What is the dialect that has always been known as "living fossil in ancient Chinese"?

The dialect known as the "living fossil of ancient Chinese" actually does not always have only one dialect. Several dialects are called "living fossils of ancient Chinese". In an academic sense, dialect is indeed a "living fossil" for ancient language research. The "gene" of ancient Chinese is everywhere in the various dialects in northern and southern China. Wu, Minnan, Cantonese, Hakka and Chaoshan dialects are known as language fossils. Even today we retain much of the same grammar and pronunciation as the ancient language. However, which dialect best embodies the "living fossil of ancient Chinese" has always been controversial.

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1. Chaozhou dialect

Chaozhou dialect belongs to one of the eight major Chinese dialect families in my country. A sub-dialect of the Hokkien language family, It is the representative dialect of the mother tongue of the Chaoshan ethnic group among the three major ethnic groups in Guangdong Province, and is also commonly known as Chaozhou dialect. Due to the organic integration of ancient Chinese from the Central Plains and the dialects of southern Fujian, and the retention of many of the most authentic cultural factors in the ancient Chinese from the Central Plains, Chaozhou dialect is still known for its profound connotations, simple elegance, rich vocabulary, unique grammar, and strong expressiveness. It is known as the "living fossil of ancient Chinese" in Chinese language and culture.

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2. Minnan

Minnan The dialect is the Heluo dialect from the Central Plains. The southern Fujian people have their roots in the Central Plains. The southern Fujian dialect is also called "Heluo dialect". According to the research of the famous linguist Professor Huang Diancheng, the phonetic system of Heluo dialect is basically consistent with the "Qie Yun" of Lu Fayan of the Sui Dynasty. The ancient Heluo sounds of the Central Plains reflected in "Qie Yun" are, to a certain extent, preserved in the Gushi dialect and Southern Fujian dialect of the Central Plains like "living fossils".

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3. Cantonese

Cantonese is a southern dialect that is more closely related to ancient Chinese, especially medieval Chinese. Close dialect. For example, it has many monosyllabic words, which are similar to expressions in ancient Chinese. While there are many words with the word "子" in Mandarin, there are very few words ending in "子" in Cantonese. " Shoes " means shoes, and " Box " means boxes. Hou Xingquan gave an example. In the pre-Qin Dynasty, "running" was called "walking" and "walking" was called "walking". In today's Cantonese dialect, "walking" is still called "walking". Wang Ping, a professor at the School of Liberal Arts of Suzhou University, also gave an example. There are many short entrance sounds in Song poems such as "Man Jiang Hong". If you read it in Cantonese, you can appreciate its unique style.

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4. Hakka:

Objective conditions have enabled Hakka, especially Tingzhou, the holy place where Hakka originated, to preserve the ancient Central Plains almost intact culture, language and customs. In particular, the language should be the most completely preserved. The similarity between Hakka and the ancient Chinese language may reach 70-80%, or even reach more than 90%. This is why some scholars have studied how the rhymes of ancient books such as the Book of Songs are very smooth when reading in Hakka. Hakka, Cantonese and Hokkien have the same origin, and they were exactly the same at first. As long as you look at the current three ethnic languages, many of them have exactly the same pronunciation and meaning, many have different pronunciation, and many have different meanings. Just know if they have the same pronunciation but different sounds.

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5. Wu language

From the perspective of history, writing style and language characteristics According to analysis, Wu dialect is very close to the elegant dialects of the Middle Ages and inherits the neat eight tones and thirty-six letter framework system of the Middle Ages Chinese. Modern Wu dialect has more ancient phonetic elements than Mandarin, and the pronunciation and linguistic elements are highly consistent with ancient rhyme books such as "Qie Yun" and "Guang Yun".

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