Hakka Dialect Phonetics Research

Author: Xie Liwen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: This book discusses the phonetic issues of the Hakka dialect. The entire book is divided into eight chapters and two appendices. Chapters 2 and 3 use several recent survey reports on the Hakka dialect as the basic corpus to study and explore some important characteristics of the Hakka dialect's initials, finals, and tones. It also discusses the relationship between the Hakka dialect and the ancient Jiangdong dialect. Chapter 4 primarily discusses the special pronunciations of words like "nai" (), "zui" (), and "ze" () in the Hakka dialect, either tracing their origins or exploring their evolutionary processes. Chapter 5 discusses the relationship between the Hakka and Gan dialects. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 are survey reports on the phonetics, vocabulary, and corpus of the Ningdu Hakka dialect in southern Jiangxi. Appendix 1, "Introduction to the Dictionary of Yudu Hakka Dialect," introduces the main features of the phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar of the Yudu Hakka dialect in southern Jiangxi. Appendix 2, "Chinese Dialect Surveys in the 20th Century," briefly reviews the achievements in Chinese dialect surveys since the 1920s. In terms of research methods, the book primarily employs stratigraphic analysis to distinguish historical layers in phonetics. It also pays attention to the influence of phonetic structures on phonetic evolution, as well as comparative studies of the Hakka dialect internally, the Hakka dialect compared to other dialects, dialects compared to minority languages, and dialects compared to the historical development of Chinese.