The Evolution History of Lishui Dialect

In ancient times, the language of Lishui or Dongou was relatively pure and independent. Lishui was the land of Europe and Vietnam before Qin and Han Dynasties, belonging to Baiyue, and the main ethnic group was Baiyue people, who spoke ancient Vietnamese. The history contains "including the word tadpole in Cangshan, written by it". Ancient Vietnamese was popular in wuyue in the Spring and Autumn Period, but it was different from Huaxia in the Qi and Chu Dynasties. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, Yue people were widely distributed. "Lu Chunqiu" said: "Hannan is the occasion of Baiyue." "History of Han Geography" quoted Minister Zan as saying: "From toe to toe, there are seven or eight thousand miles, and there are more than a hundred differences, each with its own caste." From Yangzhou to Guangdong, Guangxi and even Vietnam, it is called Yue. According to experts' research, according to taxonomy, Guyue language belongs to Dong-Tai language, which is a sibling language of Dong, Shui, Zhuang, Dai, Li, Thai-Thai, Yue-Jing and Myanmar. Taking Lishui dialect as an example, the most obvious evidence is that adjectives are placed after nouns such as "dried bamboo shoots, tofu mold", adverbs are placed after verbs such as "go and eat quickly", and adverbs are placed after adjectives such as "pain" and "bitter death". This is one of the important features of Dong-Tai language.

Many of the 56 ethnic groups in China originated from wuyue, which is also revealed by the living fossil of language. Wuyue was the territory of Wu Yue State in the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, the main ethnic group of these vassal States was Baiyue people. Wuwei is more and more merged, brothers fight, and the language has not changed much. In the 3rd century BC, the State of Yue was destroyed by the State of Chu, and Wu was listed as one of the "Eastern Chu". Chu ruled the State of Wu in the first 249 years and had a strong influence in this area. Hunan dialect in southern Chu Yuan is still widely preserved in the languages of Lishui counties and cities, such as "knowledge" and "stupidity". This shows that Chu people brought the foundation of Chinese to wuyue.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the establishment of county officials and garrisons marked the formal development stage of the Han nationality in wuyue. The Vietnamese gradually integrated into the big family of Han nationality. However, at that time, the southern part of Zhejiang, with inconvenient transportation and many obstacles, was still more popular than other parts of the world. Vietnamese people without China culture fled into the mountains and became "mountain travelers". When I was in the Three Kingdoms, I told Cao Caoshu that he went from Huiji "to Jiaozhou in the south, experienced Dongou, Fujian and Vietnam, and passed through Wan Li, but never saw Han" (The History of the Three Kingdoms, Shu Shu and Xu), indicating that southern Zhejiang and Fujian were not completely controlled at that time.

(5) reckless China, Jinshi moved south, and a large number of Han immigrants moved south; The Anshi Rebellion in the Middle Tang Dynasty and the War in the Late Tang Dynasty. At the end of the Song Dynasty, Jin and Yuan people invaded the Central Plains, and the Central Plains people moved south one after another to avoid the disaster of war. In particular, the southward migration of the Song Dynasty made the Wu dialect in the capital Lin 'an (now Hangzhou) take on the color of Mandarin. The biggest migration movement between north and south in China took place in the Tang and Song Dynasties. After a long period of running-in, northern Jiangsu and Zhejiang were influenced by northern Yayin Mandarin to form northern Wu dialect (represented by Suzhou dialect); However, Nanwu dialect (represented by Lishui dialect and Wenzhou dialect), which is far away from Beijing and has developed slowly, still maintains more ancient sound characteristics. For example, the word "pee" is a disyllabic word, and we prefer the sound "Su". Coriander is still called "water chestnut" or something.

Under the influence of northern dialects, the differences between northern Wu dialect and Fujian dialect are getting bigger and bigger. Lishui is located at the southern end of Wu dialect area, bordering on Min dialect area, so it retains many features similar to Min dialect, such as cooking, speaking and putting things away, which are typical Min dialect. Although Lishui dialect has many characteristics of Min dialect, it has developed into a modern Wu dialect with the development of Wu dialect area. This is because the immigrants from the north gradually moved south from Ningshao area, Lishui belonged to Huiji since the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Soochow belonged to the sea. For a long time, Lishui was under the administrative jurisdiction of northern Zhejiang and central Zhejiang.

Because Lishui dialect is the successor of Guyue dialect and Gu Wu dialect, it is older than Beiwu dialect influenced by Putonghua. Lishui dialect is closely related to ancient Min dialect, ancient Chu dialect and ancient Jiangdong dialect. Lishui, the hometown of Ouyue, is connected with Wenzhou, the capital of Dongou, with frequent exchanges, which plays an important role in the ancient Ouyue dialect and Ouyue culture. Some dialects in Lishui, such as "That Day" today, "Menchao" tomorrow, "Zangmang" yesterday, "Eating the skylight" for breakfast and "Using Buddhism", are still connected with Wenzhou dialect, the capital of Dongou.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, the Taiwanese, Chinese and Kuo (Chuzhou) languages in the southern Wu dialect recorded in Dai Dong's Six Books were very close to today's languages, and the differences among the three dialects remained basically unchanged. It shows that since the end of the Song Dynasty, the language in this area has been relatively mature and standardized, and its own system has not changed much.

Nowadays, many words in Lishui dialect come directly from Mandarin, such as "TV" and "America". Some original words have been assimilated by Mandarin, such as "Xia Na Wu", which is now directly called "Thunderstorm" by many people. Today, with the popularization of Putonghua, Lishui dialect, like many other dialects, is slowly disappearing and should be paid more attention to and protected. The ancient Lishui dialect has important value, which needs to be studied and explored.