Brief introduction of dialect map

China is rich in linguistic diversity. However, with the government's compulsory implementation of Mandarin in schools and public institutions, the living space of dialects seems to be getting smaller and smaller. For example, in Shanghai, many younger generations have been unable to accurately speak their ancestors' old Shanghai dialect, which is also common in dialects around the world. What "does something" about this phenomenon this time is the thinking of Karen Parker and Steve Hansen, two Americans. In 2009, they set up a website "Xiangyinyuan" to record the "disappearing dialects" in China, and the dialect map is one of its major features. Since then, dialect maps have been made.

Website prototype

The prototype of "Country Sound Source" is a phonological accent archive created by George Mei Sen University in Virginia. This document records hundreds of English speakers reading the same English article with different accents, ranging from Brooklyn to Pennsylvania, Germany. However, Clanyi and Yuan Zhi believe that it is also meaningful to record family stories in the form of "story corps". The Story Group is an archive containing 45,000 stories handed down by the American people.

Website status quo

Nowadays, the operation of "Xiangyinyuan" depends largely on the support of social networks, which recruit volunteers through social networking sites. Volunteers classify and re-edit the collected stories. Yuan Zhi predicted that the future interviewees of "Local Sounds" may include some immigrant groups (overseas Chinese) who have never lived in China. In fact, "the map of China's national boundaries is not clearly marked on the homepage of the website, which has shown us Xiangyin Garden's interest in how people outside Chinese mainland speak Chinese." So far, most of the recorded projects come from the coastal areas of China. S Yuan Zhi once said: But in the future, China users in China, Singapore and Mongolia may also tell their stories.