Text |" Who is the most Chinese"
Dialect is the way home.
You talk about the way home
There are trees full of flowers on the road
Dreamy rural sound, lingering low
Alley Mo smoke, green mist chasing
The wanderer who returned late gently buttoned the door
Since then, a whole spring has been pushed away
I want to tell you more
In my hometown
There is a kind of morning, it is daylight
There is a kind of dinner called dusk
There is a kind of rain, called falling rain
There is a kind of liking, called joy
The heart is a tree full of flowers
Dialect is the way home Chinese
Image | @Warren Lunzai
In Guangzhou in December, Xiaoman's waist is teetering by the Pearl River, the bustle of the thirteen lines is too big, and the children in the Fangcun tea market are rubbing Tie Guanyin like sand. Walking through the civilized road at night, there are teachers in Chinese coarse cloth clothes, standing in the shadows under the arcade smoking. "Beautiful girl, how about drinking and returning the cup?" His vernacular, together with the God of Wealth worshiped with two red candles in the shop, tells you: Here, desolation is not because there is no one, but because there is chaos and noise. But it is also an extremely inclusive city. Cantonese, like blood vessels and nerves, spread throughout urban villages and Pearl River New Town, witnessing the countless wandering confusions and thriving desires in this land.
Image | @Ivansidorenko
Yue is the ancient Chinese name for the coastal area south of the Yangtze River. Cantonese, as the native language of the Cantonese people, also retains many Old Chinese pronunciations. Complete nine-tone six-tone with rich vowel endings. Many Cantonese people have been reciting ancient Cantonese since childhood. "Oh, it's dangerous, it's difficult, it's difficult to go to the green sky." Some of the Chinese that do not rhyme in Mandarin are replaced with Cantonese, and they are very comfortable to read. This is related to the monosyllabic ancient words in Cantonese, which usually come from ancient Chu, Zhuang, and Dong languages, such as looking at the pronunciation as 睇, wanting to say as 谂, things are 嘢, beautiful is beautiful. Not only that, Cantonese characters such as 乜, 冇, 咁 are also very common in Guangzhou. This style of "I write my mouth by hand" shows the Cantonese people's dedication and love for Cantonese.
Image | Chuan Ji
Image | @_Lybbb
Image | @Warren Lunzai
The term Cantonese, which originated from the Nanyue country in the Lingnan region, is actually Lingnanese in a broad sense, not specifically Cantonese. But some locals will tell you that only Cantonese is the most authentic Cantonese, and that the accents vary in Dongshan, Xiguan, Xicun and Panyu alone. Also, those Hong Kong people who speak Cantonese and love English, have no nasal sounds, and lazy sounds are too heavy. The base of the front and back tongue can be lifted without lifting, the tongue surface can be not attached to the palate without being attached to the palate, and sometimes even the rhyme tail is swallowed. "True Yin Gong..." But when it comes to the decline of Cantonese, why not Hong Kong?
As early as 2017, survey data showed that the population of Cantonese speakers is shrinking further, and more than half of Guangzhou people are pessimistic about the future of Cantonese. The cross-province migrant population has impacted the environment in which Cantonese is grown. More and more Cantonese people, their sideburns are not white, the local pronunciation has changed, and they can do nothing about it. This is a sad thing.
Image | @Ivansidorenko
At dusk, you paid the bill at the Lu Yu Teahouse. There was Sir, who had just left his middle shift, passing through the dim light between the buildings. It's like an illegible film image. This is Hong Kong. Many people are eager to leave, many people are rushing in, but none of them are your feelings.
On such nights, take a taxi to the area around Mong Kok. The taxi drives wildly, but the driver master is very kind. He talks to you about Hong Kong, he talks to you about Li Ka-shing. Hong Kong, the city of the Lee family. "A lot of people are hiking...". Those profound things, he said lightly. So I feel that Cantonese is a bit like Hong Kong blues. It is noisy, lively, sometimes melancholy, and lonely. It's like watching an open-air movie on the street, one moment is Stephen Chow's laughter and scolding, and the other is Wong Kar-wai's dream murmuring. As for the warmth in that TVB drama, it is more like a blatant deception: "You're hungry, I'll cook a noodle for you to eat" "Na, the most important thing to be a person is to be happy"... You are no longer the girl chasing Hong Kong dramas with a TV set, and today's Hong Kong is no longer that Hong Kong.
Image | @Hymchu
In 1997, Cantonese returned home with Hong Kong with a heartbreaking rhetoric.
Years have polished the pronunciation of Cantonese in the New Territories, and the wounds that have been brutally skimmed have finally smoothed out the British romance of the twenty-six letters. No one thought it was a scar. There is no talk of forgiveness or not. It is clearly recognized, the depleted dialect, the division of the land, the confusion, the insincerity.
But some things, after many years, will not change. Such as longing, such as homesickness, such as return. So those dialects, the volume became smaller all the way, and finally retreated into the body, adhesions, body fluids, blood vessels, memories. In fact, they are so close to you, they are never far away.
Image | @kwunkum
The popular language in Jiangnan is called Su Bai. The name is quaint, warm and faint, like the moon crying in the winter humble administrator's garden. In the twentieth year of Guangxu, someone wrote a novel with Su Bai, which became the pioneer of Wu literature. The talented girl Zhang Ailing was very happy and took it translated into Chinese, called "Flowers on the Sea". In the meantime, although it was a matter of fireworks and willow alley, it still could not hide the lightness in Wu's language: last night, the end of the day was also angry, don't stop raining... A gust of wind blew a wave of glass windows, ping-pong, like someone coming to doo, even the curtain rolled up, straight to the face wave. So I was scared to death....
Image | @W_N_T
In Suzhou dialect, the voiced sounds of Middle Chinese are retained. The speed of speech is moderate, not lost, scattered and light, and quite lively and interesting. Early in the morning, pick up a school bag and walk in the alley, it will be quiet. Neighbors, always have to say a few pleasantries. Morning, dinner? I've eaten it. The continuous inflection of Gusu gossip, most of the front is heavy and the back is light, the form is not as strong as Shanghainese, and the sense of listening is more like a low chant and shallow singing. In addition, I love to use overlapping words, white is snow white, red is xuanxuan red, round is round pocket, thin is thin and obedient, when it comes to people, it is a flower book, sad.
The beauty of the words, the beauty of the sound, light, brittle, soft, glutinous, always inseparable, and the person who said it, naturally loved. I often listen to some Jiangsu people and sell them in a daze. Selling stupid and selling stupid is cute. It's still ten years old. Primary school hall, in a daze, was knocked on the head by the teacher, how much is your stay?
Image | @JaneJane
And the Wenzhou dialect of the people of Oujiang is more like an orphan of the beautiful world. It is complex and difficult to understand, and although the pronunciation and structure are extremely obscure in Wu, the vocabulary inherits the unique beauty of "ancient Jiangdong language". In Wenzhou, people call breakfast daylight, lunch daylight, and dinner dusk. In this way, three meals a day, eating the sun rises and the moon sets, and it is the time that passes. It was as if you had to look up at the sky to decide which dish to put chopsticks on.
Dialects make the life of Jiangsu and Zhejiang families seem humane. "Shake, shake, shake to Grandma's bridge, Grandma called me a good baby." A pack of sugar, a pack of fruit, grandma bought a fish to burn".... The water town in the dream is the squeaking oars, the mist on the eyelashes, the yellow plum rain in the Qili Mountain Pond, and the raccoon girl at the head of the river. The time of Wu's voice, perhaps Jiangnan people do not know it, but it seems to evoke the nostalgia of the past life Chinese. Willing to grow old in that smokey water.
Image | @cocoanext
The motorcycle drove all the way through the countryside, without the dust of imagination. In that long green gaze, your eyes seem to turn into a kingfisher and fly away from the eye socket. "Sister, here you are..." was Grandma's voice, with hesitant joy. The sound carried through the bricks and tiles of the Dragon House, through the cloisters of the stilted buildings, through the humid morning of the south, and through the smoky dusk.
Here, the mountain is the shadow of the mountain, dog, too lazy to evolve. I remember going to school when I was six years old, and my grandmother would say that A-mei went to the study. At the end of the semester, she said that A-mei had left school, and at the beginning of the semester, she said that A-mei had accepted school. Never thought before, home, what is it? Guest, where did it come from? But people, as if this is the case, grew up day by day in her country voice.
Later, I heard many people say that although they couldn't understand Hakka, they still thought it sounded good. Like the land, like the sun, like a vacated bamboo basket filled with love. In fact, if you actually go to those villages, you will understand that a mountain can be their life. Obscure Hakka together, you listen, Hakka gushing. Because he knows that the time, memories, and dreams that belong to him will eventually return with this voice.
Fujian Yongding Tulou
Picture | @hi whale papa
First there was "Hakka", then there was "Hakka". The Hakka ancestors were originally a people who migrated for a long time in times of war. After going around for several generations, he finally settled in Guangdong, Fujian and Gandi. Qing, Huang Zunxian, You Shiyun: The old people of the Central Plains, famous guests of migration. Cross the river into Fujian and turn to the seashore. Today's Hakka people are mainly distributed in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian and other places. The independent ethnic consciousness has caused differences in southern dialects in different places.
"It is obviously a plain in Pingchuan, not across the mountains or across the water, the Chaoshan village on the right speaks Chaoshan dialect, the Cantonese village on the left speaks Cantonese vernacular, and the Hakka village halfway up the mountain speaks Hakka..." And that Hakka also has many titles: Ya dialect, Magai dialect, Xinmin dialect... Xu is because of the turbulent migration in the early years, and the Hakka people have a strong sense of identification with the Hakka language. If a person does not speak Hakka, even if he or she is of Hakka descent, he will eventually be considered a descendant, not a family member.
Fujian Yongding Tulou
Image | @Da Tang Tang in the smokewave
Hakka ancestors, half a life adrift. Today's Hakka descendants are also scattered all over the world. Meizhou, Guangdong, one of the strongholds of Hakka. Some people say that under the attack of Cantonese and Mandarin, its disappearance is only a matter of time. But others say that the Hakka do not forget their roots.
"Shangxiang—"
"Bha-"
Some Hakka people in Nanyang still burn incense to their ancestors' tablets every Spring Festival. The candlelight flickered, like a Hakka family walking on the road, the lamp burning in their hearts. The world is big, what is home? They know the loneliness of wandering, and they have also tasted the hesitation of difficulty, but nostalgia is like a lamp oil offering, illuminating their kind and honest hearts.
As a man, you must find its source. A state, a county, a village, a clan. Although the Hakka are old, the Hakka people are scattered, and the Hakka dialect begins to stumble ...
Image | @JaneJane
But he always remembered the way home.
- Special Thanks-
@Hymchu @_Lybbb @kwunkum @W_N_T
@Taitangtang in the smoke wave @hi whale papa
@青建Jane Chuanji and other photographer pictures
-Resources-
Why are dialects in southern China more different from each other? "Shinsuke Tan
"Speaking Cantonese, the Last Stubbornness of Cantonese People" Feng Ran
"The Legend of the Flower Train on the Sea" Han Bangqing [Qing]
"Where the Guest Comes From" is the most Chinese
Text of "Roadside Picnic" Bi Gan