This article was published in the "Sanlian Life Weekly" No. 51, 2020, the original title of the article is "Looking for Ancient Chu Language and Chu Culture in dialects", it is strictly forbidden to reprint it privately, and infringement must be investigated
In ancient times, in addition to Yayan, there were also Chu languages and so on. The Western Han Dynasty Yangxiong recorded the Chu language in particular detail in the "Dialects", and the tenth volume is almost all Chu language, with a total of more than 300 words. The Chu Ci, which makes extensive use of the Chu language, is considered to be "Shu Chu Language, Chu Sheng, Ji Chu Di, and Ming Chu Wu". More than two thousand years later, traces of the Chu language still exist in modern dialects, and many of the phonetics, vocabulary and grammar in the southern dialects have been inherited from the ancient Chu language. Professor Shao Zesui of South Central University for Nationalities, as a linguist who has long been concerned with and studied the Chu dialect, shared with this journal the characteristics of the Chu language and the relationship with modern dialects.
Reporter/Chen Lu
Shao Zesui (Photo by Huang Yu)
Dialects have the function of preserving the ancients, and can preserve the ancient "Yayan"
Sanlian Life Weekly: When we study the major dialects of the south in modern Chinese, we can often find many traces of ancient Chu language. What kind of language was Chu in ancient times? What exactly is the scope of its use? What kind of relationship is there between the Chu language and the Zhongyuan Ya dialect?
Shao Zesui: The historical State of Chu was a great power in the south. Initially, it was only in a small area in the south, namely the Jianghuai region, and with the development of national strength, it gradually expanded to the entire southern region, including the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Hunan and Hubei are the core areas of the Chu state, but also radiate to Henan, Guangxi, Anhui and half of Jiangsu. However, the territory of the Chu state was changed, sometimes seized by the enemy, and sometimes annexed some other small countries. For example, Huanggang, Huangzhou, Huangshi, Huangmei and Huangpi in Hubei originally belonged to a small state called "Huangguo", which was later annexed by the Chu State, but these place names still retain the word "Huang". The State of Chu claims that its territory has "five thousand miles", that is to say, the entire Yangtze River Basin or the area south of the Yellow River can be counted as the territory of the State of Chu, which is the concept of the State of Chu.
The Chu state should have been a different ethnic group from the Huaxia people in the Central Plains. Xiongqu, the king of Chu, once said, "I am a barbarian and do not talk to China." "Barbarians" means an uncivilized nation, and "not with China" means that it is different from the culture of the Central Plains. The Chu state should have originated in a remote area in the south, then called "Chu", a concept juxtaposed with the "Huaxia". Later, the Chu state occupied the entire Yangtze River Basin, and the Chu culture gradually blended with the culture of the Central Plains and absorbed the culture of the Chinese nation. This fusion began as early as the Shang Zhou Dynasty, and there are already many dialects of the Chu state in the Book of Poetry. The "Chu" of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties was no longer an independent ethnic group, it was integrated into the "Huaxia", but it still retained part of the Chu dialect as a low-level language. Taking the Qing people as an example, the Manchu language of the Qing people gradually disappeared after entering the Central Plains, but some Manchu words remained in Chinese, such as "Jiamusi" means "station" in Manchu, and "Har" in "Harbin" means "Jiang" in Manchu. Therefore, this new language after the fusion of Chu and Xia formed the Chu dialect, and the core area of the Chu dialect was Hunan and Hubei.
How did the Chu dialect change later? First, the "Yongjia Rebellion" of the Western Jin Dynasty, the nobles in the north migrated to the south, forming a situation of the northern and southern dynasties, and the northern dialect covered the original Chu dialect area; the second was the "Anshi Rebellion" of the Tang Dynasty, the aristocratic group of the Han people in the north migrated to the south, and a situation of confrontation between the north and the south was formed. Now the largest dialect in Hubei and the second largest dialect in Hunan are both Southwest Mandarin dialects. The so-called "official dialect" is the concept of the northern dialect. Southwest Mandarin belongs to the northern dialect, but it also has the color of southern dialect, such as nasal sounds, side notes are not distinguished, flat tongue, upturned tongue is not distinguished, some front nasal sounds and back nasal sounds are not distinguished.
Sanlian Life Weekly: Is the color of these southern dialects also characteristic of the Chu dialect?
Shao Zesui: Yes, the phenomenon of not distinguishing between nasal and marginal sounds is a feature of the Chu dialect. In addition, some words are included, such as "睇" (dì) is still used as a basic word in Cantonese, and there is a program in Guangdong called "News Every Day". "睇" is a typical Chu dialect word, and there is a sentence in the Chu Ci Mountain Ghost that "it is both eye-catching and suitable for laughter", and "睇" means "squinting eyes", and beautiful women are usually embarrassed to look at it. In the Tang Dynasty, the meaning of "睇" became "fixed gaze", such as "With affection and gaze" in the "Long Hate Song", but at present, the meaning of "睇" is only inherited in Cantonese. Only a few words in the Hubei dialect retain this usage, such as girls' faces are delicate and look at, we call them "jingjing".
In general, Guangdong and Fujian have inherited more Chu dialect words than Hubei, because guangdong and Fujian are relatively remote and can retain more ancient colors. Cantonese basically retains the phonetic pattern of the Tang and Song dynasties, with closed-mouth rhymes, voiced sounds and into-sounds, which have basically disappeared in the Hubei dialect except for a few surrounding areas. Therefore, dialects have the function of preserving the ancients, and can preserve the ancient "Yayan".
The Chu dialect has the greatest influence on modern southern dialects
Sanlian Life Weekly: Why is the Chu dialect the most influential on modern southern dialects?
Shao Zesui: Because the Chu state has the strongest national strength, the broadest territory, and the most advanced culture among the various countries, the Chu culture has a far-reaching influence on the entire Chinese nation. The Book of Poetry and the Chu Ci are the largest cultural systems in the north and south, but the southern culture is deeper than the foundation of the northern culture, because the northern mountains are steep and desolate, coupled with the constant intrusion of nomadic people, it is easy to be affected by foreign cultures; while the south is relatively rich, especially the water system is more developed, it is difficult to occupy the south simply with cavalry tactics, so the southern and northern dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties after the "Anshi Rebellion" are the southern part of the preservation of the authenticity of Chinese culture, and the southern culture has gradually become a strong culture. Areas with more developed dialects tend to be culturally and economically more developed areas, such as Shanghai, which speaks Wu.
Sanlian Life Weekly: What characteristics do we usually use to judge whether a place belongs to the Chu-speaking area?
Shao Zesui: First of all, vocabulary. About 10% of the Chu dialect is now preserved, mainly in the vocabulary of modern dialects. The Han Dynasty YangXiong's Dialect records more than 300 words of the Chu dialect, and Xu Shen's Commentaries on the Interpretation of The Text and the Erya notes of Zheng Xuan and others preserve more than 200 words in the Chu dialect at that time, which can be corroborated with the documents of the Chu State at that time, such as the chu state Jian Shu and Qu Yuan's works that are now unearthed. In addition, we also use modern dialects to confirm it, such as "Huangpi" of "Pi" originally read "bēi", in the Chu dialect is the meaning of "slope", the slope is easy to form a pond, so it has the meaning of "pond". Daming Lake is also called "bēi". However, because in the local dialect of Huangpi, "b""p""" "m" does not spell with "ei", but only with "i", such as "sister" reads "mimi" in the Huangpi dialect, so the "Pi" of Huangpi is pronounced as "pí". This runs through the ancient and the modern.
The standard of speech has nasal sounds, side notes, and even I think that the front and back nasal sounds are not distinguished, which is also a feature of the south since the Chu State. There are also grammatical standards, such as the Southwest Mandarin, Jianghuai Mandarin, Xiang dialect and Northern Wu dialect, which has a grammatical construct of "no a no a", indicating "extremely deep degree". In "Journey to the West", it is said that the Bull Demon King has become a "big white bull", describing this white bull as very large. This configuration in the Xiang language becomes "the boss is not big". For example, "suffering from gain and loss" is also one of the earliest grammatical signs of the Chu State, "suffering from gain" is actually "suffering from not being able to", afraid of not getting and afraid of losing, but "no" is omitted. The omission of negative words is an important feature of the Chu dialect.
Sanlian Life Weekly: You just mentioned that compared with Hubei, Guangdong and Fujian inherit more Chu dialects. Yang Xiong repeatedly compared "Southern Chu Jiang Xiang" in "Dialects", "Southern Chu Jiang Xiang" is equivalent to today's Hunan Province, and modern Chinese studies also believe that Hunan Xiang originated from the ancient Chu language.
Shao Zesui: The Xiang language is divided into new Xiang language and old Xiang language. The new Xiang language is in the Changsha and Changde areas, closer to the southwestern dialect; the old Xiang language is in the Shaoyang and Loudi areas, retaining the characteristics of a fully turbid vowel. The ancients distinguished meanings by clearing turbid oppositions, and this distinguishing feature has now disappeared in many dialects, but it is still preserved in Xiang languages. Lao Xiang and Cantonese are actually relatively close, and Shaoyang and Guangdong border into a plate. Changsha dialect retains fewer Chu dialects, but Shaoyang dialects retain more Chu dialects. The inhabitants of Guangdong and Fujian were actually immigrants from the Central Plains hundreds of years ago, who entered these areas to escape war and other reasons, and at that time the Central Plains were already a mixture of Chu and Han, and the Chu dialect was thus inherited by Cantonese and Hakka. The more enclosed the place retains the more elements of the ancient language. Hubei is located in the plain, in all directions, absorbing more components of the northern dialect, and being assimilated by the northern dialect is even more powerful. The Xiang dialect area is slightly more remote, so there will be more Chu dialects preserved.
Sanlian Life Weekly: In addition to the Xiang language, Zhao Yuanren wrote in the "Hubei Dialect Investigation Report": "Jianghuai official dialect Huang Xiao tablets can be regarded as typical Chu language. "Huang Xiao film mainly refers to today's Huanggang and Xiaogan areas, where is this typicality reflected?
Shao Zesui: Huang Xiao is a Jianghuai official dialect area, and the Jianghuai official dialect retains more Chu language components than the Southwest Mandarin dialect. "Journey to the West" was written in the Jianghuai official dialect, and Huang Xiaopai retained many of the vocabulary in "Journey to the West". For example, in the "Journey to the West", it is said that "a broken and lost a bell", this "one bell" actually refers to the cloak, and "one bell" is a Jianghuai official dialect. In addition, the Huangxiao dialect is like "rain" "rain", its vowel mouth shape is round, Peking Opera retains this pronunciation, such as the "tree" in yunbai retains the Lake Cantonese tone, inheriting the color of Luotian dialect. Therefore, "typical Chu language" means that Jianghuai official dialect has more Chu characteristics, rather than the original real Chu language, because Chu language has long been covered by northern dialects. However, compared with Xiang and Cantonese, Jianghuai guan dialect is not as much as the Chu language they retain. However, when investigating the Hubei dialect, Zhao Yuanren found that HuangXiao tablets retained more Chu language components in dialects than other parts of Hubei, so they were designated as Chu language areas.
Dialects are the carriers of culture
Sanlian Life Weekly: So in the official dialect system of modern Chinese, the Southwest Mandarin and Jianghuai Guan dialect are more influenced by the Chu dialect?
Shao Zesui: Basically. Because the Southwest Dialect and the Jianghuai Dialect were produced after the combination of the Ancient Chu Dialect and the Northern Dialect. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the dialect of the southwestern Huguang region was a strong dialect because its culture was stronger than that of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However, after the Ming Dynasty, the economy and culture of Jiangsu and Zhejiang were more developed, and the influence of dialects was greater, and the Ming Dynasty initially set the capital in Nanjing. Wherever the political center is, its language is stronger, so the Jianghuai dialect has also become a strong dialect. Many novels in the Ming and Qing dynasties were written in Wu language, and now it is difficult to find a Ming and Qing novel written in Huguang dialect. "Golden Plum Bottle" was brought to Suzhou by a person surnamed Liu in Macheng, Hubei Province, and published in Suzhou, because only Suzhou can afford to print it, and only then can anyone buy it. The 53rd to the 57th time in the "Golden Plum Bottle" is lost, which is written by the locals, and most of these 5 times use Wu dialect words and Wu dialect grammar, and the characteristics are very distinct. Therefore, the southwest official dialect is greatly influenced by the Jianghuai official dialect, for example, the "see" in the southwest official dialect reads "present", "see the right" means "original", and "see the right" is actually a typical Jianghuai official dialect.
Sanlian Life Weekly: In fact, the ancient Wu language and the ancient Chu language are relatively close, there is a saying that "Wu Chu does not separate families", so the Wu language is also considered to inherit a lot of Chu dialects.
Shao Zesui: Because the state of Wu was destroyed by the state of Chu, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were actually "Wu head and Chu tail", so many dialects of Wu chu were consistent. Wu retains relatively many ancient pronunciations, such as entering the voice with a laryngeal rhyme ending and having a fully voiced vowel. Wu and Chu have more exchanges, and Yang Xiong has juxtaposed Wu Chu dozens of times in "Dialects", which is the so-called "Wu Ge Chu Tune".
The "Yongjia Rebellion" and the "Anshi Rebellion" that we mentioned in the process of speaking the Chu dialect did not affect the Wu region. Here still retains the pattern of the Southern Dynasty, but the northern dialect penetrates into the southern dialect, and the northern dialect of Hangzhou dialect has more elements, while the Ningbo dialect basically has no northern dialect component, because Hangzhou, as the political center of the south at that time, there are many northerners, which also changes its dialect. But in general, the pattern of Wu has not changed, but some grammar and vocabulary will penetrate more. The Wu-speaking area was the last to be ruled by the northerners in history, so it will be relatively independent, while the Chu region has long been covered by the northern dialect.
Sanlian Life Weekly: Dialects are the carrier of culture, so through the study of modern dialects, what can we know about Chu culture?
Shao Zesui: The study of dialects in Chinese history actually began with Yang Xiong's Dialects, but unfortunately this tradition has not been inherited. On the one hand, because the dialect at that time was suppressed by the lingua franca, the dialect could not communicate with each other and exchange ideas; on the other hand, because the dialect was suppressed by Chinese characters, and Chinese characters did not sound, but everyone knew. The Qing Dynasty mainly studied classical texts, such as the Thirteen Classics, that is, ancient classics such as the Analects and Mencius, which did not study spoken language. With the exception of Yang Xiong, almost no one recorded the spoken language. The independent study of the dialect was carried out after the Republic of China, and Zhao Yuanren's field dialect survey began in 1928. The history of the development of the Chinese language, the written language system is clear, there are written records in all dynasties and dynasties, but the history of the development of spoken language is not clear.
In modern dialects, speech retains more components of ancient languages, because the system of speech is relatively closed, and then there is the grammatical format, the "no a no a" configuration has at least hundreds of years of history, and the vocabulary changes relatively quickly. Hubei people call the open fan "翣扇", and some people in the Song Dynasty explained that this refers to spreading the fan, but in fact, the fan of the Chu state is called "翣" (shà), "翣扇" is actually a hebi word, and the hebi word is composed of two different languages or dialects.
Dialects can also reflect the witch culture of Chudi. At present, the dialects of the Jianghan Plain area call the shenhan "horse's foot", and the process of inviting the god is called "dismounting". There is also a custom of "beating horses" in Henan, if a person wants to become a "witch", he must undergo a test and be beaten before he can become a "horse's foot" and "horse", which was still there until the end of the Qing Dynasty. "Horse" is actually a transliteration of "wu", and the ancient "wu" is pronounced "ma", because there is no light lip sound in ancient times, only "b" "p" "m", and the ancient "wu" and "lone" are pronounced "ah".
Through Yang Xiong's "Dialects", it can be found that many words and many sounds of the Chu dialect no longer exist, and even some of the linguistic facts he wrote cannot be investigated by us now. For example, "zhā" refers to going to the ditch to get something, I don't know how he investigated it, and it is described in great detail. Many of the words recorded by Yang Xiong, including his self-created "odd characters", are now not found in the classics, probably because he collected spoken language, which did not enter the written language. In addition, some texts have been written incorrectly in the process of nearly two thousand years of copying. For example, a mistake that the academic circles have corrected, the "rule" in the sentence "竘, Maungjiya" should be "ye", which refers to the meaning of beauty and making the face better.
Now a very important new material is that Chudi has found a large number of Janes, such as Guodian Jane, Tsinghua Jane, Shangbo Jane and Anda Jane. The texts recorded in these simple books are obviously different from the script of the Central Plains, with the characteristics of the Chu script. For example, there is a "heart" under gengzhi's "straight", which is the word "virtue". At that time, there was a School of Si Meng in the Chu Kingdom, that is, "Mental Nature", and there were many emotional words with such emotional colors as "heart" part. Another example is the bottom of the walk "辶", many words in the Chu character include "up" and "down" with "辶", up and down is to be achieved by walking. These words are very interesting in Chu culture, such as the names of large officials are all next to the words; the names of medium officials are next to the handle, which need to be moved; and the names of small officials are carried to the bottom and need to run to the grass-roots level.
Why can the study of Jian Shu reflect the characteristics of the spoken Language of the Chu dialect at that time? Because this is written by the local Chu people, it inevitably carries traces of their native language. The first step in the study of Jian Shu is to recognize words, and the excavated Jian Shu often has documents handed down from generation to generation, such as the "Book of Poetry" recorded in the Anda Jian Li, which can be compared with the "Book of Poetry" that is now circulating. Philologists first solve the problem of the written level, and linguists further understand the phenomenon of language. Now it is mainly literacy, but one of the difficulties in recognizing words is that the ancients liked to write homophones, such as "dream" written as "meng" in Jian Shu, which shows that the two sounds are common in the Chu country. Some of the laws of speech may have to be derived by analyzing the kanky characters in the simple script.
(Intern journalist Long Bin also contributed to this article)
【Sanlian Life Weekly】2020 No. 51 1118 Do you still speak dialects Six Cities Visit ¥15 Purchase