Interpreting the Historical Origin of Huizhou Dialect

Huizhou dialect is the oldest local dialect in Huizhou history. Since its formation, it has a history of thousands of years and is the main body of Huizhou regional culture development for two thousand years. Moreover, some scholars believe that the history of Huizhou dialect can be traced back to the pre-Qin period, that is, the "national language" of Tielou ancient country in Lingnan area, which is called "Chenhu" dialect.

Before the Western Zhou Dynasty, Guangdong was still a place where slang and lyrics were mixed. The name of "Tielou" was first seen in Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals: "In the south, at the time of a hundred leaps ... the country that tied Lou, Huan and Dou together has no monarch." At that time, the languages used by the indigenous tribes in Lingnan all originated from the Austronesian language (also known as Malay-Polynesian language) of the Pacific islands. For example, the modifier morpheme of the word "Baiyue" is placed after the central morpheme, which is one of the characteristics of Austronesian word formation.

The biggest difficulty after Qin Shihuang unified Lingnan was the language barrier: "Although the county exists, the language is different, and retranslation is common." In order to change this phenomenon and promote the integration of national culture, Qin Shihuang once moved people from the Central Plains to Lingnan to live with indigenous people. After the establishment of the three counties, people from the Central Plains moved to Lingnan, and they were the earliest Hakka immigrants in Lingnan. After the Hakka ancestors came to Lingnan, they lived in Dongjiang water, and there was a slightly different language from Meixian Hakka dialect called "Shuiyuanyin". Compared with Meixian Hakka dialect, it is an older Hakka dialect, which was formed in Qin and Han Dynasties.

At the end of the Qin Dynasty and the beginning of the Han Dynasty, Zhao Tuo was the king in Lingnan, and he closed his door on the country for nearly a hundred years. All the officials in South Vietnam from the prime minister down are held by aborigines, and Zhao Tuo, the king of South Vietnam, himself dressed in aborigines' clothes and spoke aborigines' language, alienated himself into aborigines to facilitate his own rule. It can be seen that Panyu's local forces were still relatively strong at that time, with few Han immigrants and no popularization of Chinese.

In the 13th year of Xian Tong, Tang Yizong (AD 872), Cui Ling, a calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty in China, was banished to Zhou Xun (Huizhou). Tang Yan Yan, written by the King of the Five Dynasties, described: "There are very few people who conform to the times and can't communicate with people at that time (Huizhou). He is stuck in a relegated place all day; 1094 In Song Dynasty, Su Shi took his son Su Guo to visit Zhai Xiucai. Although celebrities visited him, he was in a good mood, but he suffered from language barriers. Su Guo sighed and wrote a poem: "But it's bitter, but it doesn't pay off. "As can be seen from the above examples, Huizhou was using a unique, ugly, difficult-to-understand and difficult-to-learn language as early as when Hakka people who used orthodox Central Plains Chinese moved in.

During the Southern Han Dynasty, four new states were established in Guangdong: Yingzhou (now yingde city), Xiongzhou (later changed to Nanxiong), Jingzhou (later changed to Meizhou) and Mianzhou (later changed to Huizhou), all located in the north and northeast of Guangdong. During the period of 100 from Taiping Xingguo to Yuanfeng in the Northern Song Dynasty, the population in northern and northeastern Guangdong increased sharply, which was obviously caused by the settlement of a large number of Han immigrants. Most of these Han immigrants came from Heluo area in the Central Plains, and were called "Hakkas" in history. The migration of Hakkas assimilated the local language and absorbed some factors of the local indigenous language, and gradually developed into another dialect-New Hakka Dialect. After the Yuan Dynasty, the Hakka dialect in Guangdong has formed a relatively stable feature, which has certain advantages in Hakka areas in northern Guangdong, northeastern Guangdong and Dongjiang River basin.

Guangfu culture first expanded to the northeast and north, but it was blocked by Hakka culture. As a result, a cultural front was formed in Yingde Prefecture of Song Dynasty, namely Qingyuan, Huadu, Conghua and Zengcheng. The strong Guangfu culture permeates Hakka culture, and a large number of Cantonese words appear in Huizhou Hakka dialect, which has evolved into a special dialect that not only maintains some characteristics of Hakka dialect but also absorbs some factors of Cantonese, and has become a "Hakka-Cantonese speaking area". Therefore, Wings of Light was a scholar in the Ming Dynasty.

After entering Qing Dynasty, peace county Hakkas gave lectures in Huizhou Academy for twenty years (18 15). In Hu Feng's Miscellaneous Notes, he described that Hakka people inherited the Central Plains civilization in Changting, Fujian, today's base camp, and Meizhou, Heyuan and Huizhou, the hinterland of Hakka people. Huizhou Prefecture is in charge of most counties in Huizhou, Heyuan, Meizhou and Huizhou. Located between Mei Ting, Dongjiang and Guangzhou, it is one of the main settlements of Hakkas, and it is also an outpost for guests to contact with local people (Guangfu people). It is a region with relatively developed culture, with many cultural exchanges with foreign countries, and speaks Hakka dialect (including Suwon dialect and Hakka dialect).

Xu Xu once demonstrated the view that "the old people in the Central Plains wear clothes" from the language aspect. Although the Hakka language is slightly different from the mainland provinces, it is accessible everywhere. For the aborigines where they moved, "it is not strong enough." Therefore, he emphasized that the descendants of the Central Plains who moved south and lived in "Tingzhou, Nan 'an, Fujian, Ganzhou, Ningdu, Nanxiong, Shaozhou, Lianzhou, Huizhou, Jiaying, Tai Po, Fengshun and Longmen in Chaozhou" were called Hakka, and the descendants of the Central Plains who lived there also called themselves guests because they were different from the indigenous people.

Lai Jixi's genealogy of Chongzheng Tongren records that Meizhou "is almost a native of Tingzhou, Fujian Province, covering the lower reaches of the Benting River and near Yongding in the northeast, belonging to Tingzhou, with its own origin!" It can be seen that Meixian dialect and Shuiyuan dialect are two Hakka dialects with different origins. As for the saying of "snake dialect", it does not prove that Suwon dialect is Cantonese. "Snake" means "local snake" in Cantonese, that is, these residents arrived first, and later they spoke a different Hakka dialect, so these residents who came first were called "snakes" and what they said was called "snake dialect". In this respect, genealogy has a similar exposition, which shows that a few Hakkas who moved later called the Shui Yuan clan "snakes", but actually regarded them as "aborigines". From this perspective, we can further speculate that the people who speak Suwon dialect are the earliest Hakkas who entered Guangdong, and Suwon dialect (including Huicheng dialect) is the oldest Hakka dialect in Guangdong.

Since the Qin Dynasty, Hakka ancestors have moved southward from the Central Plains in large numbers, where they have thrived. The blend of Central Plains culture and local culture has formed a unique Hakka culture. Therefore, Huizhou dialect, which originated from Hakka dialect, is probably one of the ancestors of Lingnan dialect with Guangfu dialect in Cantonese.