and promoting Hakka culture, and has also published a number of textbooks and books on Hakka dialect pronunciation and vocabulary, and the "University Hakka Dialect Tutorial" is one of them. "I hope that more people can understand Hakka dialect and Hakka culture, and I also hope that readers and friends can use Hakka language and culture as a mirror image to arouse the attention and love for their native language culture." Luo Xin said.
Hakka culture book Luo Xin photo
[Context Observation]
Speak well of the "Ammu words" poem and memorize it quickly
Text/Yangcheng Evening News reporter Qiu Ruini
The Hakka dialect is known as the "living fossil of ancient Chinese" because it has accumulated a large number of pronunciations, vocabulary and grammatical characteristics of ancient Chinese in different periods. A few days ago, Luo Xin, a teacher at the Hakka Research Institute of Jiaying College, said in an interview with the Yangcheng Evening News reporter that in addition to the precious research value of this "living fossil", people who understand the Hakka dialect may have unique advantages in learning ancient poetry and foreign languages.
Luo Xin introduced that the Hakka dialect retains a large number of ancient Chinese characteristics, and many pronunciations, vocabulary and grammar are the same or similar to the ancient literary expressions, which may be helpful for students to learn ancient poetry and help understand the chinese language. For example, the Tang Dynasty literary scholar Du Mu's "Afang Gongfu" and some other classic Tang poems and Song poems are read in the Hakka dialect that retains the ancient Han pronunciation, which is catchy and easy to recite. For example, there are many ancient words in the Hakka dialect vocabulary, such as "family official" (husband's father), "Xiaolang" (husband's brother), "Manzi" (young son), etc., and people who know Hakka are more likely to understand its meaning when reading ancient chinese.
In addition, because Hakka has "four tones and six tones", some phonemes are not in Mandarin, but are often spoken in Hakka dialects. "When encountering such phonemes in the process of learning a foreign language, people who know Hakka are more likely to pronounce this sound accurately." Luo Xin said that in addition to the Hakka dialect, many other regional dialects also have rich tones, which is a great advantage for foreign language learning.
[Context Link]
In Hakka sayings, look at the "mountain dwelling rice cultivation" culture
Text/Yangcheng Evening News reporter Qiu Ruini
There are many familiar sayings in the Hakka dialect, including idioms, idioms, post-break languages and proverbs. These familiar sayings were created and handed down by the Hakka people in the practice of labor and life for thousands of years, and are used by people in daily life, with a relatively fixed structure, a relatively complete meaning, a distinct colloquialism, popularity, rich in philosophy, and profound significance. Taking the Meixian familiar language as an example, from the content point of view, it can reflect the Hakka people's "mountain residence rice cultivation" culture to a certain extent, and from the ideological point of view, it also reflects the Hakka people's spirit of advocating "truth, goodness and beauty" and satirizing "false evil and ugly".
Professor Wen Changyan, an expert in Hakka dialect research, said that Hakka culture is a kind of "mountain rice farming" culture, and the characteristics of life under this culture are: surrounded by mountains, trees, and beasts; "rice" dominates agricultural production, and sweet potatoes, taro, etc. supplement it; "cattle" are indispensable domestic animals, and chickens, cats, and dogs are important in daily life. In the familiar language, it is often manifested as the high frequency of mountains, trees, crops and wild animals and poultry. Such as "the eyes are too big to see the mountain" (metaphorical carelessness), "touching the eyes to the mountain - not knowing the height" (metaphor does not understand the reason), "people are afraid of sadness, the tree is afraid of peeling", "flat trees burn fire - charcoal (sigh) no circle (edge)", "raising snakes and eating chickens" (attracting wolves into the house), "people are afraid of old age and poverty, grass is afraid of cold dew wind", "a lotus taro net head" (metaphorically a group of dragons without a leader, each one competes for the head), "the horn of the bull is not sharp" (the metaphor does not have a certain skill, dare not go out to make a living), "people's feet and dog mouths, burn and sleep" (Both the human foot and the dog's mouth are parts that need to be kept warm, and here the warmth can be used to sleep.)
Most scholars who study Hakka thought and culture point out that the Hakka people have inherited a deep Central Plains culture, and the traditional ideas of the Chinese nation, such as advocating "truth, goodness and beauty" and satirizing "false evil and ugly", are also reflected in Hakka sayings. For example, "You have a spring breeze, I have summer rain" (peach and plum, courtesy and exchange), "only love people are good, and the drinking water is also sweet" (the exchange focuses on friendship, not eating and drinking), "the source of drinking water loves to remember the source of water" (drinking water and thinking about the source), "the white skin of the black heart radish" (outside the golden jade, the defeat in it), "the fox and the flower cat" (figuratively lying, rumor-making), "human snake, son-in-law snake" (metaphorically people are cloudy, without any opinion), "An'er dou handle" (figurative nonsense) and so on.
[Context Week]
A few days ago, the "Top Ten Important Archaeological Discoveries of Guangdong Province in ten years" was announced, and the Qin and Han architectural sites of Wuhua Shixiong Mountain in Meizhou were selected. It is understood that the current total area of Shixiong Mountain ruins is about 220,000 square meters, and the remains of the Qin and Han Dynasties are mainly distributed on the four-level terrace of the mountain hill south of Shixiong Mountain, and the high platform is divided into two areas around the trench. After the excavation of cultural relics, archaeologists carried out technical landfill protection of the Shixiong Mountain site.
On April 21, meizhou municipal bureau of culture, radio, television and tourism released the "Meizhou City 2022 "Cantonese Reading Wonderful" National Reading Series Activity Arrangement Preview", welcoming citizens and tourists to actively participate in the meizhou city-wide reading series of activities for the whole people. The series of activities was organized by 10 public libraries in Meizhou City around eight themes, a total of 121 online and offline activities were arranged, and the activities lasted until the end of the year.
On April 23, the theme song of the 31st World Hakka Friendship Conference, "Hakka under the Heavens", was recorded at the Meizhou Liangsheng Hakka Art Center and filmed at the Zeng Xianzi Stadium in Meixian District. It is understood that the 31st World Hakka Conference will be held from June 24 to 26, 2022 in Markham, Ontario, Canada, and the theme song "Hakka under the World" will also be released worldwide in June this year.
On April 25, the Standing Committee of the Meizhou Municipal People's Congress conducted a law enforcement inspection of the implementation of the Regulations on the Protection of Hakka Dragon Houses in Meizhou City. The inspection team successively went to the Sentang Ancestral Hall and TonghuiDi in Huliao Town, Dapu County, and Qunfeng Dafudi (Renhou Wengong Ancestral Hall) in Bingcun Town, Meixian District, to learn more about the implementation of the "Regulations" in Meizhou City through on-the-spot inspections, viewing materials, listening to reports, and interacting with other means, and put forward opinions and suggestions on the problems and deficiencies found in the process of law enforcement inspections. (Chu Renee)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Zhu Guangyu