| Dialect XVIII 026
The thousand-year history of Shu land in the Shu kingdom, the turtle city out of the turtle son. Confucius and Mencius were chanting the scriptures, and Lao Tzu dared not listen when he spoke.
The murderer looked at the hammer with a word, raised his head and crossed his waist with his fingers. Hammer Lao Tzu turtle son, today to swing the melon doll.
01 Where did the "melon dolls" come from?
Sichuan people have "four mantras" in their mouths, which have become the iconic words of Sichuanese. In many film and television dramas and literary works, everyone in Sichuan will say a few words of "Lao Tzu", "Turtle Son" and "Hammer" in a face style. Interestingly, almost every foreigner learns the first Sichuan dialect is the most representative "melon baby". So when did the "melon baby" enter the mouth of the Sichuan people?
Compared with the "hammer, Lao Tzu, turtle son" we talked about earlier, the origin of "melon baby" should be the most special. The word "melon" is composed of "melon" plus "baby", and we look at the origin of the two separately.
The first complete occurrence of the word "Guawazi" in writing is from the Shu Li compiled and printed by Tang Shu in 1930. The book collects more than 5,000 Words and Colloquialisms in the Sichuan dialect. The book records that "melon babies have melon blessings" and "melon babies have blue sky on their heads". In the past, "melon children" only existed in the spoken language of the Sichuan people.
Shu Lai collects more than 5,000 Sichuan dialect words and colloquialisms, many of which are no longer used
Sichuan people have always liked to use the word "baby" when calling others , such as calling boys "male dolls" and girls "female dolls" . Relatives and friends will call people close to them "Zhang Sanwa", "Li Dawa" and other titles. There are also many such titles in society, such as Sichuan people like to call thieves "thieves", and call strong men who look five big and three thick "mangy babies".
Compared with the simple and clear source of the word "baby", the source of the word "melon" is particularly confusing. "Melon" originally only refers to a plant, when did it have the meaning of "fool"?
There are three statements, and we will look at them one by one.
There is a saying that "Guazhou said", and the source of "melon" used to refer to "fool" came from ancient Guazhou. According to the "History of Song", "Guazhou, out of the big melon, also out of the beautiful melon, hence the name." "Ancient Guazhou, near today's Dunhuang. Due to its special geographical features, it has been rich in various melons since ancient times, and the farmers who plant melons in Guazhou were called "melon seeds" by the people of the time.
The title "melon seed" does not have much pejorative meaning in it, so why has it become a "fool"?
Personal inference, this is due to some old spoken language habits. In the past, people liked to use career-related things or tools to refer to practitioners for the purpose of demeaning. For example, in the past, the rickshaw masters on the streets of Chengdu were often called "three wheels", and those who worked hard under a wooden stick on the streets of Chongqing would be called "sticks". Behind these shouts there is some different meaning in it.
The term "melon seeds" may not have been originally intended to be positive or negative. But later, the honest and honest melon farmers who were good at farming were maliciously misinterpreted, so "melon seeds" became a pejorative title.
This raises another question, how did the name thousands of miles away reach the Bashu region and spread? This may also be where this statement is not credible. However, this does not prevent us from boldly making assumptions.
Where is Guazhou? About today's Jiuquan City, Gansu Province, located at the western end of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province, east of the oil city of Yumen, west of Dunhuang City, north and south of Subei Mongol Autonomous County, northwest of Xinjiang Hami City, since ancient times has been the east into the west out of the transportation hub, the ancient Silk Road merchant town.
Guazhou is the Anxi on the ancient Silk Road
In the old days, if the name "melon seeds" wanted to be transmitted from Guazhou thousands of miles away to the land of Bashu, one could be through the mouth of the ancient Silk Road caravan, and the other was brought through several large-scale immigrants in the Bashu region. Whether the former can be done is not yet possible, but the latter has a successful precedent.
The "treasure weapon" in the mouths of the Sichuan people is the name given to the immigrants from the Gansu, Fujian, and Guangdong regions during the "Huguang Filling Sichuan" period to the immigrants from the Xiang and Hubei regions, especially in Baoqing Province (present-day Shaoyang) in the south of Huguang.
Let's look at the second statement - "He Zhizhang said".
We are not the only ones who are curious about this issue, as early as the Qing Dynasty. During the reign of Qing Shunzhi, a man named Li Shihong wrote this in his "Notes on RenShutang".
"The people of Ganzhou call the unwise son 'melon seeds', and they do not understand the so-called. After reading the Tang Shu He Zhizhang has a son to ask for the name on the top, shangxiao said: 'Can be named as the Fu', Zhizhang Jiu is enlightened on the ridicule, to be unwise, so the word "Fu" is broken as "melon seed" also. Then the call of the melon seeds has existed since before the Tang Dynasty. “
According to the above statement, the origin of "melon seeds" is because of a joke by the famous poet He Zhizhang, who changed the word "Fu" to "melon seeds". The idea of the origin of "melon seeds" was included in the 1937 edition of cihai, but the word "melon seeds" was not included in subsequent editions of cihai. The reason for this may be because there is no relevant record in the old and new "Book of Tang" that "He Zhizhang has a son please be named on the top", and it is doubted that Li Shihong confirms the reliability of the ancient book, so the etymology of "melon seed" is deleted and not included.
Portrait of He Zhizhang
However, later in the "Hanyu Da Dictionary", a "new" was added to the source of "melon seeds". Zheng Qi of the Tang Dynasty wrote such a story in his "Letter of The Opening of heaven".
He Zhizhang wept, on the day: What do you want? Zhizhang Day: The subject has a male name, but fortunately His Majesty gave it and returned it to the township. Shang: ... The secretary will trust the obedient man, and the name of the day is also the day of the fu. Zhizhang prayed again and was ordained. Knowing the chapter for a long time is called the day of man: What is the lord of the curse of me. Shi Wu people, Fu Nai Gua Xia is a son, don't you call me a melon seed! ”
The reason why He Zhizhang believes that the emperor used "melon seeds" to tease him is because "melon seeds" are descendants of an ethnic minority living in the Qinling Mountains during the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, people thought that this ethnic minority named "melon seeds" was "very sincere and stupid, and it was difficult for the mountain to live in self-sufficiency, and it was extremely bitter to sell more of its body, cultivate and grind everything." Every laborer, though calloused and sleepy, and the operation will never stop, with its stupidity also, people fallacious day 'fool!' ’”
Such a quotation from the scriptures gives some credibility to this statement. However, the "melon seeds" that are honest, will not refuse, and will not be lazy are considered to be a manifestation of stupidity by the people of the time, which is also the "people's hearts are not ancient" in the Tang Dynasty.
The third theory is "Liu Quanjin Gua said".
The eleventh episode of Journey to the West records such a story.
There is a Junzhou man named Liu Quan, who runs a jewelry store and has a little money at home. One day, his wife Li Cuilian was doing needlework at the door of his home, and when he met a monk who had changed his fortune, he pulled off the gold noodles on his head as a fasting ceremony. Liu Quan returned home to learn about this matter and scolded her wife Li Cuilian for disobeying the woman's way. Li Cuilian was angry, but she hanged herself. A pair of their sons and daughters were young and cried out day and night. Liu Quan regretted it in his heart, so he unveiled the imperial list and prepared to die in the melon after meeting Tang Taizong.
What about Tang Taizong in this matter?
It turned out that Tang Taizong Li Shimin once had a dream that he had killed the old dragon king of the Jing River and was ordered by him, so his soul wandered to the di mansion, and then he was released back and promised to send a melon to the Ten Halls of Yan Luo, so he wanted to find someone to send to the di mansion, so he posted the imperial list to find someone.
Liu Quan took the melon to the underworld, and the Ten Halls of Yan Luo understood the original commission, so he checked the book of life and death and found that Liu Quan and his wife both had the life of Dengxian, so they let Liu Quan return to Yang, and Li Cuilian was also possessed by the body of Li Yuying, the sister of the Tang Emperor who had just died. The ending is naturally a happy couple who return home with joy.
"Liu Quanjin Gua" is also a classic drama repertoire
The story of "Liu Quanjin Gua" is widely circulated in Sichuan. At that time, the Sichuan people called "silly" "Liu" and "fool" "Liu Quanjin". In some places, "full," and "before" are not distinguished, and are read as "Liu Qianjin". Over time, people associate "melons" with "fools."
The above three statements of "Guazhou said", "He Zhizhang said" and "Liu Quanjin gua said", which do you think is more credible?
In any case, after the saying "melon seeds" spread in the land of Bashu, coupled with the previous saying that Sichuan people like to say "baby", the word "melon child" naturally spread in people's mouths.
02 The dialect of the "melon" series derived from "melon baby"
Since "melon" has the meaning of "fool", the Sichuan people have used their rich imagination to create a series of dialects that begin with "melon". Don't think that calling others "melons" is the patent of modern people, this statement has been popular since a long time ago.
For example, the word "melon seed" appeared in the eighty-fifth time of the "Awakening Marriage Legend" in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and at that time it was said to be "township melon seed". "Township melon" is also called "melon", so the famous scholar Hu Pu'an wrote in the second volume three of his "National Customs of China", "When a villager first enters the city, he does not know the reason and does not know the human feelings, which is commonly known as 'melon'. ”
Time to push back, let's take a look at the "melon" in the works of the modern literary master Mr. Li Jieren.
Sister-in-law Li laughed so hard that she couldn't even pick up the scoop: "Don't dream! Just make a yarn hat flying all over the sky, and it can't fly on your melon baby's head! ”
Master Luo also said solemnly, "I would like to tell you a good word!" In the kitchen, there are no outsiders, and it doesn't matter if you talk nonsense. If you are outside, say the same thing, you are on guard, the old man knows, don't smash your rice bowl, you come and ask me! Li Da Niang, let's look at some affection, don't pass on his melon words to the top! ”
"Is this still to be said?" Who doesn't know that Uncle Dragon is not refined, and if he passes on his nonsense, won't he create iniquity? However, people have a lot of mouths, like him to see people to open their mouths, it is inevitable that there will be no flattering people, as an odd story, to the top to tell. ”
We can see that from the passage "Before the Storm", words such as "melon baby", "melon language", "poured melon is not refined" have appeared. At this time, the dialect words of the "melon" series have frequently appeared in the mouths of the Sichuan people.
There are many Sichuan dialects derived from the word "melon", such as the description of silly "melon treasure", "melon is not dirty" (melon is not rare), "melon nerd", "melon", "melon eyebrow melon eye" (melon eyebrow day eye) and so on.
Mr. Li Haoren has a self-annotation in the second part of "The Great Wave".
"Guagua, the so-called fool in Mandarin. However, in the meaning of this term used by the Sichuan people, it does not completely refer to a fool, but everyone is not very cunning, speaks honestly, and does something stupid, and everyone also calls it a melon. ”
There was once a passage in which a foreigner learned Sichuan dialect, and no matter which foreigner learned the first Sichuan dialect, it was "melon baby". However, Sichuan people do not often say "melon baby", "melon batch" and "melon eyebrow sun eye" are the way to open the Sichuan people's scolding frame.
However, it is worth saying that if a Sichuan girl says "melon" and "melon" to you, don't rush to turn your face. Just like the word "treasure", the subtle meaning of many Sichuan dialect words can only be felt by people who have lived in the Sichuan region for a long time. Saying you're "guagua" doesn't necessarily mean scolding you, it could be a nickname. When you are called "melon", it does not necessarily mean you, it may be a love name. The mastery of this scale can only be seen in the relationship between the speaker and the contextual tone at that time.
Do you have anyone around you now who calls you "Guagua"?
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