Why can't I understand so many dialects?

China is a populous country with many nationalities, languages and dialects. According to Mr. Zhou Youguang, a famous linguist, there are 56 ethnic groups in China with more than 80 languages and regional dialects that can't communicate with each other, belonging to Sino-Tibetan language family (such as Chinese, Tibetan, Jingpo, Yi, Miao and Zhuang). ), Altaic language family (such as Mongolian, Uygur, Kazakh, etc.). ), Austronesian language family (such as Alpine) and South Asian language family (such as \). Among them, the number of people who use Chinese is the largest. Except Han, Manchu and Hui, most ethnic minorities such as She and Tujia also use Chinese. Chinese is the most populous language in the world.

Although languages of different nationalities don't understand each other, people who speak the same language may not be able to speak freely, because most languages have dialect differences, and the dialect differences in Chinese are very serious. There are too many kinds of Chinese dialects, and there are too many differences among them.

What is a dialect?

Dialect is what people often call "local dialect", and it is a communication tool in a large or small area. Dialect is a regional variety of national language differentiated in the long-term historical development. The so-called regional variety is naturally relative to the national homonym. Chinese dialects and Putonghua are natural opposites. Mandarin is popular all over the country and is the national common language; Dialect is the common language of some provinces, a province or a smaller area. Mandarin serves all Han people and even the whole Chinese nation, while dialects can only serve local people. Judging from the elements (phonetics, vocabulary and grammar) that make up a language, there are similarities and differences between dialects and between dialects and Putonghua. The kinship between them is the relationship between brothers and sisters, which is the result of the historical development and differentiation of the same ancient language.

So, how many dialects are there in Chinese?

Generally speaking, modern Chinese can be divided into seven dialects:

First of all, northern dialects (generalized mandarin) spread in the central plains, northeast, northwest and southwest.

Northern dialects can be further divided into four sub-dialects:

1. North China Northeast Sub-dialect (narrow sense): covering Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, eastern Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan and other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government;

2. Northwest Sub-dialect (Northwest Mandarin): covering Shanxi, western Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang and other provinces;

3. Southwest Sub-dialect (Southwest Mandarin): covering Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, most of Hubei, northwestern Hunan, northwestern Guangxi and other provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government;

4. Jianghuai Sub-dialect (Xiajiang Mandarin): It covers both sides of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province, most parts of Jiangbei in Jiangsu Province, and areas along the Yangtze River from Jiujiang and Nanjing to Zhenjiang.

The second is Wu dialect, namely Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialect, which is distributed in southern Jiangsu Province and most parts of Zhejiang Province. Shanghai dialect is the main representative of Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects.

The third dialect is Gan dialect, that is, Jiangxi dialect, which is distributed in the northwest of Jiangxi Province and Fujian Province, the east of Hunan Province and the southeast of Hubei Province. Nanchang dialect is the main representative of Jiangxi dialect.

The fourth is Hunan dialect, which is distributed in most parts of Hunan province. Hunan dialect is mainly represented by Changsha dialect (represented by Shuangfeng dialect in the old days).

The fifth is Hakka dialect, also known as Hakka dialect and Hakka dialect. Hakka dialects are scattered, mainly in the northeast of Guangdong Province, the northwest of Fujian Province, the border areas between Jiangxi Province and Hubei, Guangdong and Fujian, and Sichuan, Guangxi and Taiwan Province Provinces. Many Chinese in Southeast Asian countries speak Hakka. Meizhou dialect is the main representative of Hakka dialect.

The sixth dialect is Cantonese, also known as Cantonese, Cantonese, Cantonese and Vernacular, which is distributed in most parts of Guangdong Province, the southeast of Guangxi Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Chinese communities in North America. Cantonese is mainly represented by Cantonese.

The seventh is Min dialect, which is widely distributed, including most parts of Fujian Province, Chaoshan area in the east of Guangdong Province, Leizhou Peninsula in the west, Hainan Province, most parts of Taiwan Province Province and southern Zhejiang Province. Min dialect is very popular among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. There are great differences in Fujian dialects. Generally speaking, Minnan dialect is represented by Xiamen dialect, Mindong dialect by Fuzhou dialect, Minbei dialect by Jian 'ou dialect, Minzhong dialect by Yong 'an dialect, and Putian Xianyou film by Putian dialect.

Among these seven dialects, the northern dialect is the most widely distributed, accounting for about 70% of the national area; It also has the largest population, accounting for about 70% of China's population. The total population of the other six dialects accounts for only about 30% of the population of China.

The six major dialects are all southern dialects except the northern dialect. There is little difference between northern dialects, the main difference is pronunciation, and the main difference in pronunciation is that the tone value of each tone is different. Tone value is one of the decisive factors in the appearance of local dialects, so it is also one of the main signs to distinguish the differences between northern dialects. I have listed the tone values of nine urban dialects in northern dialect areas in the following table. They are all four tones of "Yin and Yang", and there is no "Rusheng". You can compare their differences. If you say the words "beautiful scenery, strange scenery, beautiful appearance and careful observation" in different places, you can feel the special taste of different local dialects.

For example, flat tone, flat tone.

Ordinary (Beijing) Dialect 55 35 2 14 5 1

Tianjin dialect 1 1 45 2 13 53

Tangshan dialect 55 44 2 14 5 1

Shenyang dialect 33 35 2 13 4 1

Zhengzhou dialect 24 42 55 3 1

Jinan dialect 2 13 53 55 3 1

Wuhan dialect 55 2 13 42 35

Chengdu dialect 44 3 1 53 13

Xi 'an Dialect 2 1 24 53 55

Compared with the southern dialect, the northern dialect has a strong internal consistency, so Heilongjiang people in the north can understand each other's general meaning when talking with Yunnan-Guizhou people in the southwest to ensure the most basic communication needs. There has been a proverb in the northern countryside since ancient times: "From Nanjing to Beijing, life is not born." In other words, Beijing dialect is the northeast sub-dialect of North China, and Nanjing dialect belongs to the Jianghuai sub-dialect, both of which belong to a large dialect area and can understand each other.

These seven dialects are roughly divided into modern Chinese dialects, and the actual dialect situation is much more complicated. Not only northerners can't understand Cantonese and Fujian people, but even Guangzhou people, Meizhou people and Shantou people in Guangdong province and Fuzhou people, Putian people and Xiamen people in Fujian province can't understand each other's words. Datian County, Fujian Province, which has the most complicated dialect, has five small dialects that are difficult to communicate with each other. A similar situation is common in all provinces in southern dialect areas. A few years ago, I heard a short story in a university in Changsha. A freshman from Loudi recited his poems at the party: m: guà, m: guà, fóng mǎguà. The listener is puzzled. Is it "mandarin jacket, mandarin jacket and red mandarin jacket"? The sound of Mugua means "frog" in some places in Hunan, but "frog, frog, red frog" is also puzzling. Later, I saw that classmate's poem, only to know that he wrote "rose, rose, red rose"! One year when I went to Meizhou, a court president said to me, "We must speak Mandarin well. Only by speaking Mandarin well can we deceive the people. " I'm really surprised to hear that. The president of the court speaks Mandarin to deceive the people? I didn't know it was "convenient" until I asked! Hakka dialect calls the "poo" that doesn't breathe gas "fraud" that breathes gas.

"Dialect Island" is also a surprising language phenomenon. The so-called dialect island means that in a larger dialect area, there is a smaller place that speaks completely different dialects. This land can be a county, a town, a township or a village. For example, Zhongshan City in Guangdong Province is a Cantonese dialect area, but there is a small town near Zhongshan City. The Hakka dialect spoken by people in the town is completely different from the surrounding Cantonese. Dialect island was caused by garrison troops and immigrants in ancient or modern times. Dialect islands are also common in Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan and even many places in the north. Tianjin dialect is obviously different from the surrounding Hebei dialect. It is said that in the early Ming Dynasty, a large number of imperial troops, mainly Anhui people, were stationed in Tianjin and flourished here. Therefore, Tianjin can also be said to be a large Anhui dialect island in Hebei dialect area, and Tianjin dialect can also be said to be a synthesis of Anhui dialect (Suzhou dialect) and Hebei dialect. There is a Manchu village in Qingzhou City, Shandong Province. The Manchu residents there are descendants of the Banners who have been stationed in Qingzhou under the orders of the imperial court since the eighth year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty. To this day, the young people there, like the old people, still retain the accent brought by the north and say something absolutely different from the people in Qingzhou around them. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Tianjin-Pukou Railway was completed, and many railway workers moved from Tianjin to Pukou. So until the sixties and seventies, there was a railway workers' community in Pukou that spoke Tianjin dialect. In 1950s and 1960s, New China carried out large-scale industrial construction in the western part of the motherland, and relocated many workers and technicians from the eastern coastal areas. Therefore, in today's western emerging industrial cities, such as Xi, Luoyang, Baotou, Yinchuan, Shihezi and other cities, it is easy to find small dialect islands that speak Beijing dialect, Tianjin dialect, Shanghai dialect and Northeast dialect. In recent 20 years, due to the development of market economy, many farmers have moved to cities in an orderly or disorderly way, and their fellow villagers have lived together, forming relatively new dialect islands, such as "Zhejiang Village" in the southern suburbs of Beijing and "Xinjiang Village" in Haidian.

The differences between dialects are mainly reflected in phonetic differences, but the differences between words are also quite large. Beijing, Tianjin and Tangshan are close neighbors, but what Beijingers call "sweet potato" is called "sweet potato" by Tangshan people. I asked a little girl in Tianjin, "Do you like sweet potatoes?" She asked me strangely, "How can mice eat?" I said, "Steamed food, cooked food, and porridge will do." She said, "huh? How disgusting! " It turned out that she regarded "sweet potato" as "white mouse" because Tianjin people called "sweet potato". Another example is Baiyun Mountain Park in Guangzhou. I asked an old man, "Where is the cable car?" The old man said, "It's very convenient. Go ahead and turn a corner. " I walked forward for a while, turned a corner, and the oncoming "men's room"! It turns out that Cantonese people call the "cable car" a "ropeway", and when they say "cable car", they hear it as a "men's toilet". Look, how many different dialects are there in Chinese!