The language of Jiangyou people

Gan dialect is the main language used by Jiangyou people, and it is also one of the seven Chinese dialects mainly used in daily life in China. Its users are mainly distributed in the middle and lower reaches of Ganjiang River, Fuhe River Basin, Poyang Lake and its surrounding areas, eastern Hunan and northwestern Fujian, southeastern Hubei, southwestern Anhui and southwestern Hunan. According to statistics, the total distribution area of Gan dialect is nearly 200,000 square kilometers, which is the most widely distributed among the six major Chinese languages in South China.

Jiangxi Gan dialect area is mainly distributed in northern Jiangxi, central Jiangxi, eastern Jiangxi and western Jiangxi, accounting for three quarters of the province's area and population, and is the largest Chinese dialect in Jiangxi. Including Nanchang City and Nanchang County under its jurisdiction, Xinjian, Anyi and Jinxian; Hukou, Xing Zi, Duchang, De 'an, Yongxiu, Wuning, Xiushui, Pengze and Ruichang in Jiujiang; Yichun City and Fengcheng, Zhangshu, Gao 'an, Fengxin, Jing 'an, Yifeng, Shanggao and Wanzai under its jurisdiction; Xinyu city and its distribution; Pingxiang City and Lotus, Luxi and Shangli under its jurisdiction; Jingdezhen City and Leping under its jurisdiction; Lead Mountain, Hengfeng, Yiyang, Wannian, Poyang and Yugan in Shangrao; Yingtan City and Guixi and yujiang county counties under its jurisdiction; Fuzhou City and Dongxiang, Chongren, Yihuang, Lean, Jinxi, Cheng Nan, Lichuan, Zixi, Nanfeng and Guangchang under its jurisdiction; Ji 'an City and its counties such as Ji 'an County, Jishui, Xiajiang, Xingan, Yongfeng, Taihe, Anfu, Yongxin, Jinggangshan, Suichuan and Wan 'an.

In addition, Gan dialect is also distributed in eastern Hunan, including Yueyang City, Linxiang City and Yueyang County, Huarong County of Pingjiang County, Liuyang City of Changsha City, Liling City, Youxian County, Yanling County and Chaling County of Zhuzhou City, leiyang city City and Changning City of Hengyang City, Yongxing County, Anren County and Zixing City of Chenzhou City, Dongkou County of Shaoyang City, Suining and Longhui North. Shaowu, Guangze, Jianning and Taining in Fujian Province; Tongcheng, Puyin, Chongyang, Tongshan, Yangxin, Xianning, Jiayu and Daye in southeastern Hubei; Wangjiang, Dongzhi, Susong, Huaining, Taihu Lake, Buried Hill, Yuexi and Tongcheng. Anqing in the southwest of Anhui Province; Some areas in western Zhejiang.

The origin of Gan dialect has always been the focus of academic debate, which can be basically divided into two categories:

The first view is that Gan dialect is a kind of "dialect" of Chinese, and the academic circles in Chinese mainland hold this view because of historical and cultural reasons. Moreover, people who use Gan dialect think that Gan dialect belongs to a kind of Chinese dialect, which mostly comes from academic propaganda, political considerations, national feelings and many other factors, and also because Gan dialect is similar to Cantonese, Min dialect and Mandarin.

The second view is that Gan dialect itself is a language, and overseas linguists study Gan dialect and other Chinese as a single language when doing Chinese linguistics research. Because from a linguistic point of view, everything that can't talk to each other should be classified into different languages. However, there are significant differences between Gan dialect and other Chinese in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, so the interlocutors can't communicate in spoken language. Therefore, some scholars believe that these different Chinese languages are basically "language-to-language" relations, not "dialect-to-dialect" relations. According to the international definition of language, according to relevant research, the vocabulary between English and German belonging to the Indo-European family is 58%, French and Italian is 80%, and Spanish and Portuguese are 87.4%. And this series of languages are all different languages. Even though Chinese and Japanese belong to different language families, they are 47.5% homologous. However, only 46.9% of the vocabulary exchanged between Gan dialect and Northern Mandarin. It can be seen that if the language is measured by "cognate words", the difference between Gan dialect and northern Mandarin is far greater than the difference between "dialects".

Gan dialect has a long history and still retains many ancient traces. For example, "station" is the most common word in Putonghua, but the Gan dialect group calls it "enterprise", which was said by Chinese people in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Oracle Bone Inscriptions and the inscriptions on Enterprise describe a sideways "human figure", with special emphasis on "sole", which vividly expresses the meaning of "standing". Later, with the appearance of official script, "people" and "enterprises" began to separate. In the word "penguin", the word "enterprise" still retains the ancient meaning, indicating that it is not an ordinary goose, but a standing goose.

In fact, as early as the Western Han Dynasty, Gan dialect had begun to take shape. The development history of Gan dialect is mainly divided into two periods. First, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, after Qin unified the six countries, a series of compulsory population movements were organized for economic and political needs. From this time on, Gan dialect began to sprout. During the 270 years of Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were seven climaxes of southward migration. At this time, Gan dialect also formed a new Chinese dialect.