Touching the classic dialect

Rugao is one of the 25 major dialect points in Jiangsu Province, bordering on the Yangtze River in the south and the Yellow Sea in the east, at the southern edge of the Jianghuai Mandarin area, facing Wu dialect across the river. According to the textual research of cultural relics unearthed in Qingdun, Hai 'an, Rugao was at the intersection of Qingliangang culture (Huai 'an site in Jiangsu) and Liangzhu culture (Yuhang site in Zhejiang) in Neolithic age. According to historical records, these two areas have been migrating to Rugao. With the influx of China people in the Yellow River basin, Rugao dialect has been formed after a long period of integration. Rugao dialect consists of 2 1 initial, 50 finals and 6 tones.

Rugao dialect belongs to Jianghuai Mandarin Taiwanese film, which is greatly influenced by Wu dialect and is also related to Gan dialect and Hakka dialect. Rugao dialect includes Rugao City, Rudong County, Hai 'an County, Taixing City, the southeast of Dongtai City and Duanshan District of Zhangjiagang City, with a total area of about 6,000 square kilometers and a total population of about 5 million, represented by Rucheng dialect.

There is little difference in Rugao dialect, and there are often differences in accents or idioms between urban and rural areas and neighboring villages, which is directly related to Rugao's population source, immigration time, number of people and the area where they live after coming to Rugao. Even the same indigenous people, due to the long-term closed small-scale peasant economy, have subtle differences between regions. Rucheng dialect is spoken in Rucheng and its surrounding areas. If it is 3 kilometers west of the city, it has the charm of Taixing dialect. This area is called Xixiang dialect, which connects Taixing City in the west, Renqiao and Yazhou in Hai 'an County in the north and Jingjiang City in the south. The original Baipu dialect and Xue Yao dialect are called Nanxiang dialect. The junction of these two districts and Nantong City is also a transitional dialect belt connecting the two cities. Among them, there are two groups of fricative sounds in the southern half of Longshe Township, Brave Township and Xinyao Township, which are similar to the rural sounds in the southern border and east of Rudong County. Yong 'ansha area in the southern border of Rugao has only a few decades of land, and immigrants come from 18 provinces. Although their descendants speak Rugao dialect, there are differences between villages and between polder areas, which is called polder area dialect.

Rugao dialect is relatively old, with many ancient and medieval sounds and vocabulary. The Han Dynasty's "Che Guixuan's Messenger Interprets Other Dialects" says: "Party members, Xiao, Zhe, know also. Chu is the party, or Qi and Song are the philosophers. " Today Rugao dialect is also called "knowledge" and "philosophy" (old school). There are also many words with different pronunciations. The word sound is pronunciation, similar to the ancient "official accent" and "elegant speech". White pronunciation is spoken pronunciation, pure local dialect. For example, there is a "sister bridge" in the city, which was called "Jiajiaqiao" before the middle of Qing Dynasty according to the records of Rugao County Records by Qing Qianlong. The ancient pronunciation of the word "Jia Jia" was "Jia Jia", and then it appeared again, which was the same as the white pronunciation of the word "sister", so "Jiajiaqiao" was wrongly pronounced as "sister bridge", but people still pronounced "Jiajiaqiao" orally. For example, the pronunciation of the word "Mei", the city people all use literal pronunciation in the words "Mei", "Mei" and "Beauty", only the word "Mei" is pronounced white with "Mi", while the word "Mi" in the northern countryside is spoken.

With the passage of time, Chinese pronunciation is gradually replacing white pronunciation and transitioning to Mandarin pronunciation.