The Development of Jingdezhen Dialect

The evolution of township language in Tang and Song Dynasties: Jingdezhen City and Fuliang County belonged to the eastern border of Poyang County before the Tang Dynasty, and their places were rarely known to the outside world. Since Tao Yu, a townsman, entered the customs with porcelain in the early Tang Dynasty, Wenda began to belong to the imperial court, which resulted in the establishment of Changnan Town and the imperial edict of inviting Huo Zhongchu, a new civilian, to make porcelain. Tang Ting's attention has promoted the production of township ceramics to enter a new stage of development. There are abundant natural resources to develop ceramic production, but the local population is sparse and the labor force is very scarce. Therefore, after the ceramic production entered a new stage of development in the early Tang Dynasty, it also attracted foreign immigrants to make a living in the town. According to relevant historical records, the population of Jingdezhen and Fuliang in the early Tang Dynasty was less than 10,000, but it grew to more than 40,000 in Tianbao, quadrupling. There is a natural increase in this, but more is the cause of population migration. According to the records of local chronicles and genealogy, the immigrants mainly came from Poyang and Leping Plain areas with large population nearby, as well as potters and porcelain makers from Gu Hong kiln sites such as Fengcheng and Nanchang. By the Five Dynasties, the ceramic production in this town had further developed, and the immigrants had been expanding. Some people moved to the township from ancient Linjiang Prefecture (now around Zhangshu City), Hukou, Duchang and other places. Most foreign immigrants study with local porcelain makers. They work together, live together, and constantly eliminate the barriers to communication with each other, and gradually achieve the effect that many dialects can communicate smoothly. Although they did not form the same language, there has been an evolutionary trend of many dialects colliding with each other. With the germination of the phenomenon of "eight-way hybridity", the local language gradually lost its dominant position, forming a situation of using multiple dialects at the same time in communication.

After entering the Song Dynasty, the township ceramic economy gradually prospered, and a large number of exquisite porcelain were transported to all parts of the country for sale. This attracted the attention of the court. In the first year of Jingdezhen in Song Zhenzong (A.D. 1004), Jingdezhen was established, and government agencies such as Bo Obligation and Jingdezhen Taxation were established in Raozhou, with officials stationed in the town. At this time, the township has become the national porcelain production center at that time. With the rapid development of porcelain production, the number of immigrants has also increased rapidly. In addition to a large number of porcelain workers from Duchang, Leping and Fengcheng, there are also a large number of boat people from Nanchang, dockers and non-porcelain businessmen from Weizhou. Officials who frequently go in and out of the town to carry out the task of patrolling the kiln to collect taxes, large and small businessmen who sell porcelain, and large and small businessmen who sell and supply daily necessities to the residents of the town are mostly floating population, but a considerable number of them have gradually settled down in the town. Two years after the town was built in Daguan, Song Huizong, the population of the town has exceeded 60,000, of which "nine times out of ten" are immigrants, initially forming a situation of "living in all directions". People from all directions, in frequent and complicated business activities and other social activities, are bound to have frequent language exchanges. Everyone doesn't understand Fuliang dialect, so it is impossible to communicate in Fuliang dialect. They can only express their intentions in their own language, and they must make their wishes clear to each other. In the vast social life, every language exchange of township people revolves around this goal. Repeated language communication year after year has gradually changed the language of township residents (including local aborigines) from all directions. First, the pure local language of the aborigines has gradually disappeared. Although immigrants from all directions still maintain a strong local accent, the language they use when communicating with strangers is similar to written or mandarin, which is a language that can only be understood. These communicative activities make the local dialects develop towards mutual integration. With the passage of time, the degree of integration has become wider and deeper, and gradually reached the level of smooth language communication.

Jingdezhen dialect appeared in the Southern Song Dynasty. In the early Southern Song Dynasty, Jin Bing occupied the Central Plains. A large number of ceramic kiln workers and kiln merchants, represented by Ding Kiln, fled to the town to continue to engage in ceramic production for a living. The porcelain produced by them and their descendants is called Nanding, and there are still "Nanding" and "Fending" porcelain varieties in the town. These immigrants account for a small proportion of the whole population, and their language has little influence on the town. In the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty, the once famous Jizhou kiln declined due to kiln change, and a large number of porcelain workers flooded into the town to make a living. Subsequently, "Linchuan Kiln" and "Nanfeng Kiln" declined one after another, and a large number of porcelain workers also flowed into towns to engage in porcelain production. At this time, the residents of the township are mainly immigrants from the surrounding areas of Poyang Lake with Nanchang as the center and the Ganjiang River and Fuhe River basins. These residents, especially the ceramic workers, in the process of constantly creating new ceramic civilization, after hundreds of years of language running-in since the Tang Dynasty, gradually formed a new language based on Gan dialect and containing many dialect characteristics, which is the embryonic form of modern Jingdezhen dialect.

The basic formation of local communication language in villages and towns in Yuan Dynasty.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the township ceramic economy and porcelain-making technology entered a new stage of development, with more sources of porcelain-making raw materials and more varieties of ceramics, and new varieties with western customs appeared specifically for remote countries in West Asia. Ceramic trade has expanded from domestic to overseas, creating new prosperity. Therefore, there are more businessmen buying and transporting ceramics inside and outside the town, the road is wider, and the non-ceramic business is more prosperous. With the unprecedented economic development, the number of migrants and floating population has increased rapidly. At this stage, businessmen from coastal areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, businessmen from Chinese mainland, such as Beijing, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Shandong and Henan, and buyers from ethnic minorities, mainly Mongolians, often gather in towns for business activities. The population entering and leaving villages and towns has reached an unprecedented state. Although the language of the floating population has not left a significant impact, in the wider exchange activities, the local dialects have been enriched and gradually matured, and basically formed a local language that can communicate with visitors from all walks of life.

Stereotyping of Jingdezhen Dialect in Ming Dynasty

Modern Jingdezhen dialect was formed in Ming Dynasty. Among the workers and residents of Jingdezhen porcelain kiln in Ming Dynasty, most of them came from Poyang, Leping, Duchang, Fuzhou and Fengcheng, except the descendants of porcelain kiln workers who migrated to the town before Song and Yuan Dynasties. Followed by merchants in Huizhou and other parts of southern Anhui. As early as before the Song and Yuan Dynasties, a large number of immigrants in these areas entered cities and towns to make a living, but most of them were single workers who came to work in cities and towns in spring and returned home for the New Year in winter. This phenomenon still existed in the Republic of China. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, kiln households of Duchang gang rose rapidly, surpassing Fuzhou gang, and kiln households of Leping gang declined rapidly after several twists and turns. At this point, the township has formed a pattern in which all kiln households have an absolute advantage. Many people made a living in Jingdezhen in Duchang after the middle of Ming Dynasty. Duchang folk song "Half Kiln Households in Shilichang Street greet Duchang by road" is a vivid portrayal of this situation. But Duchang dialect has little influence on Jingdezhen. Because Duchang dialect is a difficult dialect, the first person [[South] is a bit like the northern dialect. Duchang dialect has no initials t' and f, and "sugar" is pronounced as [[orchid]], which sounds like a wolf, and "tofu" is pronounced as "bean thing", which shows its difficulty. The villagers in the border area between northwest township of Duchang and Hukou all speak Hukou dialect. A long time ago, a group of Henan immigrants settled in more than a dozen villages in Dongxiang, Duchang, and they have been breeding for generations, and they still speak Henan dialect. This shows that Duchang dialect has little influence. Of course, there is still some influence. Jingdezhen dialect describes a person as "a person", and there are also "what to do", "how to do" and "how to do", that is, the suffix of the word "de" evolved from Duchang dialect. It's just that Duchang speaks rudely. Duchang dialect has great influence in modern Jingdezhen dialect, second only to Nanchang dialect.

The further development of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China

From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, Jingdezhen dialect developed continuously with the development of ceramic economy and culture, mainly manifested in the improvement of porcelain-making technology and the expansion of trade scale, which promoted the maturity and accuracy of local language vocabulary.