The Historical Origin of Yazhou Folk Songs

The so-called Yazhou folk song refers to a kind of Chinese folk song sung in Hakka dialect, with extremely strict and self-contained meter, which originated in the rural area of Xiliuli, Guya Prefecture and spread around. The Annals of Yazhou points out that there are six kinds of cliff language. Among them, Hakka is written, which is similar to Fujian pronunciation, and it is spoken in Yongning Li, Linchuan Li, Baopingli and Xiliuli. Same as the county language. The Hakka here is the Chinese dialect used to sing Yazhou folk songs. It belongs to Minnan language family; It was brought by Fujian immigrants later, so it was marked with a guest word.

It originated in Cliff State in the fifth year of Kaibao, Song Taizu (972), and the state is located in Cliff Town of Sanya City today, leading Ningyuan and ji yang counties (now Sanya and Huang Liu). The folk songs produced and circulated in this area are collectively called Yazhou folk songs.

There are two major factors in the formation of folk songs in Yazhou: First, immigrants from the Central Plains are constantly moving in, bringing folk songs from all over the country into Yazhou; Second, the immigrants moved to Yazhou for a long time, forming the local dialect and folk customs of Yazhou, and then evolved or produced Yazhou folk songs with popular language, strong local accent and quite local characteristics.

The origin of Yazhou folk songs is not clearly recorded in Yazhou Annals, but it is inferred from the collected ages of Yazhou folk songs that folk songs are said to have arisen in the Song Dynasty and flourished in the late Qing Dynasty. At first, it was just between literati and poets to express their feelings, and it was slowly introduced to the people to sing freely among the working people.