How did dialects come into being?

Among several dialects of modern Chinese in China, the northern dialect can be regarded as the development of ancient Chinese in the vast northern region after thousands of years, and the rest dialects are gradually formed by the continuous southward migration of northern residents in history. The early Jiangnan area, mainly inhabited by the Guyue nationality, used Guyue language, which was far from ancient Chinese and could not speak. Later, the Han people in the north went south several times on a large scale, bringing ancient northern Chinese in different periods, which spread to various regions in the south of the Yangtze River and gradually formed six dialects that were obviously different from each other. There are three reasons for the differences in dialects: first, before the contact between northern Chinese and southern ancient Vietnamese, there were their own regional dialects; Second, the time for northern Chinese to go south is different, and the natural Chinese themselves are different; Third, the southern dialect developed in a certain unique environment.

In the development of Han society, there have been different degrees of differentiation and unification, which gradually led to the emergence of Chinese dialects.

There are various dialects in modern Chinese, which are widely distributed. The differences between modern Chinese dialects are manifested in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar, especially in pronunciation. But these dialects and homophones are not independent languages, because they have certain corresponding rules in pronunciation and have many similarities in vocabulary and grammar. According to the characteristics of dialects, the history of their formation and development, and the results of the current dialect survey, dialects of modern Chinese can be divided. At present, Chinese linguists have different opinions on the division of modern Chinese dialects. Most people think that there are seven dialects in modern Chinese: Northern Dialect, Wu Dialect, Hakka Dialect, Min Dialect, Cantonese Dialect, Hunan Dialect and Gan Dialect. The ancient languages in China differ greatly in time, so there are many controversies. There are two kinds of materials (below), the first is from the perspective of history, and the second is from the perspective of ancient Chinese pronunciation. But no matter what kind of information it is, the official language of pre-Qin China is still unknown.

Generally speaking, it is like this:

After Qin dynasty: a language based on Shaanxi and Xianyang dialects;

Southern Song Dynasty: A "Er Hua Yin" similar to Beijing appeared; Nanjing dialect is also ok.

Putonghua in different periods of Ming and Qing Dynasties may adopt different regional phonetics. From the Ming Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, there has been controversy about which region should be used in Mandarin, including Jinling dialect, Beijing dialect and Luoyang dialect. What is certain is that from a certain period of the Qing Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Mandarin used Beijing dialect. However, it should be noted that Nanjing dialect, Luoyang dialect and Beijing dialect have undergone great changes compared with Ming and Qing dynasties, especially compared with Nanjing dialect, Luoyang dialect and Beijing dialect in the early Ming dynasty.

& lt data 1 > This article seems to lack empirical evidence, but I personally think it is still of great reference value.

The official language of China today is Mandarin, which is based on Beijing dialect. This tradition of China's official language probably began in the Yuan Dynasty. But before the Yuan Dynasty, what was the official language of China? We have almost no exact historical records now.

The establishment of a unified society in China began in the Qin Dynasty. However, according to historical records, the Qin Dynasty only unified the characters, that is, the so-called "books with the same language", and there was no unified language. Until today, dialects in different parts of China are very different, which is also a problem left over from history. Before the Qin Dynasty, we had reason to believe that the official languages of Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties should be relatively unified, but during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, each independent kingdom was basically its own independent official language. Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, Qin and wuyue. The official language of each court should be different.

So what is the official language of the central court after the establishment of a unified centralized government in the Qin Dynasty? According to common sense, the official language of the Qin Dynasty may be based on Shaanxi and Xianyang dialects. As an ancient historical capital, Xi has long been the seat of the central government in the history of China. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that before the Yuan Dynasty, the official language of China government should be Shaanxi dialect or xi 'an dialect.

The reason why we want to talk about this problem is that we will encounter a problem when we study China's ancient poems. China's ancient poems pay great attention to melody and level tones. So, in which language are melody and tonality expressed? In other words, what language should Li Bai's poems be read in to be more rhythmic and even? Today, we read the poems of Li Bai and Du Fu in Mandarin, without exception. But in the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai was above the imperial court and asked Gao Lishi to take off his boots before writing poetry. What language was used? Today, we pronounce the word "reading" in Mandarin, and the accurate pronunciation is "cutting down trees" in Shaanxi dialect. Then, when people in the Tang Dynasty wrote down the word "cutting down trees", should it be read as "cutting down trees" or "reading" in Mandarin today? Although this difference does not seem to be much different from ancient poetry today, it is very important when we study the rhythm of ancient poetry.

Su Dongpo's poems in Song Dynasty are very famous. Su Dongpo is from Sichuan. I've heard of reading Su Dongpo's poems in Sichuan dialect, which is very tasty and not inferior to reading them in Mandarin today. However, can we be sure that the melody of Su Dongpo's poems is based on the pronunciation of Sichuan dialect? There seems to be no good reason.

There was also a poet named Zhou Dunyi in the Song Dynasty, who wrote the lotus flower "out of the mud but not stained". According to historical records, Zhou Dunyi's poems are the best combination of language and melody. Today, we read Zhou Dunyi's works in Mandarin, and this feeling is not obvious. The so-called coordination between language and melody can be illustrated by a modern example. The famous composer Gu Jianfen has a song called Little Girl in Mushroom. Gu Jianfen said that when she wrote this song, she basically read the lyrics and found the musical melody in her tone. When we sing this song, "Little girl picking mushrooms with a big basket on her back" is really close to chanting, which is one of the reasons why this song is catchy. It's a pity that many composers don't quite understand this truth now. Back to Zhou Dunyi's question, the ancients commented on Zhou Dunyi, saying that his poems are the closest and most in line with the melody, which is difficult for us to feel in Mandarin today. Perhaps the reasonable explanation is that the most suitable language for Zhou Dunyi's poetry may not be Mandarin today.

As an academic study of linguistics, there were two large-scale phonetic events in the history of China language, one in the Han Dynasty and the other in the Song Dynasty. However, the phonetic norms at that time are still vague today. For example, in Shuo Wen Jie Zi of Han Dynasty, today's annotation on pronunciation is not accurate enough. For example, according to the tone law of Shuowen Jiezi, the pronunciation of the word "Liu" can be annotated as "Li Louqie", that is, the initial of "Li" is tangent to the vowel of "Lou". However, it seems that "six" can also be pronounced like this. Of course, the more appropriate phonetic notation for "Liu" may be "Li Leaked Cut". However, when we don't know the standard pronunciations of Li, Lou and Lou, how can we get the accurate pronunciations of Liu and Liu? To some extent, the phonetic notation in Shuo Wen Jie Zi is a cycle. Only by mastering the pronunciation of "Li, Lou and Lou" can we master the pronunciation of "Liu", but to master the pronunciation of "Li, Lou and Lou", we must also master the pronunciation of other words first. This cycle of phonetic notation lacks the standardization process of primary school students learning phonetic notation first today. The same "Li Louqie", read in Mandarin, Sichuan dialect and Cantonese, will get different results, and it is difficult to achieve the effect of unified language pronunciation. For linguists, many prosodic phenomena in ancient literary works are often covered up by a simple explanation-ancient pronunciation is different from today's pronunciation.